Emergent Evolution
Lecture 4: Reference
C. Lloyd Morgan
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XVI. Reference a matter of Conscious Regard. XVII. Perceptual Reference. XVIII. Is there initial Reference in the Primitive Mind ? XIX. That which is involved in the Genesis of Reference. XX. Reference supplemented under Acknowledgment.
§XVI. Reference a matter of Conscious Regard.
LITTLE, save incidentally, was said in the foregoing lecture on relatedness at the level of consciousness. A good deal, no doubt, was necessarily implied or tacitly taken for granted. But before we can deal with consciousness explicitly, and so far as possible comprehensively--in the second course of lectures much preparation, and some laying of foundations, will be necessary. From the point of view of emergent evolution, conscious relatedness, for all its seeming simplicity and immediacy, has a history of bewildering complexity. Enjoyed as the correlate of vital relatedness at a very advanced stage of its evolutionary progress ; requiring the effective go of life as that requires the primary go of physical events ; affording a salient example of that which we have called dependence -- since so much of the direction and manner of go in events depends on conscious guidance ; linked thus with emergent
(91) qualities at so high a level, and thus involving so many kinds of relatedness of lower orders ; its adequate analysis is bound to be very difficult. Only step by step can we disentangle some of the threads in a meshwork of relations so intricate.
Throughout the whole range of consciousness in its cognitive regard there is a factor which seems to be of cardinal importance-that of reference in some sense of the word, and of the concept the word names. I have now to try to present points of view which may be helpful in assigning to it a place in our scheme of emergent evolution.
The way in which we commonly speak of reference may be illustrated in connection with Literature. Suppose we meet with the oft-quoted lines:
"His honour rooted in dishonour stood
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true."
The question may be asked : What is the reference here ? Perhaps one may refer the passage to Tennyson, or to the Idylls of the King. But if it were asked to whom the word " him " here refers, the reply would be : To Lancelot. Next it might be asked : To what salient feature in Lancelot's life is there here special reference ? To his love of Guinevere. Further questions might follow with regard to the concluding words " falsely true." True to whom ? To Guinevere. But why falsely ? To whom was lie false ? To his king, Arthur, as Guinevere's husband. Until this double reference in the three-person situation is adequately grasped, the passage as a whole, with its play on honour," and " dishonour," and on " faith unfaithful," will
(92) not be understood. For one who recalls the context of the lines as they stand in Lancelot and Elaine, there is, perhaps, some further reference to Elaine's love for him with the passing thought that had he loved her there would have been no call to speak of him as " falsely true."
Take as a further example the familiar words "The quality of mercy is not strained." Portia, Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare, shoot to mind. Perhaps there is a fleeting memory-image of the birth-room at Stratford, to be dismissed, it may be, as just now irrelevant. More to the point, the last emphatic word " strained " may call up Shylock's preceding question : " On what compulsion ? Tell me that." Antonio's admission of. the bond may then come into view. One is led step by step through the trial scene ; this is referred to its setting in the play ; and so on. Of course, in the case of one who knows his Merchant of Venice (note here our common use of the word " his "), a tolerably comprehensive view may develop rapidly ; for, as Hobbes pithily said, " thought is quick." The net result of previous study is revived in vague but influential form. There is also a " can follow it up " background rather difficult to analyse. Probably in no two persons will just the same lines of possible reference be followed up.
What seems to be essential in such cases (the more familiar the better for illustration), is that something being given, something else having significant relation to that which is so given, must be also in mind. The something else may be very vague or indefinite ; or it may be a well-defined situation ;
(93) or it may involve such a connection as is exemplified in " strained " and " compulsion." But, vague or clear-cut, the something else must be such as to function as a term in relation to the something given. And both terms must be " in mind " ; otherwise there is, then and there, no reference.
One should distinguish the mental process of referring in which we (who are the process and its -ing-context, whatever else we may be) are conscious, from the objective field of reference of which, as minded, we are conscious. This we may call " the field of conscious regard." Here and now we may take the process of minding for granted on the understanding that in its absence there is no field of conscious regard.
