26o Studies in Animai ■ Behamor 



pie things, she: appairefjtly. learned by tbCi primitive 

 methodiofi the. gradual elimitifitioa of useless sHiove- 

 raents after/ attaihingr a chance success. This^ type 

 of learnjng^ is the. one.' mainly/ followed by the less- 

 developed mammalSi; but in the: apes the curve of 

 learning sitople-; things usually shows^ a sudden de- 

 scent from the start; One reason for her compara- 

 tively slow progress in the, experiments with, the 

 boxes and the bottles> is, I suspecti thatin her eager- 

 ness to attain the desired, end her attention, was 

 never strongly directed to the means employed. 

 When we attempt to solve- apuzzle we direct our 

 attention to the means we employ and pass jvidg- 

 ments upon, them, but Lizzie never discovered the 

 value of paying attention- to method. Her inipul- 

 siveness and activity stood in the way of her at- 

 taining any results; that required a small amount of 

 deliberation. 



The perception of very simple relations usually 

 escaped her. She never clearly perceived that a 

 hook could be unfastened by simply, pulling it to 

 one side, that a button would not hold a door closed 

 when turned in a certain position; she probably 

 never became clearly aware that when a bottle was 

 turned upside down its contents would fall out. As 

 we know these things, they involve a certain pre- 

 vision, or representation to ourselves of how cer- 

 tain things might happen if certain , conditions were 

 fulfilled. But this power was but slightly developed 

 in Lizzie's mind. There are more indications of it 



