Of two dogs, one, when placed in a similar but larger box, succeeded in hitting the button in such a way as to let the door open, and formed a permanent association, as shown by the curves on page 41. No one who had seen the behavior of these animals when trying to escape could doubt that their actions were directed by instinctive impulses, not by rational observation. It is then absolutely sure that a dog or cat _can_ open a door closed by a thumb latch or button, merely by the accidental success of its natural impulses. If _all_ cats, when hungry and in a _small_ box, will accidentally push the button that holds the door, an _occasional_ cat in a _large_ room may very well do the same. If three cats out of eight will accidentally press down a thumb piece and push open a small door, three cats out of a thousand may very well open doors or gates in the same way. But besides thus depriving of their value the facts which these theorizers offer as evidence, we may, by a careful examination of the method of formation of these associations as it is shown in the time-curves, gain positive evidence that no power of inference was present in the subjects of the experiments. Surely if 1 and 6 had possessed any power of inference, they would not have failed to get out after having done so several times. Yet they did. (See p. 71.) If they had once even, much less if they had six or eight times, inferred what was to be done, they should have made the inference the seventh or ninth time. And if there were in these animals any power of inference, however rudimentary, however sporadic, however dim, there should have appeared among the multitude some cases where an animal, seeing through the situation, knows the proper act, does it, and from then on does it immediately upon being confronted with the situation. There ought, that is, to be a sudden vertical descent in the time-curve. Of course, where the act resulting from the impulse is very simple, very obvious, and very clearly defined, a single experience may make the association perfect, and we may have an abrupt descent in the time-curve without needing to suppose inference. But if in a complex act, a series of acts or an ill-defined act, one found such a sudden consummation in the associative process, one might very well claim that reason was at work. Now, the scores of cases recorded show no such phenomena. The cat does not look over the situation, much less _think_ it over, and then decide what to do. It bursts out at once into the activities which instinct and experience have settled on as suitable reactions to the situation ‘_confinement when hungry with food outside_.’ It does not ever in the course of its successes realize that such an act brings food and therefore decide to do it and thenceforth do it immediately from _decision_ instead of from impulse. The one impulse, out of many accidental ones, which leads to pleasure, becomes strengthened