The nature-faker would analyze what went on in Glen’s brain somewhat in the following fashion.  He had had, in his short life, experiences that not one of all his ancestors had ever had.  He had learned that automobiles went fast, that once in motion it was impossible for him to get on board, that the toot of the horn was a noise that was peculiar to automobiles.  These were so many propositions.  Now reasoning can be defined as the act or process of the brain by which, from propositions known or assumed, new propositions are reached.  Out of the propositions which I have shown were Glen’s, and which had become his through the medium of his own observation of the phenomena of life, he made the new proposition that when the horn tooted it was time for him to get on board.

But on the morning I have described, the chauffeur fooled Glen.  Somehow and much to his own disgust, his reasoning was erroneous.  The machine did not start after all.  But to reason incorrectly is very human.  The great trouble in all acts of reasoning is to include all the propositions in the problem.  Glen had included every proposition but one, namely, the human proposition, the joke in the brain of the chauffeur.  For a number of times Glen was fooled.  Then he performed another mental act.  In his problem he included the human proposition (the joke in the brain of the chauffeur), and he reached the new conclusion that when the horn tooted the automobile was not going to start.  Basing his action on this conclusion, he remained on the porch and finished his breakfast.  You and I, and even Mr. Burroughs, perform acts of reasoning precisely similar to this every day in our lives.  How Mr. Burroughs will explain Glen’s action by the instinctive theory is beyond me.  In wildest fantasy, even, my brain refuses to follow Mr. Burroughs into the primeval forest where Glen’s dim ancestors, to the tooting of automobile horns, were fixing into the heredity of the breed the particular instinct that would enable Glen, a few thousand years later, capably to cope with automobiles.

Dr. C. J. Romanes tells of a female chimpanzee who was taught to count straws up to five.  She held the straws in her hand, exposing the ends to the number requested.  If she were asked for three, she held up three.  If she were asked for four, she held up four.  All this is a mere matter of training.  But consider now, Mr. Burroughs, what follows.  When she was asked for five straws and she had only four, she doubled one straw, exposing both its ends and thus making up the required number.  She did not do this only once, and by accident.  She did it whenever more straws were asked for than she possessed.  Did she perform a distinctly reasoning act? or was her action the result of blind, mechanical instinct?  If Mr. Burroughs cannot answer to his own satisfaction, he may call Dr. Romanes a nature-faker and dismiss the incident from his mind.