Mental Development in the Child and the Race

Chapter 7: The Theory of Development [1]

Table of Contents | Next | Previous

§ 1. Organic Adaptation in General

IN the preceding discussions we have traced some phases of the development of consciousness. The two great principles of Habit and Accommodation have been noted, simply, and we have intimated incidentally that by them two great gains are made possible to the organism: first, the repetition of what is worth repeating, with the conserving of this worth: this is Habit; and, second, the adaptation of the organism to new conditions, so that it secures, progressively, further useful reactions, which at an earlier stage would have been impossible: this is Accommodation. It now remains to give these two principles a searching examination.

Further, the fundamental fact of reaction itself, at whatever stage it be looked at, is expressed by the principle of Dynamogenesis, which, when put broadly, reads: Every organic stimulus tends to bring about changes in movement. This we have illustrated in the preceding chapters.

The psychological bearings of these principles are taken

(162) up below. It remains to ask here whether we can go farther in a constructive way on the physiological side.

A little reflection leads us to see that the main question of adaptation is still unanswered. It is evident that repetitions plus accommodations give adaptations; and that adaptations involve, in some way, so-called 'selections.' Where in the function of the organism does the remarkable fact of selection come in? How does the organism select the proper things to accommodate itself to, and refuse the improper ?

The real meaning of this question becomes clear when we put it differently. Considering the state of an organism at any moment, with its readiness to act in an appropriate fashion, -- say a child's imitation of a movement, -- the appropriateness of its action may be construed in either of two ways: either retrospectively or prospectively. By construing it retrospectively, I mean that an organism performs its appropriate function when it does what it has done before -- what it is suited to do, however it may have come to be so suited. The child imitates my movement because his apparatus is ready for this movement. This is Habit; it proceeds by repetition. But when we come to ask how it got to be suited to do this function the first time, or how it can come to do a new function from now on, -- how the child manages to imitate a new movement, one which he has never made before, -- this is the prospective reference, and this question we must now try to answer.

To illustrate from the highest sphere, that of the voluntary reaming of new actions: Suppose I see a man draw a picture, or paint a landscape, and realize that it represents a very useful accommodation of muscular movements, and then desire to imitate him. I am not able simply to tell my muscles to do it, or simply to will to do what he does. I find

(163) my muscles are chained down to what I have already reamed, to what they have done before; my actions, that is, have the retrospective reference. So the child sees me write a letter or cut a toothpick, and he is quite unable to do it. He must ream, we say. But that is just the question of prospective reference: how is he to learn? How is it possible for an organism to acquire any new adaptive movement whatever?

When we come to look broadly at the biological series and take all the resources of modem evolution doctrine into account, we find several ways in which the reactions of an organism may get such a 'prospective reference,' all of which are partial statements of a more fundamental one, and each of which has its peculiar value in its own place in the phylogenetic series. These different ways in which an organism 'reams' new accommodations may be set forth in order.

I. Natural selection as operative directly upon individual organisms. If we suppose, at first, organisms capable of reacting to stimulations by random diffused movement, we may then suppose the stimuli to which they react to be some beneficial and some injurious. If the beneficial ones recur more frequently to some organisms, these would live rather than others to which damaging stimuli came more often. The former, therefore, would be selected; and it amounts to the same thing as if organisms of neutral character had learned, each for itself, to react to certain beneficial stimuli only. This is the current Darwinian position.

But we may go a step further. Assuming variations in organic forms, it is easy to see that some of them might react in a way to keep in contact with the stimulus, to lay hold on it, and so keep on reacting to it again and again -- just as our rhythmic action in breathing keeps the organism in vital contact with the oxygen of the air. These organisms would get all the benefit or damage of the repetition or persistence of the

(164) stimulation and of their own reactions, again and again; and it is self-evident that the beneficial stimulations are the ones which should be maintained in this way, and that the organisms which did this would live. The organisms which reacted in such a way as to retain' the damaging stimulations, on the other hand, by this same process, would aid nature in killing themselves. If this be true, only those organisms would survive which had the variation of retaining useful stimulations in what I have called in speaking of imitation elsewhere a ' circular way' of reacting. Thus unicellular creatures of this particular kind were selected, we may suppose, as a matter of fact, from absolutely random-moving creatures, if any such existed -- a point discussed below. And as all others died out in competition with them, it became a universal property of vital organisms of any degree of development that they should react to retain their own vital stimulations. Now this again is exactly the same result as if originally neutral organisms had each for itself learned to make this particular kind of reaction. The life principle has learned it, but with the help of the stimulating environment and natural selection. [2]

But the question remains: what kind of reaction would it be that such a creature would possess to accomplish this result? What would be the nature of the variation? Evidently the easiest answer to this question is, that consciousness with its selective property arises here, and by it new actions are selected. [3] But I do not see how consciousness could accomplish the fact of selection, even though it arose as a variation, until after it had itself experienced the reaction to be

(165) selected. This would mean that it had some property of selecting out during the organism's life history certain kinds of reaction already possible to this particular organism. But since it is possible for an organism to have the stimulus-retaining reactions which I have described, simply by its own responses, this may be considered sufficient for its survival anyhow, whether it were conscious or not. So I see no argument one way or the other as to the origin of consciousness at this first stage of natural selection. The case is different, however, when we come to consider development during the life history of the particular organism.

2. Natural selection as operative upon different reactions of the same organism. The fact of 'life history' is just what distinguishes an organism from what is a 'mechanical arrangement,' and not an organism. A steam engine has no life history because it makes no progress, it simply repeats a constant function. That engine survives which is best adapted, in its construction, to the function of an engine. That is the principle already cited. It is necessary to consider further how certain reactions of one single organism can be selected so as to adapt the organism better and give it a life history. Let us at the outset call this process 'functional selection,' [4] in contrast with the 'natural selection' of whole organisms.

Our first principle would do no more than effect the survival of organisms which repeated or retained useful stimulations. If this worked alone, every change in the environment would weed out all life except those organisms which by accidental variation reacted already in the way demanded by the changed

(166) conditions -- in every case new organisms showing variations, not in any case new elements of life history in the old organisms. In order to the latter, we would have to conceive one of two things: either, first, an innate capacity of the organism to anticipate and be ready for new conditions; or second, some modification of the old reactions in an organism through the influence of new conditions, in such a way that this modified reaction serves to retain the desirable stimulations of the environment, while the old ways of reacting do not. The first of these two conceptions might be realized in turn by either of two alternatives: first, by heredity; and second, by the special creation of each organism for its peculiar environment. But the first of these, besides being excluded by our hypothesis that we are at the beginning of the phylogenetic series, would leave over the question: How did the ancestors come to be adapted ? And the second calls upon us to give up the conception of phylogeny altogether. We are, accordingly, left to the view that the new stimulations brought by changes in the environment, themselves modify the reactions of an organism in such a way that these modified reactions serve to hold or repeat the new stimulations as far as they are good, and further, negatively, in such a way that the former reactions become under the new condition less useful or positively damaging.

It may be said that the earlier application of natural selection directly to the salvation of organisms meets this case also, provided organic forms arise by variation which are suited to react to the new environment. And it is possible to hold, I think, that some phylogenetic progress in development is secured in that way, a point which has further discussion below. But the facts show, at any rate, that individual organisms do acquire new adaptations in their lifetime, and that is our first problem. If, in solving it, we find a principle

(167) which may also serve as a principle of race development, then we may possibly use it against the 'all-sufficiency of natural selection,' or in its support.[5]

The one kind of organic process which would accomplish the selection of reactions in an organism's life history is the one which we actually find -- which is to say that our theory waits as it should upon facts. There is a process by which the theatre of the application of natural selection is transferred from the outside relations of the organism, its relations to its environment, to the inside relations of the organism. It takes the form of the functional adjustment of the life processes by variations in the motor responses, so that beneficial reactions are selected from the entire mass of responses.

This process seems to involve -- to state a further point -- the neurological analogue of the hedonic consciousness; and the two aspects in which the happy variation shows itself in the consciousness of the higher organisms are pleasure and pain. These points may be summed up for discussion in the general proposition: the life history of organisms involves from the start the presence of the organic analogue of the hedonic or pleasure-pain consciousness.

