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An example anecdote from Romanes' work Romanes' Psychological Criteria for Mind Charles Darwin's views on the issue of Mental Continuity Morgan on seeing the process leading to an "intelligent" behavior Edward Thorndike's criticisms of Romanes' anecdotal methodology |
It remains to add a few words on the
principles which I have laid down for my own guidance in the selection and arrangement of
facts. Considering it desirable to cast as wide a net as possible, I have fished the seas
of popular literature as well as the rivers of scientific writing. The endless multitude
of alleged facts which I have thus been obliged to read, I have found, as may well be
imagined, excessively tedious: and as they are for the most part recorded by wholly
unknown observers, the labour of reading them would have been useless without some
trustworthy principles of selection. The first and most obvious principle that occurred to
me was to regard only those facts which stood upon the authority of observers well known
as competent; but I soon found that this principle constituted much too close a mesh.
Where one of my objects was to determine the upper limit of intelligence reached by this
and that class, order, or species of animals, I usually found that the most remarkable
instances of the display of intelligence were recorded by persons bearing names more or
less unknown to fame. This, of course, is what we might antecedently expect, as it is
obvious that the chances must always be greatly against the more intelligent individuals
among animals happening to fall under the observation of the more intelligent individuals
among men. Therefore I soon found that I had to choose between neglecting all the more
important part of the evidence-and consequently in most cases feeling sure that I had
fixed the upper limit of intelligence too low- or supplementing the principle of looking
to authority alone with some other principles of selection, which, while embracing the
enormous class of alleged facts recorded by unknown observers, might be felt to meet the
requirements of a reasonably critical method. I therefore adopted the following principles
as a filter to this class of facts. First, never to accept an alleged fact without the
authority of some name. Second, in the case of the name being unknown, and the alleged
fact of sufficient importance to be entertained, carefully to consider whether, from all
the circumstanced of the case as recorded, there was any considerable opportunity for
malobservation; this principle generally demanded that the alleged fact, or action on the
part of the animal, should be of a particularly marked and unmistakable kind, looking to
the end which the action is said to have accomplished. Third, to tabulate all important
observations recorded by unknown observers, with the view of ascertaining whether they
have ever been corroborated by similar or analogous observations made by other and
independent observers. This principle I have found to be a great use in guiding my
selection of instances, for where statements of fact which present nothing intrinsically
improbable are found to be unconsciously confirmed by different observers, they have as
good a right to be deemed trustworthy as statements which stand on the single authority of
a known observer, and I have found the former to be at least as abundant as the latter.
Moreover, by getting into the habit of always seeking for corroborative cases, I have
frequently been able to substantiate the assertions of known observers by those of other
observers as well or better know.