At a time when cybernetics has come to relate the behaviour of man to that of lifeless machines, we cannot possibly turn our backs on the model of something as close to man as is another mammal. The animal model is, however, a potentially double‐edged weapon. It can be a blessing to the extent to which we succeed in establishing all that man and animal have in common, but it can also prove to be a hindrance to the extent to which we fail to establish the relevant features in which the two differ at the same tim