Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/196

 ON THE STUDY OF ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 185 influence in determining the habits and activities of the organism ; the mode of their evolution and the influence they have had on the evolution of the organisms which possess them. (e) The study of the organic mechanism, nervous and other, by means of which the habits and activities are carried out. 20. In the study of Animal Intelligence, therefore, I would counsel (a) The separation of fact from inference. (b) The distinguishing between objective and ejective in- ference. (c) The elimination, so far as is practicable, of the ejective element. In accordance with these views I would suggest objective definitions of intelligent, instinctive, and reflex actions, fully believing that with this limitation there remains a wide and extensive field for scientific research. In conclusion, I may be allowed to state clearly that I by no means deny the existence of animal mind, consciousness, feeling, emotion. I do nothing of the sort. I believe that in general we are justified in supposing that since the dawn of consciousness something analogous to what we know in ourselves as pleasure has been associated with the perform- ance of right actions, and something analogous to what we know in ourselves as pain has been gradually associated with the performance of wrong actions using the terms right and wrong in their very broadest material sense as ' conducive to welfare ' or the reverse. I am, moreover, fully persuaded that my four-footed friends have feelings and emotions dis- tantly akin to and dimly foreshadowing my own. I heartily wish I could know their true nature. But wishing will not make science. It is useless and irrational to fret against the inevitable limitations of our human faculties. The first step towards knowledge is to ascertain clearly what we can know and what we cannot know. This is a step which a certain class of metaphysicians on the one hand, and a certain set of folk who trust entirely to common sense on the other, have not yet taken or will not take. But it is an essential step ; and one which no man of science can afford to neglect. The study of Animal Intelligence is scarcely out of the meta- physical stage. I would do my best to raise it into the scientific stage. 13