It may be asked, however, whether both the terms in this relation need be present in mind, as what we are conscious of, at the same time. May they not occur in succession, that which is given at one moment, the something else in a following moment ? Is not that the natural order ; first that which is in some way given, and then what is suggested thereby to which it is said to have reference ? Undoubtedly this is the natural order' and unquestionably this does imply succession in time, however rapidly one may follow the other. None the less this must be held in the field of conscious regard at the time when that enters the field. For before that comes there is no second term in the field to which the first can be related ; and unless this be carried forward under retention, there is no fir-it term in the field to which the second stands in relation. In the one case the second term has not yet come ; in the other case
(94) the first term has gone. Hence in the absence of retention, which falls broadly speaking under the head of memory, conscious reference would seem to be impossible.
But surely (it may be said) what is suggested is often past or future. If one refer a man's impending death to an overdose of strychnine there is reference of a coming event to an event that happened some time ago. Even here, however, must not the course of events be then and there minded if there be any conscious reference thereto ? What is here minded is a scheme or plan of events which, in some sense, corresponds to the actual course of events, some of which are gone, some still to come. Hence it is questionable whether it be advisable to speak of conscious reference to that which is not, at the time being, minded.
No doubt we do often speak of reference when we do not necessarily mean conscious reference. We say that iron filings scattered around a magnet take up positions in reference to " lines of force " in the electromagnetic field. We say that the upward growth of a plant-stem must have some reference to an interpretation under gravitative attraction. We say that the behaviour of lowly heliotropic organisms, or that of plants in a cottager's window, has reference to the incidence of light-waves, and so on. And it may perhaps be urged that this kind of thing went on ages before there was any conscious reference on the scene. Yes. But surely that means that there was Own no - true " (i.e. conscious) reference. What, I think, we commonly mean in all such cases, is that certain events are so connected
(95) in the world around us as to afford a basis for conscious reference when it does come on to the scene. Such events must, of course, be taken into account. In any relation, having " sense," that from which one starts may, with Mr. Russell, be called the referent and that to which one proceeds the relatum (P.M. pp. 24-96). And I take it that from the logical point of view they need not both be in the field of someone's conscious regard. It suffices that the one shall be referable to the other. If this sufficiently indicate the part played by the connection of events within the world to be interpreted in thus affording a basis for conscious reference (which is always a mental transaction), may it not be better not to use the word " reference " in those cases in which it is often elliptically used, since there are other words which will quite adequately express what we mean ? We might, perhaps, use as above the word " referable " where there may be, or will be, actual reference, if the course of events be somehow represented in the field of someone's conscious regard.
§ XVII. Perceptual Reference.
Thus far we have taken one or two cases illustrative of reference as it obtains in a field of conscious regard on the reflective level. The relatedness here is that of something given (itself a complex term) to something else--a significant context, or some specific feature of that context. If I can trust my own inspection (or so-called introspection), the initial phase of such reference may be, and often is,
(96) very vague and indeterminate-to something somehow significant-what one may call significance in general. Specific or differentiated significance may come later. And in what has gone before emphasis has been laid on the necessary co-existence of the something given and the something else-also given, of course, but not given in quite the same wayin the field of conscious regard correlative to the process of minding then and there in being. Even significance in general, however vague, must be there if there be reference to it.
But if not given in quite the same way, how given ? Shall we say given under revival? In all reference of the reflective order something of the nature of memory is a sine qua non. And this, as we shall see in the next lecture, has its emergent levels, with involution and dependence.
May we then provisionally accept the view that only if there be conscious revival can the something else come into the reflective field of conscious regard ? The question then arises : Is there revival only, or may there be something more than revival ? it should be clear that to this question the answer, for us, is that assuredly there may be something more. Revival, I take it, should mean re-presentation of old material-or that which is in imagery like unto it-with perhaps re-arrangement in resultant patterns, but with nothing genuinely, or, as it is said, constructively, new. That comes under emergence. And there is nothing in what has been said to preclude the advent of an emergent quality in the integral whole. All that is claimed is that
(98) revival is involved. There is no denial-nay, rather this, too, is claimed-that evolutionary advance in reflective thought depends on the emergence of new synthetic qualities.
