Note 338 — Chapter XXII · [319]

Th. Schumann: Journal Daheim, No. 19, 1878. Quoted by Strümpell: Die Geisteskräfte der Menschen verglicken mit denen der Thiere (Leipzig, 1878), p. 39. Cats are notorious for the skill with which they will open latches, locks, etc. Their feats are usually ascribed to their reasoning powers. But Dr. Romanes well remarks (Mental Evolution, etc., p. 351, note) that we ought first to be sure that the actions are not due to mere association. A cat is constantly playing with things with her paws; a trick accidentally hit upon may be retained. Romanes notes the fact that the animals most skilled in this way need not be the most generally intelligent, but those which have the best corporeal members for handling things, cat's paws, horse's lips, elephant's trunk, cow's horns. The monkey has both the corporeal and the intellectual superiority. And my deprecatory remarks on animal reasoning in the text apply far less to the quadrumana than to quadrupeds.—On the possible fallacies in interpreting animals' minds, compare C. L. Morgan in Mind, xi. 174 (1886).