ble of reasoning in a rudimentary way,
Mr. Burroughs laid him out in the same fashion by saying: "But Darwin was
also a much greater naturalist than psychologist"--and this despite
Darwin's long life of laborious research that was not wholly confined to
a rural district such as Mr. Burroughs inhabits in New York. Mr.
Burroughs's method of argument is beautiful. It reminds one of the man
whose pronunciation was vile, but who said: "Damn the dictionary; ain't I
here?"

And now we come to the mental processes of Mr. Burroughs--to the
psychology of the ego, if you please. Mr. Burroughs has troubles of his
own with the dictionary. He violates language from the standpoint both
of logic and science. Language is a tool, and definitions embodied in
language should agree with the facts and history of life. But Mr.
Burroughs's definitions do not so agree. This, in turn, is not the fault
of his education, but of his ego. To him, despite his well-exploited and
patronizing devotion to them, the lower animals are disgustingly low. To
him, affinity and kinship with the other animals is a repugnant thing.
He will have none of it. He is too glorious a personality not to have
between him and the other animals a vast and impassable gulf. The cause
of Mr. Burroughs's mediaeval view of the other animals is to be found,
not in his knowledge of those other animals, but in the suggestion of his
self-exalted ego. In short, Mr. Burroughs's homocentric theory has been
developed out of his homocentric ego, and by the misuse of language he
strives to make the facts of life agree with his theory.

After the instances I have cited of actions of animals which are
impossible of explanation as due to instinct, Mr. Burroughs may reply:
"Your instances are easily explained by the simple law of association."
To this I reply, first, then why did you deny rudimentary reason to
animals? and why did you state flatly that "instinct suffices for the
animals"? And, second, with great reluctance and with overwhelming
humility, because of my youth, I suggest that you do not know exactly
what you do mean by that phrase "the simple law of association." Your
trouble, I repeat, is with definitions. You have grasped that man
performs what is called _abstract_ reasoning, you have made a definition
of abstract reason, and, betrayed by that great maker of theories, the
ego, you have come to think that all reasoning is abstract and that what
is not abstract r