352 P8TGH0L007. 



leave witliout two buns. This was probably mere con- 

 tiguous associatioii, but it is possible that the animal noticed 

 the character of duality, and identified it as the same 

 in the coin and the cake. If so, it is the maximum of 

 canine abstract thinking. Another story told to the writer 

 is this : a dog was sent to a lumber- cam j) to fetch a wedge, 

 with which he was known to be acquainted. After half an 

 hour, not returning, he was sought and found biting and 

 tugging at the handle of an axe which was driven deeply 

 into a stump. The wedge could not be found. The teller 

 of the story thought that the dog must have had a clear 

 perception of the common character of serving to split 

 which was involved in both the instruments, and, from their 

 identity in this respect, inferred their identity for the pur- 

 poses required. 



It cannot be denied that this interpretation is a possible 

 one, but it seems to me far to transcend the limits of ordi- 

 nary canine abstraction. The property in question was not 

 one which had direct personal interest for the dog, such 

 as that of belonging to his master is in the case of the 

 coat or the basket. If the dog in the sponge story had re- 

 turned to the boat with a dipper it would have been na 

 more remarkable. It seems more probable, therefore, that 

 this wood-cutter's dog had also been accustomed to carry 

 the axe, and now, excited by the vain hunt for the wedge, 

 had discharged his carrymg powers upon the former instru- 

 ment in a sort of confusion — just as a man may pick up a 

 sieve to carry water in, in the excitement of putting out a 

 fire.* 



' conceptual ' thought (published since the body of my text and mj^ note 

 were written) connotes conveniently the difference which I seek to point 

 out. See also his Mental Evolution in Man, p. 197 ff., for proofs of the 

 fact that in a receptual way brutes cognize the mental states of other brutes 

 and men. 



* This matter of confusion is important and interesting. Since confu- 

 sion is mistaking the wrong part of the phenomenon for the whole, whilst 

 reasoning is, according to our definition, based on the substitution of the 

 right part for the whole, it might be said that confusion and reasoning- 

 are generically the same process. 1 believe that they are so, aud that the 

 only difference between a muddle-head and a genius is that between ex- 

 tracting wrong characters and right ones. In other words, a muddle-head- 



