CHAPTER II 
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE; AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE’ 
ASSOCIATIVE Processes IN ANIMALS? 
THIS monograph is an attempt at an explanation of the 
nature of the process of association in the animal mind. In+ 
asmuch as there have been no extended researches of a char- 
acter similar to the present one either in subject-matter or 
experimental method, it is necessary to explain briefly its 
standpoint. 
Our knowledge of the mental life of animals equals in 
the main our knowledge of their sense-powers, of their 
instincts or reactions performed without experience, and 
‘of their reactions which are built. up by experience. Con- 
fining our attention to the latter, we find it the opinion of 
the better observers and analysts that these reactions can 
-all be explained by the ordinary associative processes with;; 
out aid from abstract, conceptual, inferential = 
These associative processes then, as present in animals’ 
minds and as displayed in their acts, are my subject-matter, 
Any one familiar in even a general way with the literature 
of comparative psychology will recall that this part of the. 
field has received faulty and unsuccessful treatment. The 
careful, minute and solid knowledge of the sense-organs of 
animals finds no counterpart in the realm of associations and 
habits. We do not know how delicate or how complex or 
how permanent are the possible associations of any given 
group of animals. And although one would be rash who. 
said that our present equipment of facts about instincts 
1This chapter originally appeared as Monograph Supplement No. 8 oft 
the Psychological Review. 
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