| Summary: | "In the course of my enquiries I have amassed far too large a body of notes to condense into a single volume. These notes consist of (1) excerpts from my readings in books, whose nature and names will be found specified in the Bibliography; (2) reflections or criticisms on the statements made by the authorities consulted; (3) correspondence resulting from the publication by authors of doubtfully correct records of facts, or from the confusion of fact and fiction in narrative; (4) my own observations; and (5) reports taken down by me on the spot, or immediately after hearing them, of oral descriptions given by eye-witnesses of incidents illustrative of animal sagacity. In the present volumes-popular as they are in their aim and limited in their size-all that I attempt is to outline the subject of Mind in the Lower Animals, to illustrate their possession of the higher mental faculties as they occur in man, of reason as contradistinguished from mere instinct. The work is to be regarded simply as what the French call a 'mémoire pour servir.' It is but a contribution and introduction to the subject of which it treats, and aims only at indicating to the student (1) the spirit and direction in which the said subject ought to be investigated; (2) the claims it has on man's attention; (3) the desirability of an exact separation of what we do from what we do not already know-that first condition of all true knowledge; (4) the new significance of certain facts as interpreted by the light of modern science; and (5) that facts which controvert current popular fallacies or errors are nevertheless facts. The present work offers a certain rough classification of the facts of observation as already recorded, so as, it is hoped, to bring out their relative importance or significance; which classification may assist the reader still further to pursue the study of the subject by pointing out on the one hand the kind of information already acquired, and on the other that which is still desirable or desiderated"--Introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).
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