And now we come to the test.  I fooled Rollo, but how was the fooling made possible?  What precisely went on in that brain of his?  According to Mr. Burroughs, who denies even rudimentary reasoning to the lower animals, Rollo acted instinctively, mechanically responding to the external stimulus, furnished by me, which led him to believe that a man was outside the door.

Since Rollo acted instinctively, and since all instincts are very ancient, tracing back to the pre-domestication period, we can conclude only that Rollo’s wild ancestors, at the time this particular instinct was fixed into the heredity of the species, must have been in close, long-continued, and vital contact with man, the voice of man, and the expressions on the face of man.  But since the instinct must have been developed during the pre-domestication period, how under the sun could his wild, undomesticated ancestors have experienced the close, long-continued, and vital contact with man?

Mr. Burroughs says that “instinct suffices for the animals,” that “they get along very well without reason.”  But I say, what all the poor nature-fakers will say, that Rollo reasoned.  He was born into the world a bundle of instincts and a pinch of brain-stuff, all wrapped around in a framework of bone, meat, and hide.  As he adjusted to his environment he gained experiences.  He remembered these experiences.  He learned that he mustn’t chase the cat, kill chickens, nor bite little girls’ dresses.  He learned that little boys had little boy playmates.  He learned that men came into back yards.  He learned that the animal man, on meeting with his own kind, was given to verbal and facial greeting.  He learned that when a boy greeted a playmate he did it differently from the way he greeted a man.  All these he learned and remembered.  They were so many observations—­so many propositions, if you please.  Now, what went on behind those brown eyes of his, inside that pinch of brain-stuff, when I turned suddenly to the door and greeted an imaginary person outside?  Instantly, out of the thousands of observations stored in his brain, came to the front of his consciousness the particular observations connected with this particular situation.  Next, he established a relation between these observations.  This relation was his conclusion, achieved, as every psychologist will agree, by a definite cell-action of his grey matter.  From the fact that his master turned suddenly toward the door, and from the fact that his master’s voice, facial expression, and whole demeanour expressed surprise and delight, he concluded that a friend was outside.  He established a relation between various things, and the act of establishing relations between things is an act of reason—­of rudimentary reason, granted, but none the less of reason.

Of course Rollo was fooled.  But that is no call for us to throw chests about it.  How often has every last one of us been fooled in precisely similar fashion by another who turned and suddenly addressed an imaginary intruder?  Here is a case in point that occurred in the West.  A robber had held up a railroad train.  He stood in the aisle between the seats, his revolver presented at the head of the conductor, who stood facing him.  The conductor was at his mercy.