ABSTRACT
There can be no doubt that the behaviour of our more highly developed domestic animals indicates this activity of association. As soon as you have taken your hat and stick, your dog knows that you are going out, and sho,vs by tokens of pleasure and
other unmistakable gestures that it wishes to go with you. A poodle of my own used to be subjected to a thorough washing every Saturday, and disliked it very much. Various preparations that were going on in the house would remind him that Saturday had come; and he not infrequently disappeared early in the tnorning, and only returned late in the evening, when all fear of the cold water was over. On these occasions he usually spent the day on the square in front of the house, looking longingly up at the windows and obviously divided between the wish to return, and aversion to the fate that awaited him. He was all the happier when Sunday morning arrived. On that day my brother, who was living in a neighbouring town, was accustomed to come over and see me. The dog was more attached to him than to any of the inmates of the house. He never failed to keep watch behind the front door from the very first thing in the morning, welcoming approaching footsteps with a hopeful wag of his tail, and dropping his head despondently if they disappointed him. At last, when my brother really appeared, he was greeted \vith every manifestation of the most extreme joy. Experiences of this kind not only show that the mechanical operation of association may extend over a considerable time, as is proved by the recognition of an individual after a number of days, but also,-and it is this which distinguishes the present instance from a case of simple recognition,-that an animal is itself able to associate events which coincide in space or time, and to extend these associations over a relatively long period. The poodle knew, of course, that it was Saturday simply by the special preparations for cleaning the house. With that idea was inseparably associated the very unpleasant idea of his own washing. This association was not only strong enough to keep him a\vay from the house for the whole day, but was further connected with the other and far more complicated association of the following day and the arrival of my brother. Of course, the regularity of the visits furthered the formation of the association. At the same time, we have here a developtnent of temporal ideation reaching far beyond the connection of directly simultaneous or successive events. It would be utterly wrong, though quite in the manner of current animal psychology, to make the dog reason in this
way: 'Yesterday was house-cleaning and washing-day; my friend usually arrives on the day after that; therefore he will cCome to-day.' The simpler, and therefore the only justifiable, explanation is, that the experience of previous weeks had made the succession of these events a stable contiguity-association in the anitnal's mind; and that its expectation of my brother's arrival after the preceding occurrences \vas of the same kind as its expectation that it would get something to eat after the filling of its platter. The only difference between the twocases' is that the former association extended over a longer time and embraced a greater number of events than the latter.
