Compound associations are formed slowly and not at all well. Further observation shows that they were really not formed at all. For the animals did not, except 3 in K for a certain period, do the several things in a constant order, nor did they do them only once apiece. On the contrary, an animal would pull the string several times after the bolt had gone up with its customary click, and would do sometimes one thing first, sometimes another. It may also be noted here, in advance of its proper place, that these compound associations are far below the simple in point of permanence. The conduct of the animals is clearly not that of minds having associated with a certain box’s interior the idea of a succession of three movements. The animal does not feel, “I did this and that and that and got out,” or, more simply still, “this and that and that means getting out.” If it did, we should soon see it doing what was necessary without repetition and in a fairly constant time. I imagine, however, that an animal could learn to associate with one sense-impression a compound act so as to perform its elements in a regular order. By arranging the box so that the second and third elements of the act could be performed _only after the first had been_, and the third _only after the first and second_, I am inclined to think you could get a very vigorous cat to learn the elements in order and form the association perfectly. The case is comparable to that of delicacy. The cat does not _tend_ to know what he is doing or to depart from the hit-or-miss method of learning, but by associating the other combinations of elements with failure to get pleasure, as in delicacy experiments we associated the reactions to all but the one signal, you could probably stamp out all but the 1, 2, 3 order. The fact that you have to thus maneuver to get the animals to have the three impulses in a regular order shows that even when they are so, there is no idea of the three as in an order, no thinking about them. Representations do not get beyond their first intention. They are not carried up into a free life which works them over anew. A complex _act_ does not imply a complex _thought_, or, more exactly, a performance of a series does not imply the thought of a series. Consequently, since the complexity of the act depends on the power which failure has to stamp out all other combinations, it is far more limited than in man. NUMBER OF ASSOCIATIONS