Experimental Study of Associative Processes 21 
was sufficient or that our theories about it were surely sound, 
yet our notion of what occurs when a chick grabs a worm 
are luminous and infallible compared to our notion of what 
happens when a kitten runs into the house at the familiar 
call. The reason that they have satisfied us as well as they 
have is just that they are so vague. We say that the kitten 
~ssociates the sound ‘kitty kitty’ with the experience of 
1 ice milk to drink, which does very well for a common-sense 
a.iswer. It also suffices as a rebuke to those who would 
hz ve the kitten ratiocinate about the matter, but it fails 
to . ‘ll what real mental content is present. Does the kitten 
feel ‘sound of call, memory-image of milk in a saucer in the 
kitchen, thought of running into the house, a feeling, finally, 
of ‘I will run in’”? Does he perhaps feel only the sound 
of the bell and an impulse to run in, similar in quality to 
the impulses which make a tennis player run to and fro 
when playing? The word ‘association’ may cover a multi- 
tude of essentially different processes, and when a writer 
“attributes anything that an animal may do to association; 
| his statement has only the negative value of eliminating 
“reasoning on the one hand and instinct on the other: 
His position is like that of a zodlogist who should to-day 
class an animal among the ‘worms.’ To give to the word a 
positive value and several definite possibilities of meaning 
is one aim of this investigation. 
The importance to comparative psychology in general of 
a more scientific account of the association-process in ani- 
mals is evident. Apart from the desirability of knowing 
all the facts we can, of whatever sort, there is the especial 
consideration that these associations and consequent habits 
have an immediate import for biological science!’ In the 
higher animals the bodily life and preservative acts are 
largely directed by these associations. ‘They, and not 