We must now descend a stage to the level of unreflective consciousness-that on which the guidance of animal behaviour in large measure depends. I do not say wholly depends, though in some animals it may be so-probably is so under emergent evolution. Let us say, rather, that on which the behaviour of a being with unreflective or perceptual consciousness only would depend, and speak of it as " such an animal." To get at this level we must divest ourselves, so far as we can, of the garment of reflective thought. What then of reference remains to such an animal the field of whose conscious regard we now seek to interpret ? I suppose something pretty similar to that which there is in us on many current occasions of daily life, if, again so far as we can, we regard that mental life in abstraction from the reflective reference which is in some measure also on the tapis. I take it that the something given is here, typically, the presentation of some situation, and the something else is, in general, the objective ((meaning" begotten of prior behaviour along many lines, and, in more specific detail, the ad hoc meaning attaching to the kind of situation of which that which is presented affords an instance. Meaning in general, at the unreflective level, like significance in general, at the reflective level, is not wholly undifferentiated. It is always in some measure relevant ; for it is a term (however complex), in relation to the something given ; and, under related-
(98) -ness, each of the two terms in relation is what it is only in relation to the other.
Unreflective meaning, as distinguished from reflective significance, has immediate utility for practical behaviour, whereas significance has mediate value for conduct. Meaning involves revival of the net result of prior experience in such a behaviour situation. It must co-exist with the something given in the field of conscious regard. But from the cognitive point of view we commonly say that both the something given, say in presentation, and the something else, present under revival, have reference to what we call an object. Through its relation to meaning the presentation is raised to the level of a percept, which, as I think, is not only a resultant but an emergent with a quality which is genuinely new. May we say, then: No meaning, no percept; and no perception, no object thereof ?
That may seem to be sheer topsyturvydom. Place the statement right way up : No object, -no perception thereof. Then it is in accordance with common-sense. The trouble here is that the word " object " is ambiguous. It may mean the thing as it is in its own right whether it be perceived or not-- i.e. what I speak of as the physical thing the existence of which we acknowledge. Or it may mean this thing as clothed with certain acquired properties due to its relation to us in perception. It is in this latter sense that I speak of the object, meaning that which comprises all that accrues to a physical thing in and through our minding it. The statement as I put it comes to this : The thing plays no part in constituting an object of perception until
(99) it is thus minded or perceived. This few will deny. But new-realists may add : What it is as perceived object is just identically that which it was, and will continue to be, as unperceived thing. Nothing If accrues " to it. This, I submit, is not in accordance with those principles of emergent evolution which I seek to develop. When perception comes it enriches the world into which, in the course of evolutionary progress, it so comes. Hence, just here there is a parting of the ways of interpretation.
§ XVIII. Is there Initial Reference in the Primitive Mind ?
However, we may interpret it, we seem here to have passed to a different phase, if not a different kind, of reference. We have not only the reference of something given in a field of conscious regard to something else within that field -- the context of meaning or some differentiated feature therein -- but further reference of what is within the field to something, in some sense, beyond it -- let us say to the thing the existence of which we acknowledge to be independent of any conscious reference.
In the case of an animal that has already gained experience the like of which may be revived, there is, as we have seen, perceptual reference on the unreflective level. But what about the animal, or the human infant, at the outset of mental life ? If we probe as near as we can get to the very beginning of conscious experience in the individual, is there, so far as we can judge, reference either to something else in the field of conscious regard or to anything
(100) beyond what is actually given to sense ? Is there a stage of development at which there is as yet no reference ? Unfortunately no one can reach back retrospectively, along the lines of personal reminiscence, anywhere near to the beginning of individual experience. We are forced, therefore, to draw rather hazardous inferences from such observations as we can make of the earliest modes of behaviour in infants and animals.
The question before us comes to this : Is there a stage in the individual development of an organism in which consciousness is eventually emergent, when there are sensory presentations that as yet carry no meaning? From the point of view of emergent evolution there is such a stage --- one at which a behaviouristic interpretation of that which happens is adequate and sufficient even if we acknowledge psychical correlates.
