Note 16 — Chapter II · Animal Intelligence; an Experimental Study of the Associative Processes in Animals[4] (continued 2)

A man may learn to swim from the general feeling, “I want to be able to swim.” While learning, he may think of this desire, of the difficulties of the motion, of the instruction given him, or of anything which may turn up in his mind. This is all extraneous and is not concerned in the acquisition of the association. Nothing like it, of course, goes on in the animal’s mind. Imagine a man thrown into the water repeatedly, and gradually floundering to the shore in better and better style until finally, when thrown in, he swims off perfectly, and deprive the man of all extraneous feelings, and you have an approximate homologue of the process in animals. He feels discomfort, certain impulses to flounder around, some of which are the right ones to move his body to the shore. The pleasure which follows stamps in these, and gradually the proper movements are made immediately on feeling the sense-impression of surrounding water.