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PROF. LLOYD MORGAN long ago formulated the principle that “we should not regard any instance of animal behaviour as the outcome of higher mental processes, if it can adequately be interpreted as the outcome of mental processes which stand lower in the order of mental development”. This principle is but a special application of the canon of parsimony, which must be obeyed in all scientific explanation; and, when logically extended, it imposes upon us the duty of inquiring, in the first place, whether animal actions must be ascribed to any mental processes at all.