THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



labyrinth habit, or some other habit, — and after 

 many trials they come to do their little tricks in an 

 entirely automatic way. They appear to show no 

 understanding whatever of the whys and the where- 

 fores of the things they do. 



Professor Thorndike found that it took on an 

 average seventy or eighty repetitions of a trick with 

 his chicks and cats and monkeys, to stamp the pro- 

 cess into their miads, before they could do it cor- 

 rectly. The monkey did not seem to learn his trick 

 of opening the puzzle-box any more rapidly by the 

 professor's repeatedly taking hold of his paw and 

 drawing the bolt for him. He seemed incapable of 

 forming any concept on the subject. The trained 

 animals we see at the show go through their various 

 parts precisely as if they were machines. They don't 

 know what they are doing any more than a clock 

 does when it strikes. The normal current of their 

 activities, which activities do not spring from ideas, 

 or any mental concepts, but from innate impulses, 

 is turned in a new direction and is kept flowing 

 there till a new channel is worn. Professor 

 Thorndike found that when a chick had been 

 drilled to escape from a box by a roundabout way, 

 it would stick to the roundabout way after the 

 direct and easy way had been opened to it; in this 

 respect being less free than the natural forces or 

 elements which, the instant a barrier is removed, 

 resume the old easy course. 

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