ABSTRACT
The problem in animal psychology is to find out in what way consciousness of the consequences of an act may get into the stimulation that leads to the act. The consciousness of relations, which is the essence of reason, is identified, by analysts' own introspection, with the feeling of characters and affective states where these have in them the implicit relation. The behavior of animals seems to justify us in ascribing such feelings to their consciousness, as effective contents. In Edward Lee Thorndike’s analysis, where one finds intellectual states of consciousness used as little as possible in the explanation of animal behavior. The association of a complete impulse with a sense-stimulus leaves no room for imitation in the sense in which Leon Trelawney Hobhouse uses the term. A crucial test for the presence of imitation would be something like the following: Make sure that the animal has a series of acts well co-ordinated which lead up to a final act.