May we surmise that when one sees a chick a few hours old peck for the first time at what we call a small object, say a rice-grain, we are as near to the beginning of its acquaintance with particular things as we are likely to get for the purpose of an answer to our question ? There is a visual presentation in some sense. But in what sense? First we may agree that to be a presentation it must have, under correlation, an accompaniment or concomitant of the psychical order, whether we call it sentience, or enjoyment, or consciousness in the most comprehensive signification of this ambiguous word. Secondly, we may, with Mr. Stout, further define a presentation as that which always has what he speaks of as " a two-fold implication." On these
(101) terms it is, under correlation, a mode of immediate sensory experience ; but, in its presentative function, it also " specifies and determines the direction of thought to what is not immediately experienced " (M. P. 2 10). 1 agree that this is so in our mental life. But I submit that even here we should analytically distinguish between what it primarily is and what it functionally (and perhaps only secondarily) does. For the purpose in hand, therefore, I characterise what a presentation primarily is as the correlate of the physiological outcome in the organism of the stimulation of a pattern of sensory (e.g. retinal) receptors.
In our chick, then, there is such a presentation, and may at first be no more. The pecking response in behaviour is coming but has not yet come ; so this is out of court so far as that bird's experience is concerned. The question, now in focus, is this : Has the presentation, as something for the first time given, initial reference to something else or something beyond ? My own reply is, that, in such a case, there is no such initial reference-that conscious reference only derivatively begins when there is revival of such experience as the little bird has already, and individually, gained in the course of pecking and other modes of behaviour on prior occasions.
That, then, is one answer to the question whether from the first there is reference of something given in presentation to something beyond that which is so given. There is at the outset no such reference. The presentative function is not yet. All such reference, when it comes, is derivative from previous
(102) experience in the individual life. The alternative answer, ably advocated by Mr. Stout (P.A.S. 1913-4, pp. 381 ff.), is that the something given in sensory presentation (called by him a " primary sensible ") is at the outset, originally, and initially, referred to it a source " as something beyond. " The primitive mind,," he says, " directly apprehends a primary sensible, and in doing so refers it to a source" (p. 3 9 5). This is spoken of as an "original unreflective act," through which there is " an immediate knowledge of primary sensibles as correlated with a source " (pp. 389-390). In other words, there is " immediate knowledge of the sensible as incomplete " ; and it is this knowledge of connection with source that " is original and immediate " (p. 392). It is, however, source in a vague and undiscriminated form, not a specific object, as differentiated through experience. It is source in general, not a source in particular. This, I take it, means that even from the very outset, in the infant, let us say, the supposed existence of a sensory presentation which carries no reference to something beyond itself, is to be regarded as a vicious abstraction begotten of erroneous interpretation. Not only has such a presentation the function of leading on to something further, but it immediately introduces into the field of primitive conscious regard that which is really inseparable from it, namely (a) knowledge of its incompleteness, and (b) knowledge of source which completes it. Any given sensory presentation means initially, immediately, and directly, at least something from which it originates. But since this meaning is, ex
(103) hypothesi, nowise the outcome of prior experience in the individual (for if so it would not be original), it must either be derived from experience inherited from ancestors, or must have its sufficient ground in the inherent nature of mind as initially intelligent The former, Mr. Stout tells us, it is not safe to assume (M. p. 494) ; we seem, therefore, bound to accept the latter since we cannot get along without it. For if there were not from the very first some reference to source, such reference could not by any possibility come into being. " I cannot," says Mr. Stout, " stir a step without pre-supposing the reference of a primary sensible to a source, and without pre-supposing that the reference is initially to the whole source " (P.A.S. p. 396).
