Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/505

Rh same inclosure and observed carefully, in order to see whether they would, from having so often seen the act done, know enough to do it themselves, or at least to try to do it. In this they signally failed. Those who had failed previously to hit upon the thing accidentally never learned it later from seeing it done. Those who were given a chance to imitate acts which accident would sooner or later have taught them learned the acts no more quickly than if they had never seen the other animal do it the score or more of times. The animals, that is, could not master the simple inference that if, in a certain situation, that fellow-cat of mine performs a certain act and gets fish, I, in the same situation, may get fish by performing that act. They did not think enough to profit by the observation of their fellows, no matter how many chances for such observation were given them.

Equally corroborative of our first position are the results of still another set of experiments. Here the dogs and cats were put through the proper movement from twenty-five to one hundred times, being left in the box after every five or ten trials and watched to see if they would not be able at least to realize that the act which they had just been made to do and which had resulted in liberation and food was the proper act to be done. For instance, a dog would be put in a box the door of which would fall open when a loop of string hanging outside the box was clawed down an inch or so. Animals were taken who had, when left to themselves, failed to be led to this particular act by their general instinctive activities. After two minutes I would put in my arm, take the dog's paw, hold it out between the bars, and, inserting it in the loop, pull the loop down. The dog would of course then go out and eat the bit of meat. After repeating this ten times (in some cases five) I would put the dog in and leave him to his own devices. If, as was always the case, he failed in ten or twenty minutes to profit by my teaching I would take him out, but would not feed him. After a half hour or so I would recommence my attempts to show the dog what needed to be done. This would be kept up for two or three days, until he had shown his utter inability to get the notion of doing for himself what he had been made to do a hundred or more times. The mental process required here need not be so high a one as inference or reasoning, but surely any animal possessing those would, after seeing and feeling his paw pull a loop down a hundred times with such good results, have known enough to do it himself. None of my animals did know enough. Those who did not in ten or twelve trials hit upon an act by accident could never be taught that act by being put through it. And, as in the case of imitation, acts of such a sort as would be surely learned by virtue of accidental success were not