From what has been said it is clear that, in order to use history in an organism, it must have in its central processes not only the facile function required by habitual discharge,

(168) but also some means of anticipating new stimulations, and so of utilizing them to its own advantage. The empirical analysis of pleasure and pain states requires the recognition of these two facts, on any theory of the hedonic consciousness, i.e. first, pleasure accompanies normal psycho-physical process, or its advancement by new stimulations which are vitally good; and second, pain accompanies abnormal psychophysical process, or the anticipation of its being brought about by new stimulations which are vitally bad. [6] This is generalized in the principles, current since Bain insisted upon them, that pain is indicative of a physiological process which is inhibitory of the function which occasions the pain, and pleasure, on the other hand, advances its corresponding function; although, as I aim to show in the following pages, the formulation of Bain requires important modifications. In a later place I speak further of the rise of consciousness as this view seems to implicate it. [7]

Advantage has now been seen to lie in reactions by which certain stimulations are retained or repeated and certain others avoided. Now the former are the reactions to stimulations which give pleasure, the latter reactions to those which give pain. The general scheme of Meynert, which identifies the pleasure-giving process with the central innervation of outreaching movements, and the pain-giving process similarly with that of withdrawing movements, -- expansions on the one hand, and contractions on the other, -- affords, disregarding details which I need not now dwell upon, support to this requirement. [8] Richet expresses the general facts very

(169) clearly; beginning with pain, he says: "There takes place a series of general movements of flexion, as if the animal wished to make itself smaller and to offer less surface to the pain. . . . With man, as with all other animals, we find the same general movements of flexion and extension, corresponding to feelings of pain and pleasure. Pleasure corresponds to a movement of spreading out, dilatation, extension; on the contrary, in pain we draw back, shut ourselves up, by general movements of flexion." [9]

It may be objected, however, that this does not meet the need of anticipatory adjustment; and such an objection to Meynert's own view is, I think, well taken. Admitting the probable truth of the theory of Meynert as far as it goes, and its essential conformity to the requirements of a true theory of motor development, we may further find from the two correspondences mentioned the element which is still lacking, and which can only be supplied by an adequate theory of the physical basis of pleasure and pain.

If development is by repetition, and if repetition can be secured, apart from accident, only by a functional variation of the type called 'circular reaction,' or one which repeats or retains its own stimulation, then a new stimulus can be accommodated to only within the limits inside of which the organ can prepare itself, on the basis of former processes, to bring about such a reaction as will tend to retain this kind of stimulus for itself. This is accomplished, in the whole range of motor accommodations, from the protozoa [10] which swarm to the light to the most difficult feat of the acrobat, by what we may generalize under the phrase 'law of excess'; it is an application within the organism of the principle upon

(170) which the natural selection of particular organisms is secured -- the principle commonly known as 'over-production.' But generally, the law of 'excess' may be stated somewhat as follows: the accommodation of an organism to a new stimulation is secured, apart from happy accidents, by the continued or repeated action of that stimulation, and this repetition is secured, not by the selection beforehand of this stimulation nor of appropriate movements, but by the proximate reinstatement of it by a discharge of the energies of the organism, concentrated as far as may be for the excessive stimulation of the organs most nearly fitted by former habit to get this stimulation again. [11]

Assuming that such a supplement to the current psychophysical theories of pleasure-pain is necessary, and that the details are left open of what the actual cellular processes are by which this 'excess discharge' is secured, our task is to explain and justify this law of excess. This we may endeavour to do, dividing the cases of Accommodation or Adaptation into three heads, -- the word ' adaptation' being used as in biology for the fixed results of accommodation processes. We will have to show that the three great stages of adaptation are brought under the formula of 'functional selection' by means of the auxiliary principle of 'excess.'2 To make these three spheres plain to psychologists we may designate them as, first, 'biological adaptations' (modifications of structure, of instinct, the correlation of parts, and organic adaptations in general); second, the reactions in which so-called ' reflex attention' dominates (simple imitation, suggestive accommodation and control, the learning of infants short of voluntary effort); third, the conscious selection of ends

and their pursuit by volition (voluntary attention, effortful action' 'conduct '). These three forms of adaptation are treated in the course of this work under the headings, respectively, of 'Organic Imitation,' 'Conscious Imitation,' and 'Volition.' If successfully made out, this will present to us a theory of unity in the motor life, and an addition to the evolution theory acceptable to psychologists.

Before proceeding further, however, it may be well to state the theory hitherto principally propounded and advocated by psychologists, as well as by biologists, and to examine it in view of the requirements now indicated; this comparison will also seem to bring out our own positions more clearly.

Endnotes

  1. Development is here used in the general sense as covering both racial evolution and individual development. The problem of evolution as such is now explicitly treated in the work, Development and Evolution (1902).
  2. Something of this sort seems implied in the 'subjective selection' of J. Ward (art. 'Psychology,' in the Encycl. Brit., 10th ed.).
  3. More is said of this below in § 2 of this chapter, and in Chap. IX., where particular evidence is cited.
  4. In earlier editions this was called 'Organic Selection,' but later (in Development and Evolution) this term was confined to the result of the process in directing the course of evolution (a matter, of course, already intended here).
  5. This passage anticipates the explicit development of 'organic selection' in later publications -- the view, that is, that individual accommodations, by supplementing certain variations, guide evolution in definite lines.

    I know a further objection may be made, and it may be as well to stab it here, while reserving its discussion for a later place (§ 3 of this chapter). It may be said that even in the life of the individual new actions are not acquired; they simply serve in the individual to show the details of the variation which the individual has got congenitally. On that view the new functions do not secure gains for the following generation, but only put in evidence the variations already secured over the earlier generation: so certain critics of organic selection, e.g. Whitman, Plate, etc.

  6. Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, II., Chaps. V., XI. (in substance).
  7. Cf. § 4 of this chapter.
  8. Popular-wissenschaftliche Vortrage, pp. 41 ff. Meynert's theory has recently been given some experimental support by Mü.;sterberg, Beiträge zur exper. Psych., Heft 4. For the detailed treatment of such so-called 'Organic Imitations,' see below, Chap. IX.
  9. L'Homme et l'Intelligence, p. 9, quoted by Ward.
  10. This is now interestingly confirmed by the valuable research and conclusions of Jennings (Behaviour of Lower Organisms, 1900).
  11. The negative of concentration or its reverse supplies the conditions of retreat from a damaging stimulation -- I suppose some form of draining, with Darwin's 'antithetic' motor action and Meynert's Abwehrbewegungen.
  12. Natural selection being of course assumed, working to select individuals of the 'accommodating' type.

§ 2. Current Biological Theory of Adaptation

It is clear that we are led to two relatively distinct questions: questions which are now familiar to us when put in the terms covered by the words 'phylogenesis' and 'ontogenesis.' First, how has the development of organic life proceeded, showing constantly, as it does, forms of greater complexity and higher adaptation? This is the phylogenetic question; and as we should expect, this is the question over which biologists have had their most earnest and lasting controversy. This is also the question that has mainly interested biologists. But the second question, the ontogenetic question, is of equal importance: the question, how does the individual organism manage to adjust itself better and better to its environment ? How is it that we, or the brute, or the amoeba, can learn to do anything? This is the question which has interested psychologists, so far as they have shown interest in genetic theories -- an interest now greatly increased.

This latter problem is the most urgent, difficult, and interesting question of the new genetic psychology. How can

(172) an organism, whether with or without consciousness, ever, under any circumstances, get a new and better-adapted function? This is the inquiry which I wish to take up first, describing the only view which has much currency and criticising it. For in answer to this question there is practically only one theory in the field, that of Bain, in his latest formulation of which he shows its conformity to evolution requirements. It is based upon Mr. Spencer's earlier theory, but has certain modifications which Mr. Bain states in a passage which I quote below. I shall hereafter refer to the view now described as the 'Spencer-Bain theory.'

Mr. Bain's view is this: the organism is endowed with spontaneous movement, a certain spontaneity of action which must be assumed. Certain of these spontaneous movements happen by 'lucky chance' to succeed in bringing the organism into some special adjustment, better exposure, better protection, easier function, etc.; these movements are accompanied by pleasure. The pleasure lingers in the consciousness of the creature in connection with the memory of the particular movement which brought it; and the memory of the pleasure serves to incite the creature to execute the same movement again, whenever the same external conditions present themselves. The repetitions thus secured serve to fix the new adjustment as a permanent acquisition on the part of the organism.

It is evident that on this view of adaptation, Mr. Bain assumes consciousness with pleasure and pain in the organism and also assumes an association between the sense of the pleasure and the sense or mental picture of the movement which brought the pleasure. A third supposition should also be especially noted, -- because it is usually so tacit an assumption as to go quite unremarked, -- namely, that the circumstances or environment remain sufficiently constant to

(173) enable the creature to use the association between the pleasure and the movement. He must have various movements stimulated over again as before, and among them the one which before gave the pleasure, in order that the pleasant memory of this particular one may be suggested along with the other possible ones. Granting these assumptions, we have in the excess discharge a means of 'selecting' the useful movements.