It goes without saying that, in the paper from which I have quoted, and elsewhere, Mr. Stout's discussion of the manner in which specific objects become differentiated as the experience of the individual develops, is admirable. It deals with that of which he elsewhere treats under the " category of thinghood." Such categories he speaks of as it ultimate principles of unity." And here again he says that we have " to determine whether the unity of the external world can be accounted for merely as due to acquired meaning, or whether on the contrary there is some apprehension of it, however rudimentary, from the outset " (M. p. 436). The question I take it is this : Is the apprehension of unity entirely derivative or is it in part at least original ? The reply is " The mind starts with some general apprehension of the unity of the world, sufficient to enable it, when occasion arises, to
(104) expect and seek for connections not yet disclosed " (p. 437)Whether, in further detail, we take 94 spatial unity, temporal unity, causal unity, or the unity of different attributes as belonging to the same thing," in each several case, as I understand, what is given is initially apprehended-e.g. by our chickas pointing beyond itself to a larger whole of which it is felt to be an incomplete part. " If we are not quite gratuitously to place an impassable gap between the earlier and the later stages of mental development, we must assume that it [some prenotion of the unity we seek] is present in however indeterminate a way, from the beginning " (p. 444).
§ XIX. That which is involved in the Genesis of Reference.
I have given at some length Mr. Stout's philosophical thesis-I trust without serious misrepresentation-- because the issue it raises appears to me to be of great importance. The cardinal issue, I think, is this : Does a few-hours old chick, a newborn infant, or any other sample of primitive mind one selects or posits-does such primitive mind start business with some apprehension of source to which there is initial reference ; or is reference to source quite a late product of reflective thought ?
It is clear that this issue is intimately connected with that which I have spoken of as projicience (cf. § VIIII.). On my view, projicience is a process of very gradual development that begins when mind or consciousness is supervenient in the course of evolutionary progress, and takes definite form only
(105) when distance-receptors are differentiated on the plane of life. It presupposes the evolution of mind as an emergent quality of the psychical system correlated with the physical system of the organism. Until there is projicience there is as yet no external world envisaged in the primitive psychical system. On the alternative view mind has ab initio that which is one of its distinguishing features-that of apprehending an external world, in which things lie at a distance from the organism. Through bodily instruments, such as the eye, -the mind gains definite and specific experience of the nature of the external world. But some apprehensive reference thereto must be present from the outset.
We are once more at a crucial parting of the ways. And I think at bottom it comes to this. One route leads to the view that mind is emergent in the course of evolutionary history. The other path leads to the view that mind is not emergent. It is not an evolutionary stage in the natural history of the psychical correlates of physical events. It enters the world endowed with an original capacity for apprehending that world, with its several categories, through the use of sense-organs and brains, evolved to that end in a manner which it is for biologists to disclose. This apprehension is part of the mind's inherent activity which, with the conduct it subserves, affords instances of a kind of causality elsewhere not to be found in nature (cf. M. p. 120). The two views are, I think, irreconcilable. If one be accepted the Other must be rejected.
The citadel of projicience-- the holding of which is essential to my strategic position-will thus be
(106) subject to attack from two sides, and must rebut the missiles of criticism directed against it from different besieging camps. Mr. Alexander, on the one hand, will seek to demolish it because it threatens the new-realist road that leads to the hill-top from which the independent status of secondary qualities comes clearly into sight-an outlook tower which must be maintained. Mr. Stout, on the other hand, will attack it because it bars the way to that shrine wherein dwells the mind, with its prerogative of initially apprehending the source from which our specific modes of objective experience have been differentiated.
If-to drop the citadel metaphor, which is only introduced parenthetically as perhaps throwing a side-light on the issue-if I be unable to accept initial reference to source in general ; if, as I have been led to believe, all conscious reference be secondary and derivative, it is clear that I must face the question : From what is it derived ? How can reference of something given, say in sensory presentation, to something else, or something beyond, which in some way enters the field of conscious regard-how can this genetically come into being if there be no reference in being at the outset ? What is its epigenetic origin ? From the standpoint of emergent evolution this question will take the form : What does such reference involve at a lower level of the ascending hierarchy ? Clearly the behaviouristic answer for us must be : There are on the plane of life kinds of relatedness which afford a basis for conscious reference preparatory to its advent. Life is the evolutionary precursor to mind.
