The Human Side of Animals: Chapter 6 - Animal Mathematics

The Human Side of Animals by Royal Dixon is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here: [LINK TO TABLE OF LINK]. Chapter VI: Animal Mathematics

CHAPTER VI. ANIMAL MATHEMATICIANS

"But what a thoughtless animal is man,—
How very active in his own trepan!"

—Prior.

Among the special senses of animals none seems more human than their knowledge of mathematics. A recognition of this quality in animals is encouraging because the new scientists are earnestly trying to build up a true knowledge of animal behaviour by studying them in the light of the new psychology. This will fill the place of the vast amount of misinformation which those skilled only in book-knowledge, without really knowing the ways of Nature, have builded. It will also record all the strange and curious facts about animals and their ways without insisting too much on rigid explanation. These new scientists are far different from their predecessors who tried to explain everything they did not understand about an animal's behaviour in terms of the scanty information gained by studying a few museum specimens. We

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