go.

They came close to spoiling Glen's breakfast for him, for he was kept on
the jump between porch and barn. Then he grew wise. They tooted the
horn loudly and insistently, but he stayed by his breakfast and finished
it. Thus once more did he display power of choice, incidentally of
control, for when that horn tooted it was all he could do to refrain from
running for the barn.

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 automobil