(107) There is in any organism that has, under stimulation, something physiologically given, much else that is thereby excited as a further outcome of that stimulation. But this organic " something else," even if it be accompanied by consciousness in a wide sense of the word (I should say by enjoyment), affords only a physical basis on which there is founded the conscious reference that supervenes. Reference itself can only arise when the correlate of this something else is a revival which carries with it the undefinable quality or quale of " againness " (cf. § XXII.). We cannot, however, follow up this clue until we have traced the emergent stages which lead up to memory.
But we can draw attention to another clue in that which is biologically involved at the level of life. For one of the questions which is sure to arise is : How comes it that reference centres in that which progressively takes form as the object ? The answer to this question is that behaviour towards this or that thing is the natural progenitor, under emergent evolution, of conscious reference to this or that object. In so far as an acknowledged thing is a common centre on to which varied modes of behaviour are focussed at the level of life, it becomes also a common centre around which is grouped all that, in and through behaviour, is projicient at the level of consciousness. Contributory to the genesis of conscious reference behaviour is involved ; but behaviour does not initially depend on conscious reference. The infant or the animal does not initially and at the outset of active life behave towards a thing because it apprehends, however vaguely and indeterminately, that beyond the primary sensible
(108) there is something more as the source to which it is referable (still less actually referred) ; but we, at any rate, may come to learn in the course of reflective interpretation that the existence of such a source is based on an hypothesis worthy of serious consideration. We learn, too, eventually, what properties are referable to an object. In our infant days we become acquainted with certain salient ways in which sensory stimulation may come. But this is because behaviour, nowise consciously directed ab initio to seeking them, has led us, on the plane of life, to find them. One must invert Mr. Stout's dictum that the condition of finding is seeking. At the outset, in my interpretation, behaviour on the plane of life just finds ; only after having found does the animal, or an infant, seek in order to find again. It is in this felt " againness." that the psychical factor in conscious reference must be sought. Subject to retention and revival it affords the basis of what we commonly speak of as experience.
One cannot go into detail with regard to the progressive and, as I contend, genetically projicient, clustering of revived experience around some Centre which thus becomes an object for reference. Nor is this necessary. It is a familiar story. Let it suffice then very briefly to illustrate the integrative coalescence by an example from the nursery. In the infant, random and unlearnt movements of head and eyes, or arms and hands, bring the little child into sensory commerce with things thus found but nowise initially sought. Now there appears to be a stage when acquaintance with such things through vision is not yet coalescent
(109) with acquaintance with them through manipulative touch. Visual exploration in seeking to find again seems to go on independently of what the hands are doing ; manipulation is apparently irrespective of that with which vision is concerned. Not until about the middle of the fourth month, according to Miss Milicent Shinn (B.B. p. 123), is there, in the child, reciprocal reference of both eye-data and hand-data to one and the same object. So far as one can draw safe inferences from what has been carefully observed, it is then, and not till then, that touching a thing suggests looking at it, and seeing it suggests what will come through grasping it. This must be a great moment. The Centre of common reference becomes so far a perceptual object. The inverted (some will, I know, say perverted) view of the natural order in finding and seeking is, I think, near the heart of interpretation under emergent evolution. One has, of course, to distinguish between the primary behaviour that finds on the plane of life, and the secondary behaviour that seeks and finds again on the plane Of consciousness. The former does not depend on consciousness either for its being or for the particular manner of its going. The way it goes is an expression of life at its appropriate level of emergence. The latter does depend on conscious relatedness, and on reference, for the effective guidance of the particular or specific manner of its going. If we are to render an evolutionary account of the emergence of mind, and not only of subsequent steps of emergence in mind, one must realise (1) that it is from behaviour, nowise dependent on conscious
(110) guidance, that the organism first finds on the plane of life, just as, on the plane of matter, a thing may be said to find another thing under some physical influence that we speak of as " attractive " ; and (2) that only on the plane of mind is there even incipient seeking in order thereby to find again. Herein lies the evolutionary value of conscious reference when the level of mind is reached.