The order of the 'factors of adaptation,' as we may call the elements involved in Bain's scheme, is clearly this: random movement, chance-accommodation, pleasure, memory of pleasure associated with memory of movement, adapted movement. In this order I wish to note especially the distinction between adaptive movement, i.e. the movement which by chance secures the accommodation, and adapted movement, i.e. the movement which follows by association when the pleasure is recalled in memory.

Passing now to Mr. Spencer's theory, we find a purely physiological construction. [1] He supposes that originally simple contractility of protoplasm leads to a diffused contractile discharge throughout the mass; this results in random movements of great variety. Some of these movements are by chance more adaptive than others, and by this fact a larger draught of energy tends to concentrate itself upon the channels of discharge which carry out these movements. This wave of 'heightened nervous energy' fixes an anatomical 'path of least resistance,' which so comes to represent the habits and permanent adaptations of the organism.

The coincidence of these two views may be best expressed in the terms of one of the authors. Mr. Bain writes [2] " My leading postulates -- Spontaneity, the Continuing of an

(174) action that gives pleasure, and the Contiguous growth of an accidental connection -- are all involved in Mr. Spencer's explanation of the development of our activity.... The spontaneous commencement is expressed by him as a diffused discharge of muscular energy (Psychology, Vol. I., p. 544). He considers that as nervous structures become more complicated, every special muscular excitement is accompanied by some general muscular excitement. Along with the concentrated discharge to particular muscles, the ganglionic plexuses inevitably carry off a certain diffused discharge to the muscles at large; and this diffused discharge may lead to the happy movement suitable to some emergency.

"This is the doctrine of Spontaneity in a very contracted shape; too contracted in my judgement for the requirements of the case. I have adverted to the inferiority of the diffused wave accompanying a central process, whether active or emotional, such as is here assumed. If another source of chance muscular movements can be assigned, and if that source presents advantages over the diffused discharge, we ought to include it in our hypothesis.... Mr. Darwin expresses what is tantamount to the spontaneity of movement thus: 'When the sensorium is strongly excited, the muscles of the body are generally thrown into violent action.' 'Involuntary and purposeless contractions of the muscles of the chest and glottis, excited in the above manner, may have first given rise to the emission of vocal sounds' (Expression, pp. 82, 83). This is spontaneous commencement under circumstances of strong excitement; but I have endeavoured to show that excitement is unnecessary, and that spontaneity is a fact of the ordinary working of the organs.

"The second indispensable requisite to voluntary acquisition, as well as to the consolidation of instinctive powers, is some force that clenches and confirms some successful

(175) chance coincidence. Mr. Spencer's view of this operation is given thus: 'After success will immediately come pleasurable sensations with an accompanying large draught of nervous energy towards the organs employed.' 'The lines of communication through which the diffused discharge happened in this case to pass have opened a new way to certain wide channels of escape; and consequently they have suddenly become lines through which a larger quantity of molecular motion is drawn, and lines which are so rendered more permeable than before.'

" Here is assumed the Law of Pleasure and Pain. Pleasure is accompanied by heightened nervous energy, which nervous energy finds its way to the lines of communication that have been opened up by the lucky coincidence. There is assumed as a consequence the third of the above postulates -- the contiguous adhesion between the two states, the state of feeling and the appropriate muscular state. The physical expression given by Mr. Spencer to this result is, I have no doubt, correct -- 'the opening up of lines of discharge that draw off large amounts of molecular motion.'"

Bain's three postulates, as here summed up by himself, touch the inevitable requirements of a theory, in my opinion, as will be seen from the foregoing pages. For there are three requirements: first, to get movements (his 'spontaneity,' as a substitute for Spencer's 'diffused discharge' and Darwin's 'purposeless contractions'); second, to get selections made from these movements (his 'accidental success,' of certain movements); and third, 'some force that clenches and confirms some successful chance coincidence' ('pleasure and pain,' identified with Spencer's 'heightened nervous energy which finds its way to the lines of communication that have been opened up by the lucky coincidence').

(176) But it is evident that the truth -- if it be true -- of 'spontaneity' in developed organisms does not invalidate or even supersede Spencer's 'diffused discharge': for the phylogenetic explanation of spontaneity -- the question how did spontaneity itself arise -- must rest on some such hypothesis as Spencer's theory of discharge, or of contractility in response to stimulation. So we may pass that postulate over without further question. But the second question comes: given movements -- by either of these principles, both, or neither -- how are some of them selected ? Here, again, the answer comes from both authors: by chance adaptation. Of course, we are told, some of these random movements are likely to be more adaptive than others. Suppose the creature is suffering for want of food, the movements which hit upon food are then the adaptive ones. These are then in so far selected. This we may admit as most likely. But in how far -- again it is asked -- is the organism able to do them a second time? How are these successful, good, advantageous movements kept up? 'Pleasure and pain' is at once on everybody's lips, gain's, Spencer's, et al. The adaptive movement gives pleasure: this secures the repetition. But, yet again, how? Evidently by association, we are told. The lucky movement gives pleasure; it is done again to secure the pleasure again, for of all the movements which are incipiently stimulated by the environment, that one which is remembered as having given pleasure, that one is done again. The movements must be incipiently stimulated, that is, the environment must be pretty constant, as was said above, for otherwise we may say: for an association one term must be given; either the pleasure to bring up the movement, or the movement to bring up the pleasure. We must have the presence of the movement in some kind of possibility, in order to get the sense of the pleasure to be derived from doing it. Here

(177) Mr. Spencer's theory, on the organic side, gives us an answer; and Bain, as it seems to me, adopts it as a supplement, in the quotation made above from his third edition, directly from Spencer. "Here is assumed," says Bain, "the 'law of pleasure and pain.' Pleasure is accompanied by heightened nervous energy, which nervous energy finds its way to the lines of communication that have been opened up by the lucky coincidence."

But now we reach a point in the development of this theory at which difficulties begin to appear. It is evident that two cases are possible in the matter of the environment: the case in which the stimulus calling out the lucky movement continues to act, and the case in which this stimulus stops acting. Suppose it be light -- sunlight -- falling on a protozoan, and a movement results which exposes the creature better to the light, and this exposure is beneficial and pleasurable. It is clear that the sunlight may continue upon it, and so keep up its good influence; or, on the other hand, the sun may draw away and be succeeded by gloom. This theory, it is evident, makes the continuance of the adaptation dependent upon the continuance or repetition of the stimulus. How could the organism remember that it elongated itself by chance upward, let us say, in the light, and that this gave pleasure, if there be no longer any light to suggest the pleasure ? If it do it in the dark, it again exposes itself to chance; for such an elongation in the dark may be the very reaction which will destroy it. So all adaptive reactions on this theory can be adapted reactions -- real adjustments, acquisitions -- only in conditions of relative regularity and frequency of stimulation.

This theory, therefore, leaves the organism to the risk of getting repetitions of stimulus by accident; just as it got the adaptation by the chance of a lucky movement,

(178) so it can keep it only by the chance of the recurrence of the stimulus. The organism waits the second time upon chance, just as it did the first time. The postulate that pleasure from the lucky movement is the agent of adaptation, succeeds, therefore, only when the environing agencies of stimulation are regular and constantly available.

This necessity of regularity of conditions is put by Mr. Joseph Jastrow in these words: "The existence of habits implies an environment sufficiently constant to repeatedly present to the organism the same or closely similar conditions." [3] And writers generally assume, if they do not say, that the organism is developed by the repetition of stimulations which storm it, by the laws of their own action, coming to act upon it while it remains in its place to be acted upon. Complexity of adaptation is then secured by the compounding of the reactions which are sustained in this way.[4]

Again, another question must be asked in regard to the postulate of 'heightened nervous energy' which both Spencer and Bain make the physiological counterpart of pleasure. The pleasure resulting from the first accidentally adaptive movement issues in a heightened nervous discharge toward the organs which made the movement, a discharge which finds its way to the same channels as before, and so makes it likely that the same movement will be repeated, the external conditions remaining the same. By these discharges this movement gets, of course, a better chance of being performed on subsequent occasions. So the organism fixes its adaptations.

