IMITATION 185 
going out, and eating the fish. Record was made of the 
number of times he did so, and of the number of times the 
imitator had his eyes clearly fixed on him. . . . After 
the imitatee had done the thing a number of times, the other 
was put in the big compartment alone, and the time it took 
him before pulling the string was noted and his general 
behaviour closely observed. If he failed in five or ten or 
fifteen minutes to do so, he was released and not fed. This 
entire experiment was repeated a number of times. From the 
times taken by the imitator to escape and from observation 
of the way that be did it, we can decide whether imitation 
played any part. . . . No one, I am sure, who had seen the 
behaviour of the cats would have claimed that their conduct 
was at all influenced by what they had seen. When they did 
hit the string the act looked just like the accidental success of 
the ordinary association experiment. But, hesides these personal 
observations, we have in the impersonal time-records sufficient 
proofs of the absence of imitation.” Some observations on 
dogs are also described. From these it appears that the three 
individuals on which experiments were made failed to learn 
the way of getting out of a cage from seeing another dog 
escape. One of them was also allowed to see another dog beg 
for meat 110 times. But he never tried to imitate him and 
thus secure a piece of meat asa reward. It therefore “seems 
sure,” says Mr. Thorndike, “that we should give up imitation 
as an a priori explanation of any novel intelligent performance. 
To say that a dog who opens a gate, for instance, need not 
have reasoned it out if he had seen another dog do the same 
thing, is to offer instead of one false explanation another 
equally false. Imitation in any form is too doubtful a factor 
to be presupposed without evidence.” 
Professor Thorndike is of opinion that monkeys are pro- 
bably imitative in ways beyond the capacity of dogs and cats ; 
but, at the time of writing, he had not substantiated his opinion, 
by analogous experiments. If so, it will perhaps prove that 
they are rational beings in the narrower sense defined in 
a previous chapter of this work. For it appears that the 