It is difficult to make my position clear in advance of the discussion of behaviour and consciousness which will follow in my second course. On a basis of correlation one has to distinguish a primitive psychical system before the quality of consciousness (which needs definition) emerges, from a primitive mind in which it is emergent. Mr. Stout will, 1 think, disallow this distinction.
My interpretation of the chick's status is frankly behaviouristic, if a correlated psychical system not yet effective in guidance be acknowledged. But pari passu with the evolution of its behaviour there is developed projicient reference to that towards which it behaves. And with this comes conscious guidance, which the behaviourist on his part will not allow.
In its inception, then, reference begins with the emergence of mind as effective in the guidance of natural events. But such reference finds its points of insertion in particular instances already given for reference under specific kinds of behaviour. It proceeds from individual cases to progressively universalised concepts. Quite late in mental development does there arise even the vaguest reference to " source in general." Acknowledgment of such a source is a terminus ad quem towards which
(111) the evolution of mind rises after prolonged perceptual preparation. it is doubtful whether the rabbit or the cow comes within sight of it in vaguest and least differentiated form or has even a dim inkling thereof. It is reached at the reflective stage only where we are very far removed from what I conceive to be the status of primitive mind.
§ XX. Reference supplemented under Acknowledgment.
Our discussion of reference has brought us into touch with a question which is one of the most central of all questions for philosophy. Is the concept of evolution applicable to mind ?
There are two senses in which an affirmative reply may be given. In the first sense, it may be said that the concept of evolution is certainly applicable to mind. For what is evolution ? As the word, properly understood, implies, it is the unfolding of that which is enfolded ; the rendering explicit of that which is hitherto implicit. The evolution of mind in the history of events is the progressive coming to its own, in the fulness of time, of the intelligence or reason inherent always in the very nature of the world. In the beginning the end was enfolded ; but only through unfolding do we learn what was, from first to last, the nature of this enfolded end. Apart from its teleological import the word " nisus " has neither explanatory nor etymological standing. Hence, it is said, for those who rightly grasp the philosophical meaning of evolution -whatever may have become the lax use of the word
(112) in science-any treatment which ignores the finalistic outcome stands condemned.
But it may be asked : What is evolved ? Is it the Activity manifested in natural events, or is it the expression of this Activity in the world which we seek to interpret ? The reply may be : Both, since neither is separable from the other in the integral whole of the universe. One may still, however, enquire whether the Activity should not be distinguished from its manifestation ; and, if so, whether it is not to the manifestation rather than to the Activity that the word " evolution " is properly applicable. It may be said in reply that since it is the Activity which is progressively unfolded in and through its manifestation-and which thus becomes explicit--one may justifiably speak of its evolution, i.e. its progressive unfolding. One more question must then be asked. This progressive unfolding is a process " in time." Does the Activity which is thus manifested subsist sub specie temporis or sub specie aeternitatis ; and if the latter, must we not take "ab initio " subject to a timeless Is?
In the other sense of the word " evolution that which is nowadays accepted in science,-- the emphasis is not on the unfolding of something already in being but on the outspringing of something that has hitherto not been in being. It is in this sense only that the noun may carry the adjective " emergent." The expression " the evolution of mind " has here a different implication. Nay more, the word " mind " itself is quite differently defined. It cannot connote Activity since the concept of Activity in any such role of efficiency is resolutely
(113) barred by those exponents of scientific thought whose teaching in the naturalistic domain we here accept (cf. § XLVII). The evolution of mind, then, means for us the coming into being of a kind of relatedness which at preceding stages of evolutionary progress had as such no being at all.
Stress should again be laid on the supervenience of new kinds of relatedness (cf. § XI.), which are accepted, on the evidence, with natural piety. From the point of view of emergent evolution, we should not say that the relatedness observable in the crystal is implicit in the solution, but that there are lower kinds of relatedness therein which are involved as the physical basis of crystallisation. So, too, we should not say that mind is implicit in life, or life implicit in matter, but that vital relatedness is involved in the natural genesis of mind and physicochemical relatedness is involved in the natural genesis of life.
