1895.] Psychology. 951. 
ent end. It implies, therefore, the presence of complex associative 
processes. “Irrational” conduct is that which is inconsistent with 
some accepted end. 
Foresight of the future and its accompanying apprehension of vari- 
ous possible ends always involves competition between those ends for 
the control of conduct. For various reasons into which I cannot now 
enter, the intrinsic attractiveness of most ends tends to vary from time 
to time, hence it is always possible that the end which survives com- 
petition and controls conduct soon loses its power, and the actor falls a 
rey to regret. This is especially likely to be the ease when there has 
been little deliberation, or when the end adopted is near at hand. Thus 
the word “rational” has been transferred from conduct controlled by 
a distant rather than by a nearer end, to conduct controlled by an ap- 
proved end, that is, by an end whose attractive power remains constant 
under all circumstances. In ordinary parlance, that conduct is “ rea- 
sonable” which most men are inclined to, but a little reflection will con- 
vince any one that no conduct is reasonable for one, save that whose 
adoption does not involve the relinquishment of some end of greater or 
more permanent attractiveness. 
In the first sense of the word “irrational,” it is probable that some 
of the lower animals are more rational than others. But, on the 
whole, brutes are adapted to the coming environment rather by instinct 
than by reason, i. e., rather by a series of psychical reflexes awakened 
by present stimuli than by conscions foresight of the future, giving 
rise to an analogous series of representative ideas. The sphere of 
ideational control is probably restricted to the immediate future. 
Hence it is scarcely possible that brutes should be rational in the 
second sense. 
Some writers use “ rational ” as equivalent to “ethical,” i. e., of ends 
enforced by the community upon the individual. The usage rests 
upon the assumption that those principles which ultimately approve 
themselves to the individual are essentially in harmony with those 
enforced by the community. But it is not customary to enquire 
whether animals are rational in that sense, and I may ignore it for the 
present. 
ANTHROPOLOGY.’ 
New Evidence of glacial Man in Ohio.—In a paper before a 
joint meeting of the Anthropological and Geological sections of the A. 
A. A. S. , I presented detailed evidence of the discovery, in the glacial 
1 The department is edited by Henry C. Mercer, University of Penna, Phila. 