Let us accept this and say that something equivalent to 'heightened nervous energy' alone can explain the repeti-

(179)-tion of reactions which are both useful and pleasurable. We may call this, then, for convenience, the principle of 'Motor Excess,' and say that pleasure and pain can be agents of accommodation and development only if the one, pleasure, carry with it the phenomenon of 'motor excess,' and the other, pain, the reverse -- probably some form of inhibition or of antagonistic contraction.

Our question then is this: What is the reason that the movements which are accidentally more adaptive than others, give pleasure ? Is there anything in one movement, as such, more than another, that it should give pleasure? How can it matter to the protozoön, for example, whether it elongate itself upward, or flatten itself downward, that it should feel better in one case than in the other ?

The only answer evidently is, that the pleasure is not in the movement in itself, but in what the movement gets for the organism. The protozoan may elongate itself upward without pleasure possibly in the dark, or with positive pain. The plant may turn upward only in the light (heliotropism), and then downward only in the dark (geotropism) to show its adaptations. It is the sunlight which the creature gets from its elongation upward that gives the pleasure. [5]

Yet that the current theory, as held by psychologists, makes the first adaptive movement accidental, and the pleasure which serves as agent of accommodation to result only from that movement, may be seen from such statements as the following from Höffding, who accepts Bain's postulate

(180) of spontaneity in developed organisms. He says: "There may be accommodation even before consciousness by means of reflex movement. In this, movement is not immediately brought about by the internal state, but by a stimulus from the external world, or from a part of the organism." [6]

As soon as it is criticised, this bald position becomes irrational, as every one will admit: for the action of the sunlight it is which stimulates the organic and vital processes, aids nutrition, sets the organism into its life rhythms, etc. This is universally the case. It is what the organism gets by the movements or without movement, that ministers to its life; that is the original pleasure-giving thing, not the mere fact of one movement rather than another.

And yet, as evident as this is, I cannot find it anywhere clearly brought out in the literature of this topic. It may have been taken for granted by every one, we could well believe, except that when we come to generalize this view, we find that the theory of adaptation takes on a meaning very different from that usually understood. If it is the organism's stimulations, such as food supply, contact with the oxygen of the air, equilibrium under the action of gravity, etc. -- if it is such things which give the organic bases of pleasure -- then these it is which serve to bring about the motor excess discharge and produce the abundance and variety of movements necessary to selection. But if so again, then we do not need the first accidentally adaptive movement to give pleasure, and through pleasure so to secure the excess discharge.

The old theory turns the case completely over and stands it on its head. [7] We reach, in fact, from this consideration a new construction in which our organism begins with a susceptibility to certain organic stimulations, such as food, oxy-

(181)-gen, etc.; these when present give pleasure; the pleasure is, physiologically considered, a heightened vitality in the central
nuclear processes; this heightened, central vitality issues in a motor excess discharge; from the resulting abundant and varied movements of this excess discharge those are selected which bring more of these vital stimulations again; and these finally keep up the vitality of the organism, and by the repeated excess movements provide for constantly progressive adaptations.

This position, it is plain, does not rule out the old interpretation entirely -- the view that it is the effect of accidentally adapted movements to give pleasure. For in saying that it is the stimulus or sense process which gives pleasure, according as it is vitally beneficial or not, I do not rule out any kind of stimulus or sense process. Muscular sensation -- the sense process of accomplished movement -- takes its place as one such process among others, and a very important one. In so far as the exercise of muscle in high organisms, or the mere fact of contractility itself in the lower, is vitally good, in so far it also gives pleasure, and this pleasure serves to issue in excess discharge to the same regions again. But this is a very different view from that which says that the excess movements corresponding to pleasure all follow from accidental movements which are lucky.

The Spencer-gain view seems then to say that one kind of sense process, that which reports movements, and movements only of a particular kind -- those which happen to be adaptive by chance -- that this one kind of sense process gives pleasure, while all others do not. But why should this be? All processes of stimulation going into the organic centres ought to follow the same law. If one kind, in as far as it serves to heighten vitality, for that reason brings up the energies of the reacting centre to the pitch of a ' heightened nervous

(182) discharge,' why should not any other stimulating process which serves to heighten vitality 0'0 the same thing-? And
when we come to press the case more closely and ask why it is that only one class of movements -- a logical class merely, those which happen to be adaptive -- do in reality so act, the only practical criterion is after all, on this theory, just that which I am urging, i.e. that those movements only are adaptive which secure a new element of sense process, such as light, chemical action, food stimulus, etc., in addition to the ordinary advantage of movement itself which all movements, qua movements, have in common.

So far, we have spoken of pleasure, but the same holds, verbis mutatis, of pain. Let us ask this question: Where in the entire series of events constituting a reaction accompanied by pain -- stimulus, central process, movement -- does the pain come in, before or after the first adapted movement, i.e. the movement that has an inhibiting influence somehow upon its own further performance? The whole phraseology of Spencer and Bain would serve to make us think that it came in only after a movement so unlucky as to be ill-adapted, the pain being part of the effect of the movement, so that, by the memory of the pain thus got, the movement is in future inhibited. The pain got from the movement serves in memory to warn us not to repeat the movement.[8] But here I take issue blankly, contending that it comes in by and in the stimulus and before its discharge in movement, warning us not to move so as to repeat that stimulus. It is by this 'warning,'

(183) -- which is in organic terms an actual lowering of vitality and consequent dampening of movement, or production of contrary movements, -- that organism tends to avoid the repetition of this stimulation.

Let us take for scrutiny the customary illustration -- the one which James uses, for example, in explaining the 'Meynert scheme' of nervous action. A child thrusts his finger in a candle-flame, and is burned: he thrusts no more, but shrinks. Here the doctrine of Spencer, Bain, and many others, seems to make the function of the pain the inhibition of the thrusting movement, as itself undesirable. But surely the case is very different. Is this movement in itself undesirable? Is it not undesirable only under these or similar circumstances ? The inhibiting effect and the pain are brought about by the burn, and the recurrence of that -- that is the thing to be prevented. The thrusting movement is a mere incident. Suppose the candle is brought up against the child instead of the reverse: it then shrinks just the same. But in this case there has been no forward movement giving .a pain, by the memory of which, on the theory in question, the shrinkage or stoppage of thrusting is caused. No doubt the child has a habit of shrinking from pain-causing things; but what I claim is just this, that it is pain-causing things, not pain-producing movements, in reference to which it has acquired this habit.

So far therefore, let us bear clearly in mind, our outcome is this: we accept from the Spencer-gain theory the fact of adaptation by selection from excessive movements, and also the view that the forerunner or cause of these excessive movements is a central process which is the organic analogue of pleasure; 1 but we raise an objection to that theory which

(184) seems to us insuperable: The objection that it makes this pleasure, and through it all adaptation' result from one kind of sense-stimulus, that of the organism's own contraction, and not from others, with no ground whatever-for this discrimination against the ordinary stimulations of the environment, such as light, heat, oxygen, food-supply, etc., which are from the first most vitally necessary for all growth.

To obviate this objection we must hold that all stimulations which heighten vitality give the organic basis of pleasure and by this issue in excessive movements. This seems natural, easy, and in fact inevitable. This is what our theory does. It says: given any reason for a better central organic state of things, this better state of things shows itself, by the law of dynamogenesis, in the greater ease, facility, and variety of movements, which facilitate the adjustments and so the adaptations of the organism.

This is the first innovation which the theory which I have sketched above proposes. While securing the better basis for adaptation generally, however, this does not interfere with the function of pleasure which Bain desiderates -- i.e. " some force that clenches and confirms, some successful chance coincidence" [9] [of movement]. For as I have said, the successful chance coincidence would still give pleasure and the same association would hold between this pleasure and the particular movement which secured it. And under regular conditions of stimulation this association would suffice to draught off the increased energy of the pleasure process into the channels of the movement which is associated with the pleasure; for the organic basis of an association must be some kind of a connective pathway between the seats of the things which are associated.