Let us now briefly review and revise our position in the matter of reference.
(1) Objective reference is a kind of relatedness which obtains within a field of conscious regard, i.e. within the domain of the minded.
(2) In any given instance of reference, one at least of the terms in this relation is re-presentative in revival under memory-Mr. Russell would say is the " mnemic " factor in causation.
(3) At the perceptual level a typical instance of reference is that of some sensory presentation to the meaning (for behaviour) thereby revived in representative form.
(4) Below the perceptual level there is as yet no
(114) reference since no meaning is revived in a field of conscious regard.
(5) It is above the level of naive perception, i.e. at the reflective level of consciousness, that reference is of so much importance. Here something given at a lower level of mind, say in naive perception, has the relation of reference in a field of conscious regard that has become conceptualised for contemplation (cf. § VII.). What we speak of as an object, under such contemplation, is always in some measure a conceptualised object, commonly universalised through its name. The something else in mind, which is the complement of the something given, is, broadly speaking, the significant scheme for reflective contemplation.
(6) When this level is reached, therefore, schemes of interpretation--or frames for reference-are in the field of conscious regard. It is then realised that any kind of relatedness in natural events may afford a basis for reference, i.e. that which is involved in order that there may be conscious reference.
(7) Thus arises the concept of the referable. 'Under this concept " this " may be said to be referable to " that " (a) when " that " is regarded as part of the knowledge of the person under contemplation in some sense stored for such reference, though at the time being there is no actual process of referring " this " thereto ; or (b) when " that " is said to be part of the common knowledge of educated and adequately instructed persons ; or (c) when " that " is within the knowledge of some ideal all-knower. In either of these cases " this " (the something given), is referable to a scheme of
(115) interpretation in some way retained in " knowledge. "
But (8), by an extension of the concept, this knowledge, this scheme of interpretation, or some specific factor therein, may still be spoken of as referable to that which is thus interpreted-let us say to nature, as that with which knowledge deals.
On these terms (9) there is (a) knowledge, and (b) that to which such knowledge is referable. It may, however, be said that there is no valid separation of (a) from (b). For this makes knowledge a quite unnecessary and illegitimate tertium quid, intervening between the mind and nature. And here some (idealists and phenomenalists) say
(i)That what we call nature is just the objectively mental-the minded as correlative to the process of minding-each inseparable from the other ; while others (radical new-realists) say :
(ii)That non-mental nature is directly apprehended as it veritably is, independently of chancing to be occasionally known.
Whether in view of " three-entity " situations a tertium quid may not after all be admissible I cannot here stay to consider.
(10) Emergent evolution takes a middle course. It urges that there is reference of the extended order ,to that which, in accordance with its constructive scheme of interpretation and explanation, must be acknowledged but that there is also projicient reference of that which is minded (e.g. in vision) to acknowledged centres for such reference.
(116)
Now, by acknowledgment I mean acceptance of that which is, as I think, not susceptible of logical proof or disproof, on the grounds that such acceptance gives consistency to a scheme otherwise incomplete. It is imperative, therefore, to state quite clearly and frankly what is posited under acknowledgment.
First, we acknowledge a system of physical events, intrinsically existent, as that which is basally involved in our completed scheme. Secondly, we acknowledge God as the ultimate Source on which emergent evolution is ultimately dependent. We ask : If the former of these be acknowledged, why not the latter within our completed scheme which aims at a synthesis of interpretation and explanation?
But thirdly, we also acknowledge unrestricted correlation of the kind Spinoza postulated under his doctrine of attributes. Within the domain of both attributes there is continuous development under progressive emergence. Each ascending stage in the one attribute is evolved with that of the other. Neither is evolved from the other.
It is within such an acknowledged frame of reference, with its three-fold relatedness of involution, dependence, and correlation, that world-events take their course "in space and time." But Dependence on God is sub specie aeternitatis. Widely as our conclusions differ from those to which M. Bergson has been led, we may still agree with him when he says : " Philosophy ought to follow science in order to superpose on scientific truth a knowledge of another kind which may be called metaphysical " (C.E. p. 208).
