TO 1919

BY

DR. WILLIAM MACKENZIE

OF GENOA

[Translated from the Italian with the omission of

I. An Introductory Section, and
II. A Section giving the Story of "Lola."]

III. THE HYPOTHESIS OF INTELLIGENCE IN ANIMALS

Assuming, as I have done, and as I think I must do, that we have not
here to do with a trick or fraud, we seem to be dreaming, or to be
reading the account of a dream. Those poor horses of Elberfeld, so
greatly extolled and so much discussed in their day, are not in the
same field with Lola. And yet I am convinced that it is not a dream. It
is another kind of psychological reality, but it is a reality probably
too complex to be reduced to a single formula. Let us then try to face
the facts.

As to the "intelligent" character of the manifestations, there is no
possible doubt, even though we put on one side for the present the
arithmetical phenomena, which perhaps must be treated from a particular
standpoint, as I shall explain. The question before us is therefore a
dilemma. Is there intelligence in the dog, or is the intelligence in
others?

If, by intelligence in this case we mean the possibility of the animal
under observation giving replies to questions with, in the human sense,
actual understanding of the import of such replies, as well as the
possibility of the animal, a dog two years old, being able after a
maximum of fifteen hours' lessons to read, write and count, _and know
what it is learning_; if that is what is meant by intelligence in this
case, I must say that I do not believe in it, and that I feel compelled
for scientific reasons to examine every other hypothesis before having
recourse to this one.

And again, "Intelligence in others"? This may be so, but it is not
necessary to suppose that the intelligence is in others alone. I mean
that a few of the manifestations may within narrow limits probably be
rightly attributed to the intelligence of the animal, (but, I repeat,
the arithmetical facts must be considered by themselves).

If all the manifestations were to be attributed to the intelligence of
others and none to the animal, we should have to accept the supposition
of an absolutely _mechanical_ automatism in the animal itself of the
type suggested by Neumann (8)[29] as the result of his experiments with
Rolf, when, for instance, the dog mechanically kept on tapping an
unlimited number of times on the cardboard, which Neumann held out to
it without, as far as poss