A later utterance of Bain's comes nearer, as far as I am

(185) sure that I understand it, to the recognition of this view of the general value of pleasure and pain in the theory of organic accommodation. He says in his last edition :[10] " The law that a movement bringing pain tends to be arrested, and a movement bringing pleasure to be promoted, is with some plausibility referred to a general principle of nervous action, whereby, seeing that pleasure is in so many cases associated with increase, and pain with diminution, of vital energy, there should grow out of this circumstance a disposition of pleasure to feed, and of pain to sap, its own producing energy [by an adaptation of movements by which the stimulation giving pleasure is retained, on one hand, and that giving pain broken with, on the other hand]. There is an undoubted consistency between the two sides of our being on this hypothesis [of what we have called an 'imitative' or 'circular activity'].... The hypothesis in question demands for its adequacy a far-reaching, although not incredible or impossible, assumption -- viz., that the tendency of pleasure, through the medium of its physical accompaniments, to heighten for the moment the activities of the framework in general, somehow finds a way to concentrate upon the specific movement adapted to the precise case [i.e. adapted to bring the organism into continued relation to the pleasure-giving stimulus]. This is a very large demand in itself and would seem to need a large number of chance experiments [or a congenital variation producing a bifurcate division of movements into 'expanding' and 'contracting' respectively] before the lucky coincidence is reached. The hypothesis is by no means impossible . . . its natural place is under the hypothesis of Evolution, where it is an important, if not indispensable, item." [11]

(186) We now find ourselves introduced to another class of facts, which, when interpreted, lead us to suggest another modification of the theory of adaptation.

It is evident that we have been dealing with the question of ontogenetic adaptation so far, the question as to how the individual organism manages to get new adaptations. Later on we may ask how the species can profit by the accommodations secured by the individual. But when we come to view the general fact of race adaptation as a whole, the question which we have just been discussing takes on a further interest.

It has been needful to assume that in the simplest organic forms which have contractility, and which are able to adapt themselves by their movements to their environment -- that in such forms the analogue of pleasure is a central excess process which discharges itself in movement. The question for phylogenesis, then, which comes upon us is this: how did this condition of things arise, and what form must we hold these excess movements to take?

This question Mr. Bain seems to beg. His principle of 'spontaneity' is his starting-point; and he does not see that spontaneity must, as has been said above, itself be construed in terms of some form of process which accounts for an organism's expenditures of energy derived from such stimulations as its food-processes, etc. Höffding says in reference to the fact of spontaneity: [13] "The internal changes, which

(187) set free potential energy, must, in their turn, depend on the function of nourishment. The spontaneous movement
living creatures is possible only because life itself is an uninterrupted process of taking in and using up certain constituents. Absolute spontaneity would be a consumption of one's own fat." It is evident that Bain never brings the genetic point of view into his theories, except by the merest attempts at grafting the evolution idea upon the trunk of his analysis of the actions of developed organisms.

Mr. Spencer, on the contrary, does attempt to account for the rise of the heightened nervous process in individuals. He considers it a concentration of the energies of reaction into particular pathways; and so, indeed, it must be. But to him, also, it is an ontogenetic acquirement. It follows upon the first lucky adaptive movement, as we have seen above.

This account we now see to be inadequate, since it assumes, as has been shown at length, that when certain stimulations are present -- stimulations covered by the vague word 'adjustments,' which the lucky movement happens to strike -- these stimulations serve by their action to heighten the central processes. So the whole question remains quite unanswered as to why any stimulations do thus heighten the central processes, and so give an excess discharge in movement. Of course, the answer seems to be that those processes of stimulation do this to which the organism is already accommodated -- those under the action of which it has come to be what it is -- its food-supply, oxygen, chemical agents, gravity, contacts, etc., etc.

The general fact of adaptation by chance adjustments occurring among excessive diffused movements is, of course, true -- that I have exemplified above in the theory of the rise of handwriting.[13] What is not accounted for on the

(188) current theory is just the spontaneous or excessive movements, from which the selection is made. These, in my view, are due to the heightened central processes excited by vitally appropriate stimuli. This seems so elementary and simple that it would not be worth while to speak further of it were it not for another fact, to which we may now revert.

Biologists find among the first adaptations of the organisms, the earliest in the phylogenetic series -- in the minutes" bacteria, the most formless protozoa, the unicellular creatures of a day; in plants, in all life -- a certain fundamental difference of movements. All organisms behave in two great and opposite ways toward stimulations; they approach them, or they recede from them. Creatures which move as a whole move toward some kinds of stimulations, and recede from others. Creatures which are fixed in their habitat expand toward certain stimulations, and contract away from others. It is very evident that if this be true, the very uniformity of the relation entitles it to a place in any theory of development. And the question at once arises: why is it that we find these two well-marked differences in behaviour in each organism, whatever its type and place in the scale of animate nature ? [14]

Now if we assume this to be a fact in nature -- I devote an entire chapter further on to the consideration of the facts, under the phrase 'Organic Imitation' -- that an organism tends to approach, move, strain, toward certain stimulations, and away from others, it becomes easy to connect the fact with our former account of development, and to

(189) hold that the stimulations which the organism tends toward are those which heighten its vitality, which give it pleasure, and those from which it draws back are those whose effect upon it is the contrary -- the damaging, the painful ones. This is on the surface the most natural thing in the world for nature to do -- to endow her creatures with a great power of self-preservation and self-improvement. An organism does not have to wait for a pleasure to come along, but after it has once had it, it can go out after it; nor to remain exposed to a pain, but after once experiencing it, it can retire with discretion.

This follows in such simple order from what we have found to be the method of adaptation -- in each case by a movement whose adjustment consists just in its appropriateness to secure a good stimulation -- that the facts of biology which show this first contrast in movements are only what we would expect. And they tend in so far also to confirm the earlier view as to the method.

Coming to interpret this new result, therefore, we see that our early random, spontaneous movements are not only relatively random or spontaneous. The ontogenetic growth of the individual at any race stage starts with this fundamental adjustment of movements to the stimulations under which the phylogenetic development has so far progressed. And it is only a statement of the law of phylogenetic development to say that this antithesis of outward movements, expansions, on one hand, and withdrawing movements, contractions, on the other, is due to natural selection working among organisms; the first application of natural selection spoken of above in the introductory sketch of the theory of development. [14]

(190)
So when we come to consider phylogeny and ontogeny together we find that if by an organism we mean a thing merely of contractility or irritability, whose round of move= meets is kept up by some kind of nutritive process supplied by the environment -- absorption, chemical action of atmospheric oxygen, etc. -- and whose existence is threatened by dangers of contact and what not, the first thing to do is to secure a regular supply to the nutritive processes, and to avoid these contacts. But the organism can do nothing but move, as a whole or in some of its parts. So then if one of such creatures is to be fitter than another to survive, it must be the creature which by its movements secures more nutritive processes and avoids more dangerous contacts. But movements toward the source of stimulation keep hold on the stimulation, and movements away from contacts break the contacts, that is all. Nature selects these organisms; how could she do otherwise ?

This, too, is consonant with all that we know of growth. Increased vitality tends to enlargement, range of movement, activity; while lessened vitality and organic decay tend to the opposite series of effects, i.e. shrinking, contraction of range, torpidity.

(191) We only have to suppose, then, that the nutritive growth processes are by natural selection drained off in organic expansions, to get the division in movements which represents this earliest bifurcate adaptation. Then inside of this group of expansive movements -- 'spontaneities' or 'heightened discharges' -- it becomes the sphere of ontogenetic growth to secure the further refinements of adjustment which the phenomena of 'excess' -- now identified both with pleasurable experience in consciousness and with motor discharges giving outreaching movements -- enables the organism to secure.

Finally, we found the Spencer-Bain theory to make one other presupposition. It requires a relatively constant, unchanging environment, in order to give the repetitions of stimulation which development requires. The organism is supposed to be battered, stormed, by repeated stimulations of the same general kinds. In this, the purely biological theories of development concur; by which I mean those theories which do not call in the pleasure-pain process at all, but rely simply upon the repetition of stimulations and reactions, and the resulting compounding of processes which these repetitions are supposed to give.

It is now evident that our theory renders the organism much less dependent upon such regularity and constancy in the environment. Creatures which have, in their own method of reaction, a way of reaching after the stimulations which they need -- a way of retaining contact with the source of supply, say of food, or oxygen, or sunlight, or heat, or of increasing their forces by actually moving toward it, these creatures can, in a measure, find or make for themselves the regularities which the environment may not guarantee.' So, also, can they by their natural capacity of

(192) withdrawing from what is pain-giving, avoid and escape harmful things to which they are, perchance, constantly exposed. It is possible that the faculty of local movement, locomotion, possessed by animals, in contrast with plants, is simply a further emphasis of this very useful distinction in reactions. This follows, indeed, of necessity, when we come to see below, that the system of 'antagonistic' muscles is a product of just this original contrast of reaching and withdrawing movements.

When, further, we come to mental development proper, in later chapters of this work, we will see that this is exactly the method of that highest of all functions of accommodation, adaptation by volition. When we will to escape that which is brought upon us by the regular laws of nature, we simply adopt means of withdrawal from it by anticipation; and, on the other hand, we secure those pleasant and beneficial experiences which the environment of our lives would not, in itself perhaps, have brought us by willing to go out and find them.

