S50 PSYCHOLOGY. 



bute of capacity to take up water, and had reflected, " For 

 the present purpose they are identical." This, which the 

 dog did not do, any man but the very stupidest could not 

 fail to do. 



If the reader will take the trouble to analyze the best 

 dog and elephant stories? lie knows, he will find that, in most 

 cases, this simple contiguous calling up of one whole by 

 another is quite sufficient to explain the phenomena. 

 Sometimes, it is true, we have to suppose the recognition of 

 ^ property or character as such, but it is then always a char- 

 acter which the peculiar practical interests of the animal 

 may have singled out. A dog, noticing his master's hat on its 

 peg, may possibly infer that he has not gone out. Intelligent 

 dogs recognize b}^ the tone of the master's voice whether 

 the latter is angry or not. A dog will perceive whether 

 you have kicked him by accident or by design, and behave 

 accordingly. The character inferred by him, the particular 

 mental state in you, however it be represented in his 

 mind — it is represented probably by a ' recept ' (p. 327) or 

 set of practical tendencies, rather than by a definite con- 

 cept or idea — is still a partial character extracted from the 

 totality of your phenomenal being, and is his reason for 

 crouching and skulking, or playing with you. Dogs, more- 

 over, seem to have the feeling of the value of their master's 

 personal property, or at least a particular interest in objects 

 which their master uses. A dog left with his master's coat 

 will defend it, though never taught to do so. I know of a 

 dog accustomed to swim after sticks in the water, but who 

 •always refused to dive for stones. Nevertheless, when a fish- 

 basket, which he had never been trained to carry, but mere- 

 ly knew as his master's, fell over, he immediately dived after 

 it and brought it up. Dogs thus discern, at any rate so far 

 as to be able to act, this partial character of being valuable. 

 which lies hidden in certain things.* Stories are told of 



* Whether the dog has the notion of yonr being angry or of your prop- 

 ^^1;y being valuable in any such abstract way as we have these notions is 

 more than doubtful. The conduct is more likely an impulsive result of a 

 conspiracy of outward stimuli ; the beast feels like acting so when these 

 ■stimuli are present, though conscious of no definite reason why. The 

 distinction of recept and concept is useful here. Some breeds of dogs, 



