THE ANIMAL AND THE PUZZLE-BOX 



bodies, but man's tools are the great forces of Na- 

 ture, and with his puny body he turns rivers, and 

 removes mountains, or changes the face of a conti- 

 nent. Their life-problems are how to live and propa- 

 gate their kind; his are these, and, in addition, how 

 to master the secrets of the universe, and turn them 

 to his own good, physical and mental. 



II 



Probably one reason why the laboratory investi- 

 gator finds so little of what we call intelligence in his 

 subjects is that he takes them out of the animal 

 sphere and puts them in the human sphere. The 

 problems he sets before them are human problems 

 and not animal problems — they imply a knowledge 

 of mechanical and artificial conditions; this places 

 the dog, the cat, the monkey, the coon, in situations 

 entirely foreign to those in which Nature places 

 them, and to which their lives have been shaped. 

 Ideas from the human plane are introduced into the 

 animal plane. The way the cat and the dog deal 

 with these might be a test of their human intelli- 

 gence, but not of their native intelligence. An ani- 

 mal out of its proper sphere is likely to prove very 

 stupid, while in its sphere, confronted by its own 

 life-needs, it may surprise us by its resourcefulness. 

 We know this to be true of men; why not, ia a lesser 

 degree, of course, of animals? 

 ' One need only note the misdirected fury of a 

 179 