It is evident from what has now been said, that the fundamental difference between this theory and that criticised above concerns the first organic adaptation. On our theory, the first adaptation is phylogenetic; i.e. it is a variation. By the operation of natural selection among organisms, those survive which respond by expansion to certain stimulations of food, oxygen, etc., and by contraction to other certain stimulations; this expansion gives, by reason of the new stimulations which it brings within range, a heightened central process which is the organic basis of the hedonic consciousness; and this issues in the varied excess movements from which the ontogenetic adaptations of the indi-

(193)-vidual organism are selected by association, as fitted in turn to perpetuate the stimulations which give pleasure, and so again to arouse the excess process, and so on.

The current Spencer-Bain theory, on the contrary, holds, as I understand it, that the first adaptation is ontogenetic; i.e. it is due to accidental adjustments occurring among diffused or spontaneous movements of single organisms, these adjustments giving a heightened central process which is the organic basis of the hedonic consciousness, and which issues again in excess movements from which again further adjustments are selected by chance; these adjustments all being made permanent by the association between the idea of the movements thus giving pleasure, and the memories of the pleasure which they give.

With these criticisms, the outline of the theory of development stands out clearly enough, I think. We may now go on to show briefly that the theory would not be affected by the truth or falsity of either of the opposed views of heredity now so bitterly opposed to each other in biological circles.

Endnotes

  1. Spencer, Princ. of Psychology, I., §§ 227 ff.
  2. Emotions and Will, 3d ed., 1888, pp. 318 f.
  3. Popular Science Monthly, November, 1892..
  4. More is said of this compounding tendency, below, Chap. VIII., § 4. Cf. Spencer's exposition of it, loc. cit., Vol. I., §§ 231 ff.
  5. A case which fulfils the details of this illustration is to be found in certain shellfish (mussels) which respond variably to light and shade. Some species withdraw when shadows are thrown upon them; certain others withdraw when light falls on them; and yet others respond by contraction to both light and shade. See Nagel, in Biol. Centralb., XIV., 1894, p. 385.
  6. Outlines of Psychology, p. 3
  7. Cf. Spencer, loc. cit., I., p. 545.
  8. In support of this, see Spencer, Prin. of Psych., Vol. I., § § 227 f., § 232, § 237. Bain's view is seen in the quotation given above. Dr. Ward seems to be clear of this criticism, as regards the function of the pain-process, as actually issuing in movements which secure pleasure or bring less pain. I can get no consistent conception, however, from Ward, since he implicates attention even when, by express claim, he is discussing 'only the original evolution.' -- Encycl. Brit., Art. 'Psychology,' p. 73.
  9. Omitting the negative or pain side, which, apart from details, proceeds in a parallel way; cf. Chap. XVI., § 3.
  10. See the quotation from Bain above.
  11. Bain, Senses and Intellect, 4th ed., 1894, pp. 328 f.
  12. I think it well to say that Professor Bain in a private letter wrote me that he was taking account of my article on 'Imitation' in Mind (January, 1894). As he makes no reference, however, to my paper in his book, I may be wrong in thinking this to be a passage in which he had my article in view. I may even be wrong in thinking that the 'hypothesis' he speaks of is capable of being interpreted in the way I have done in the additions made in brackets in the text. In that case, the quotation may be read simply as a further exposition of my own views put largely in Professor Bain's words.
  13. Outlines of Psychology, p. 309.
  14. Chap. V., § 2.
  15. "Coextensive with the phenomena of excitability -- that is to say, with the phenomena of use -- we find this function of selective discrimination -- this power of discriminating among stimuli and responding to those which are the stimuli to which responses are appropriate." -- Romanes, Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 51.
  16. We have the authority of Mr. Spencer for making the ability to move toward or away from an object a sufficient cue to the operation of natural selection, i.e.. in the development of the bilateral nervous system and the system of antagonistic muscles (loc. cit., 1., § 233). But he entirely fails to see that the same thing is done by the minute creatures which swarm to red light and away from blue light, although they have no nervous or muscular systems at all. Dr. Ward also appeals to natural selection in discussing this subject as follows: "At first when only random movements ensue, we may fairly suppose both that the chance of at once making a happy hit would be small and that the number of chances would also be small Under such circumstances natural selection would have to do almost every thing and subjective selection almost nothing. So far as natural selection worked we should have, not the individual subject making a series of tries and perfecting itself by practice, but we should have those individuals whose stuff and structure happened to vary for the better, surviving, increasing and displacing the rest." -- Encyc.. Brit., Art. 'Psychology,' p. 73.
  17. Think, for example, the difference it makes in the possible time required for the evolution of sense organs such as the eye, if we allow the organism a form of reaction which moves it toward the source of the light stimulation. Cf. Spencer's doctrine on this point, Psychology, I., § § 231 f.

§ 3. Development and Heredity

No theory of evolution is complete, in general opinion, which does not account for the utilization in some way, from one generation to another, of the gains of the earlier generations, turning individual gains into race gains. I wish, therefore, to inquire briefly what treatment the view of development held above has a right to expect from the two current theories of heredity.

The neo-Darwinians hold that natural selection, operating upon congenital variations, is adequate to explain all progressive race gains. This theory, therefore, is able to dispense with the ontogenetic acquirements of the particular organism.

(194) It accordingly denies that what an individual experiences in his lifetime, the gains he makes in his adaptations to his surroundings, can be transmitted to his sons.

This theory, it is evident, can be held on the view of development sketched above. For, granting the ontogenetic progress required by the Spencer-gain theory and adopted in my own, -- the learning of new movements in the way which I have called 'functional selection,' -- yet the ability to do it may be a congenital variation. Indeed, I have made the excess process itself, which gives the movements from which 'functional selection' selects the fittest, together with the great antithesis of expansions and contractions with pleasure and pain, just such variations seized upon by natural selection. And all the later acquirements of individual organisms may likewise be considered only the evidence of additional variations from these earlier variations. So it is only necessary to hold to a view by which variations are cumulative to secure the same results by natural selection as would have been secured by the inheritance of acquired characters from father to son. Mr. Spencer and others seem to me to be quite wide of the mark in saying that the only alternative to the inheritance of acquired characters is a doctrine of 'special creation.' The life history of the mammal embryo shows us, as a matter of fact, as we have already seen, a single creature going through many of the variations of the race series, without giving us the actual life history of the beings which in their lives represented any single one of these stages. As Balfour says: [1] "Each organism reproduces the variations inherited from all its ancestors, at successive stages in its individual ontogeny which correspond with those at which the variations appeared in its ancestors." The embryological record emphasizes the vari-

(195)-ations, not the means by which they were produced, nor their detailed organic outcome in particular generations. [2]

The problem which is left on the hands of the neo-Darwinian, therefore, is to construct a theory of variations. The 'why,' the 'how much,' the 'in what direction,' of variation -- these questions he must answer. And, of course, the burden of proof lies on him to show that his adversaries have not correctly answered the question of 'the how' of variation by their hypothesis of the transmission of acquired characters.

It is not as generally seen, however, that the only way that such a theorist can answer these questions is by an actual examination of existing variations both as to the facts of their existence and of their modes of development. He must recognize all the processes of the development of the individual in order to define the variation which rendered these results possible in the life of the individual. This is what gives value to the Spencer-gain theory, considered as an attempt to define the actual ontogenetic process of accommodation. On the basis of that theory we may ask the question, therefore, How can functional selection -- individual growth in accommodation -- be efficient ? What is the neurological process seen in it and what kind of congenital variations does the presence of this process presuppose and also by screening and supplementing -- as 'Organic Selection ' supposes -- serve to accumulate ?

The theory of individual accommodation, accordingly, comes first as a matter both of fact and of interpretation, and should be treated quite apart from the problem of heredity. We are justified accordingly, from the point of view

(196) of the neo-Darwinian theory, in attempting to answer it in the preceding pages. [3]

The same is true also from the point of new of the neoLamarckian theory of heredity, as is evident; for just such examination and interpretation of the facts of individual experience and development supplies on this theory the very means and method of interpreting hereditary race progress. Granting the inheritance of acquired characters, of course the biologist then asks: Well, what has the individual at each stage been able to acquire, and how did he acquire it? This is what we have been attempting to answer above.

