754 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLII 



ANIMAL BEHAVIOR 



Mind in Animals — Many experimentalists have said in their 

 haste that all comparative psychologists are liars; that com- 

 parative psychology has no existence. To the experimental 

 student of animal behavior, working by the methods of phys- 

 iology and zoology, "psychic factors*' are merely an irritating 

 j\ something which he can not perceive in his work, yet which 

 the philistine is continually trying to force upon him as the 

 cause of what he does perceive. Finding objective determining 

 factors for all the objective phenomena, be has no use for the 

 psychic factors, and finally decides in make war upon the whole 

 worthless mess; Down with comparative psychology! is his cry. 



But it is really only as a technician, intent on the proper meth- 

 ods for his own work, that the experimentalist can object to com- 

 parative psychology. As soon as he takes a wider view, he 

 must perceive that another group of men have made a life spe- 

 cialty of precisely the matter that he leaves out of account, and 

 he can not expect these men to give up their interest in the dis- 

 tribution and development of the phenomena that they are 

 studying— of mind and mental processes. Ami so we have here 



animals, both from the experimental standpoint, one by a psy- 

 chologist. 1 the other by a zoologist. 2 



Miss Washburn's book is of the greatest interest and value, 

 supplying a need much felt. It will be the standard work for 

 those who wish to know the present position of scientific animal 

 psychology. Concerning the behavior of animals a large body 

 of verifiable facts, which have begun to shape themselves into 

 a more or less intelligible system, has been gathered together by 

 experimentalists, but the latter have given little but hostile at- 

 tention to the psychic aspects of the matter. What are the 

 implications of this body of facts concerning the distribution of 

 psychic processes among animals? This is the problem which 

 Miss Washburn sets herself— a problem in which doubtless full 

 as many are interested as in behavior as a purely objective 



