We can only judge by the circumstances under which actions are
performed, whether they are due to instinct, or to reason, or to the
mere association of ideas; this latter principle, however, is
intimately connected with reason. A curious case has been given by
Professor Moebius, of a pike, separated by a plate of glass from an
adjoining aquarium stocked with fish, and who often dashed himself with
such violence against the glass in trying to catch the other fishes,
that he was sometimes completely stunned. The pike went on thus for
three months, but at last learned caution, and ceased to do so. The
plate of glass was then removed, but the pike would not attack these
particular fishes, though he would devour others which were afterward
introduced; so strongly was the idea of a violent shock associated in
his feeble mind with the attempt on his former neighbours. If a savage
who had never seen a large plate-glass window, were to dash himself even
once against it, he would for a long time afterward associate a shock
with a window-frame; but, very differently from the pike, he would
probably reflect on the nature of the impediment, and be cautious under
analogous circumstances.
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