It is being gradually recognized by biologists that the requirements of theory are equally well served by either theory, which means that facts alone can refute either theory. Whatever a particular creature may be endowed with, he might have got in either way -- or in both together. Instinct, for example, may be held to have a twofold origin; it may have arisen in some cases by the natural selection of creatures having accidental reflex adaptations, and in other cases by intelligent adaptation. And both processes can be construed without supposing the inheritance of acquired characters; for the ability to make intelligent adaptation may be considered as itself a variation, by which congenital adaptations have been fostered.

I should say, therefore, that, supposing the analogue of the pleasure-pain process is in all cases the actual evidence and accompaniment of the excess process from whose discharges adjustments of movement are secured, then either of two further views may be held. Either on one hand the pleasure-pain process is a variation (and with it, the actual hedonic consciousness), the environment of the individual in

(197) each generation simply seeing to give it scope for special accommodation; or on the other hand, this process itself is a functional selection, a thing acquired by the individual in his experience. But in either case, the pleasure-pain process is the same and performs the same functions; both are exactly what the facts show them to be. From the organic side and without reference to consciousness, it is what the biologists call 'plasticity.'

In the foregoing pages I have seemed, however, to find reason for saying that the pleasure-pain process, with its antithesis of outward and inward movements, was due to natural selection, that is, that it was phylogenetic in its origin. Further considerations may now be adduced quite apart from the general question of heredity. We are in fact brought here face to face with the question of the origin of consciousness, and upon this one is able to express only very hypothetical opinions.

Endnotes


  1. Comparative Embryology, p. 3.
  2. And this emphasis is made more emphatic, possibly, in the light of the 'discontinuous variations' recently discussed by Bateson and De Vries, and earlier pointed out by Darwin, and by Galton under the name of 'sports'.
  3. The further carrying out of this form of Darwinism is to be found in the volume Development and Evolution.

§ 4. The Origin of Consciousness [1]

The foregoing paragraphs seem to give us some indications of the relation of consciousness to the phenomena of life. We have found it necessary to hold that the physical basis of hedonic consciousness -- the fact of heightened central vital processes issuing in expansive movements -- is a variation of phylogenetic origin in primitive organisms, rather than an acquisition due to adjustment secured in the life-history of particular organisms. The original bifurcation of movements, as outreaching and retiring, I have described as a phylogenetic distinction and product; a variation among the earliest contractile forms. Some arose by variation

(198) which did discharge their increased vitality in expansive movements, and by the advantage of it lived longer and propagated more.

It is possible, however, to hold a different view; in fact, we have found the ordinary Spencer-gain theory of adaptation doing so. On this view the heightened central process is an adaptation secured in the lifetime of the creature. On this view, further, it is necessary to suppose that all stimulations, including those of nutrition, varied in their effects upon the organism from enlargement, expansion, etc., in some instances, to diminution, contraction, etc., in other instances, in the same organism. Mr. Spencer does indeed attempt to give a purely mechanical deduction of the association between withdrawing movement and pain,[2] making it arise in the 'experience' of uniform contractile tissue. In that case, ontogenetic adaptation precedes phylogenetic, and if we bring in consciousness at all, we should have in such a creature an association between the pleasure of the success of certain expansive movements which were also adaptive, and the sense of the movements themselves.

This, it is evident, makes consciousness of pleasure and pain arise at some point in the creature's life; just where, we have no clear answer from Spencer. But if we say that uniform contractile tissue did not have consciousness before the heightened process which indicates pleasure, and that this heightened process is due in some way to accidental adjustments of movement; then consciousness must have arisen by means of these adjustments.

But we have seen that adjustments of movement can have no meaning for the organism, except as they bring certain vital stimulations. So the rise of consciousness after all would seem to be due to the influence of these vital

(199) stimulations. And when we come to ask why these vital stimulations are vital, why they are necessary' that is, we appeal at once to the habits, -- the very constitution of the life process itself, -- all of which must have come to the particular organism by heredity. So consciousness becomes, after all, in its actual rise a phylogenetic product.

Looking at it from this phylogenetic point of view, as a variation, we find difficulties and certain advantages. Romanes, it will be remembered, treats the fact of 'selective contraction' as the 'criterion of mind, [3] the indication of the presence of consciousness;' and, inasmuch as he also finds this fact of selective contraction in the lowest known living creatures, it would seem in his view to be due either to selection, in case we suppose still earlier a uniform contractile tissue, or as a part of the 'general mystery of life,' in case we do not.

The difficulty, however, which he sees to the 'selection' view, he states in this way: "The difficulty is that I began by showing it necessary to define mind as the power of exercising Choice [selective reaction], and then proceeded to define the latter as a power belonging only to agents that are able to feel.... It seems that my conception of what constitutes Choice is in antagonism with my view that the essential element of Choice is found to occur among organisms which cannot properly be supposed to feel. This . . . contradiction is a real one, though I hold it to be unavoidable. For it arises from the fact that neither Feeling nor Choice appears upon the scene of life suddenly.... There are two ways of meeting the difficulty. One is to draw an arbitrary line, and the other is not to draw any line at all, but to carry the terms down through the whole gradation of the things until we arrive at the terminal or root principles.

(200) By the time that we do arrive at these root principles, it is no doubt true that our terms have lost all their original meaning.",

The difficulty is, in short, that we have two horns of a dilemma: either (1) Consciousness with feeling of pleasure and pain are coextensive with life; in which case they existed before the selective reactions which are said to be the criterion of consciousness. For -- to put this alternative in terms of my own foregoing explanations -- the same stimulations of nutrition, etc., which are now said to explain the increase of the central processes, upon which consciousness is based, must have been vital to life before this so-called variation arose. Why then did not the uniform living protoplasm, which preceded the variation, itself have consciousness ? Or, the second horn of the dilemma, (2) Consciousness with feeling of pleasure and pain are quite useless appendages to the theory of adaptation and are in no way accounted for; since the variation which secures the first adaptation, that is, the selective reactions said to be the criterion of mind, are simply variations in processes of nutrition, etc., which must have existed in earlier living matter, if it existed, and may exist in much higher forms of living matter, in which we have no evidence of such a thing as feeling of pleasure or pain.

Romanes thinks it is best to draw no line at all between life without and life with consciousness, but to say that, as we descend in the scale, terms like feeling, which imply consciousness, are gradually eviscerated of their meaning; and he is probably right. But he does not see that even then there are two remaining alternatives. We may say, to state one of the alternatives first, that life existed before selective reaction; in which case -- holding that mind is coextensive with life -- he must give up his criterion of mind. This, I think, he

(201) does substantially, adopting, somewhat hesitatingly it is true, the Spencer-Bain view of the origin of adaptations by accidental movements during the lifetime of early creatures. He says [4] "How are we to explain the fact that the anatomical plan of a nerve centre . . . comes to be that which is needed to direct the nervous stimuli into the channels required? The answer to this question we found to consist in the property which is shown by nervous tissue, to grow by use into the directions which are required for further use. This subject is as yet an obscure one, especially when the earliest stages of such adaptive growth are concerned, but in a general way we can understand that hereditary usage, combined with natural selection, may have been alone sufficient, etc." (italics mine). Furthermore, he presents an argument for the ontogenetic view of the rise of selective reactions in saying,' "It is impossible that heredity can have provided in advance for innovations upon or alterations of its own machinery during the lifetime of a particular individual." The inference being that if such innovations cannot be provided for by heredity (variation), they must be acquired during the lifetime of the creatures. This argument is worthy of discussion and is taken up again: but it is not necessary to dwell upon it here, inasmuch as it does not conflict with the possible truth of the second alternative, which is still open.

This second alternative -- really a third one in relation to the horns of the original dilemma presented to the mind of Romanes -- is this: we may say that life began with selective reaction as part of its original endowment, and with consciousness withal, that is, with feelings of pleasure and pain.

This position preserves the criterion of mind, making it also the criterion of life, and so assumes a common phylogenetic

(202) beginning of both life and mind in one. This seems to me to be required not only by the logic of criteria but also by the facts of life.[6]

In what sense we are able to call this a 'variation' is, of course, open to dispute. It is certainly a variation in nature -- this tremendous thing, life, made more tremendous as being the vehicle of mind. But is it not more simple than the other horn of the dilemma; hat which requires the assumption, first, of life without consciousness, and then, a little later on, the further assumption of consciousness in connection with life ?

