The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals - A Book of Personal Observations by William Temple Hornaday
page 19 of 393 (04%)
page 19 of 393 (04%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
fear, courage, love, hate, pleasure, displeasure, confidence,
suspicion, jealousy, pity, greed and generosity are so plainly evident that even children can and do recognize them. To the serious and open-minded student who devotes prolonged thought to these things, they bring the wild animal very near to the "lord of creation." To the question, "Have wild animals souls?" we reply, "That is a debatable question. Read; then think it over." METHODS WITH THE ANIMAL MIND. In the study of animal minds, much depends upon the method employed. It seems to me that the problem- box method of the investigators of "animal behavior" leaves much to be desired. Certainly it is not calculated to develop the mental status of animals along lines of natural mental progression. To place a wild creature in a great artificial contrivance, fitted with doors, cords, levers, passages and what not, is enough to daze or frighten any timid animal out of its normal state of mind and nerves. To put a wild sapajou monkey,-- weak, timid and afraid,--in a strange and formidable prison box filled with strange machinery, and call upon it to learn or to invent strange mechanical processes, is like bringing a boy of ten years up to a four-cylinder duplex Hoe printing-and-folding press, and saying to him: "Now, go ahead and find out how to run this machine, and print both sides of a signature upon it." The average boy would shrink from the mechanical monster, and have no stomach whatever for "trial by error." I think that the principle of determining the mind of a wild |
|