Y.M. Can you prove that the habit exists?
O.M. You can prove it, if you doubt. If you will take a man to a
clothing-store and watch him try on a dozen pairs of trousers, you will
see.
Y.M. The cow illustration is not--
O.M. Sufficient to show that a dumb animal's mental machine is just the
same as a man's and its reasoning processes the same? I will illustrate
further. If you should hand Mr. Edison a box which you caused to fly
open by some concealed device he would infer a spring, and would hunt for
it and find it. Now an uncle of mine had an old horse who used to get
into the closed lot where the corn-crib was and dishonestly take the
corn. I got the punishment myself, as it was supposed that I had
heedlessly failed to insert the wooden pin which kept the gate closed.
These persistent punishments fatigued me; they also caused me to infer
the existence of a culprit, somewhere; so I hid myself and watched the
gate. Presently the horse came and pulled the pin out with his teeth and
went in. Nobody taught him that; he had observed--then thought it out
for himself. His process did not differ from Edison's; he put this and
that together and drew an inference--and the peg, too; but I made him
sweat for it.
Y.M. It has something of the seeming of thought about it. Still it is
not very elaborate. Enlarge.
O.
Pages:
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88