But more positive advantages come, it is to be hoped, from the foregoing considerations. It has been shown that the theory of biological adaptation cannot dispense with a factor which is, from all accounts, -- taking biologists like Romanes to witness, -- the physiological analogue of pleasure and pain, and that nowhere can a beginning be found for this in the life series. When we come further to see that all stages of mental accommodation and development can be construed by the same principles of adaptation -- a task to which this book is mainly devoted -- it would require some temerity of dogmatism or some strong evidence to the contrary to lead one to throw away such an extension of the principle of uniformity in nature. And yet, with the two great exceptions, Spencer and Romanes, I know of no biologists approaching the first rank, who have attempted to bring the phenomena of mental development -- the class of facts most open to scrutiny and most important everywhere in the animal series -- and those of organic adaptation, under the terms of a single concept. [7]

Endnotes

  1. In the French and German editions sections are inserted here on 'Organic Selection' and 'Determinate Evolution,' topics now fully treated in Development and Evolution.
  2. Spencer, loc. cit., I., § 227.
  3. Mental Evolution in Animals, Chap. I.
  4. Loc. cit., p. 60.
  5. This view is the 'growing' one among biologists (e.g. Minot, Ll. Morgan, etc.). It had early statement by Lewes.
  6. Loc. cit., pp. 20 f., quoting from his own work on Animal Intelligence.
  7. This statement is happily no longer true.

(203)

§ 5. Outcome: Habit and Accommodation

Returning upon our path we are now able to see that two great truths stand out in all development; two truths both of which are based upon the general fact of contractility or reaction, and which, therefore, take us farther upon our way.

The organism tends to repeat what it has already done; this all theories of development agree upon, the biologists, the disciples of Spencer, the advocates of the association theory of Bain, the psychologists. The fact of repetition is admitted to be the corner-stone of all theories; and all theories go farther in naming the principle which such repetitions illustrate, the law of Habit.

The formulation of the principle of habit, however, must depend somewhat upon the sort of notion we entertain of contractility, of the way which the organism takes to get its repetitions. If we hold that habits are distinctly due to the repetition of motor discharges, -- that is, to the second, third, fourth performance of contractions, as the Spencer-gain theory tells us, -- then no habit can be formed as such, or can be begun to be formed until after a first contraction has opened the way for the passage of the contracting energy into the same channels of discharge a second, third, fourth time. The formulation of the principle of habit on this theory takes on, then, something of this form -- its usual form -- i.e. Habit expresses the tendency of an organism to repeat its own movements again and again.

Enough has been said, I think, already to show what criticism ought to be passed on this formulation. It means that the organism starts with nothing equivalent to habit, with no native tendency to any kind of movement, with no teleology in its movements, no ulterior organic ends. It further gives no

(204) criterion as to what kind of movements it is desirable the organism should get into the habit of performing. It makes the movements necessary to the creature's life on a par precisely with all other movements, while yet admitting that it is only by appropriate movements that the organism could have got life processes at all. It gives the organism no preferences for its food, its oxygen, the stimulations in the presence of which alone life itself would be possible; for such preferences would have to show themselves as organic tendencies to some kind of differential movements.

Coming to supply this lack, as we have endeavoured to do in the preceding pages, we find it necessary to consider that the repetition of movement is not at all what the organism is after, nor indeed is it what the principle of habit rests upon. It is not true that all movements are 'equal before law' -- the law of habit. Movements which cause pain do not tend to be repeated. They are exceptions to the law of habit, as that is usually formulated. Painful movements are inhibited, they tend to be reversed, squelched, utterly blotted out; how can this be explained on the foregoing formula for habit ? It cannot be explained. And yet it is found to be a fact in the lowest living creatures that the biologist knows.

So just as in starting with life we have to start with some process characteristic of life, -- say nutrition alone, if you please, -- so we have also by the law of dynamogenesis to start with tendencies to movements which are the manifestations of life, and are, in so far, special. And the object of these movements is the maintenance of life: which is only another expression, as we have found reason to believe, for the maintenance of the stimulations necessary to life. So we reach another formulation of the principle of habit which reads something like this: Habit expresses the tendency of an organism to keep in touch, by means of movement, with bene-

(205)-ficial stimulations; or if we summarize under a single word the character of the movements toward which all habits of the organism tend, we may say, Habit expresses the tendency of the organism to secure and to retain its vital stimulations.

On this view, a habit begins before the movement which illustrates it actually takes place; the organism is endowed with a habit, if that be not considered a contradiction. Its life process involves just the tendency which habit goes on to confirm and to extend. The process of habit, having as its end the maintenance of a condition of stimulation, is set in train by the initial stimulus. And the discharge of it in the path which again 'hits' the stimulus is the function of this stimulus rather than another, and reflects, exactly and alone, the fact that then and there is a stimulus whose influence upon the vital processes is good.

Here at the very origin of the things of life, therefore, we find the 'circular process,' what I am going on to describe as the physical basis of 'imitation.' And the law of habit is simply a generalization, all the way through the facts of biology and psychology, from the various applications of this principle.

The other great principle, on which the foregoing discussions serve to throw some light, is that of Accommodation, as it is best to call it in psychology as well as biology. Let us see how it may be put in contrast to that which is called habit.

We have had occasion to ask in detail how an organism can accommodate itself, and have already discussed various answers in equal detail. Our outcome may be briefly stated, apart from the consideration of habit, somewhat in this way: An organism accommodates itself, or learns new adjustments, simply by exercising the movements which it already has, its habits, in a heightened or excessive way; the accommodation

(206) is in each case simply the result and fruit of the habit itself which is exercised.

This is clear when we remember that on our new conception of habit every act prompted by habit is an act of attaining a beneficial stimulation or experience; now the result of every attainment of a beneficial experience is to discharge an excessive pleasure wave of movement from which new adjustments are selected by the same criterion; that is, by the enriched stimulations or experiences which they in turn secure. So these later adjustments are accommodations. Each such accommodation is reached simply in the ordinary routine of habit, and is its outcome.

How simple this view is in the whole range of facts becomes evident in the notice of various of its applications in subsequent chapters. It seems to allow us to see nature moving smoothly, instead of being compelled, as we are so often compelled, to consider a new thing, a novelty in nature, an invention, a new adaptation of means to end -- to consider each of these as involving a great wrench of nature from the methods of her usual working! Let us say, once for all, that each new action is an accommodation, and every accommodation arises right out of the bosom of old processes and is filled with old matter. Does not the one kind of 'circular' reaction in which, as we now see, habit and accommodation meet on common ground, enable us to see how this may be true ?

Finally, coming once again to the topic of heredity, let us restate the objection made by Romanes to the view that life may begin with differential reactions, or that such differential reactions could not be variations preserved by natural selection. He says, in a passage already quoted in part: [1] "Does the organism learn to make new adjustments, or to

(207) modify old ones, in accordance with the results of its own individual experience? If it does so, the fact cannot be due simply to reflex action in the sense above described [i.e. repetitions of old reactions under the law of habit ]; for it is impossible that heredity can have provided in advance for innovations upon or alterations in its own machinery during the lifetime of a particular individual."

This difficulty, as we saw, led Romanes to throw over his own criterion of mind, and to hold that all adaptations, including those selective reactions which he had made characteristic of mind, were reached in the lifetime of individuals. Further, this position, if true, would lead inevitably to a Lamarckian theory of heredity, which indeed Romanes held; for if no hereditary variation can provide for future adaptations, then no past adaptations can have been provided for by variations to which they were future, and so all actual adaptations must have arisen by use, heredity being solely the bridge of transmission from father to son.

But we are now able to see, from the results we have reached, not only that there is another alternative, but also that this statement of Romanes is not correct. The other alternative is that life began with a habit, the very method of which does include a process which provides for the continual modification of its own results.

If we accept this alternative, then I have shown how new adaptations can be secured inside of this habit. But if we do not accept it, preferring to believe with Spencer in a form of earlier life which showed quite formless and diffused contractions, we are able still to see how such a pseudo-habit may have come about as a variation. The only necessary feature of this variation would be that nutrition increase expansive and varied movements; that is all. The result would be that the stimulations affording nutrition would be hit upon

(208) and gained oftener by these organisms than by others, and so a habit of getting greater variety and richness of such stimulations in this way would be secured and new accommodations made which would break up the habits transmitted by heredity. Would not this be just the state of things which Romanes declares impossible? -- heredity providing for the modification of its own machinery ? Heredity not only leaves the future free for modifications, it also provides a method of life in the operation of which modifications are bound to come, and further -- and this is the most interesting fact in the whole case -- it provides that these modifications shall take place inside the great twofold accommodation of movements corresponding to pleasure and pain, thus making the very fact of accommodation itself the great deep-seated habit of organic life.

Endnotes

  1. Loc. cit., pp. 20 f.

Notes

Notes embedded

Valid HTML 4.01 Strict Valid CSS2