Experimental Study of Associative Processes 73 
the door open, and formed a permanent association, as 
shown by the curves on page 41. | No one who had seen the 
behavior of these (animals when trying to escape could 
doubt that their actions Were-ivected by. instinctive im- 
pulses, not by rational observation, It is then absolutely 
Sure that a dog or cat cam open a door closed by a thumb 
Tatch or button, faery by the accidental success of its 
natural impulses. ; Tf al] cats, when hungry and in a small 
box, will accidentally push the button that holds the door, 
an occasional cat in a large room may very well do the same. 
If three cats out of eight will accidentally press down a 
thumb piece and push open a small door, three cats out of 
a thousand may very well open doors or gates in the same 
way. 
But besides thus depriving of their value the facts which 
these theorizers offer as evidence, we may, by a careful 
examination of the method of formation of these associations 
as it is shown in the time-curves, gain positive evidence that 
no power of inference was present in the subjects of the ex- 
periments. Surely if 1 and 6 had possessed any power of- - 
inference, they would not have ae get out after having : 
done so several times. Yet they did’ (See p.71.) If they: 
had once even, much less if they had six or eight times, 
inferred what was to be done, they should have made the 
inference the seventh or ninth time. \ And if there were in 
these animals any power of inference, however rudimentary, 
however sporadic, however dim, there should have appeared 
among the multitude some cases where an animal, seeing 
through the situation, knows the proper act, does it, and 
from then on does it immediately upon being confronted | 
with the situation. | | There ought, that is, to be a suddeti 
vertical descent in “tlie time-curve. Of course, where the 
act resulting from the impulse is very simple, very obvious, 
