_CONSCIOUSNESS_
I.--THE CONSCIOUS ACCOMPANIMENTS OF CERTAIN ORGANIC CHANGES
It is possible that all organic behaviour is accompanied by
consciousness. But there is no direct means of ascertaining whether
it is so or not. This is, and must remain, a matter of more or less
plausible conjecture. We have, indeed, no direct knowledge of any
consciousness save our own. Undue stress should not, however, be laid
on this fundamental isolation of the individual mind. We confidently
infer that our fellow-men are conscious, because they are in all
essential respects like us, and because they behave just as we do when
we act under its guiding influence. And on similar grounds we believe
not less confidently that many animals are also conscious. But how far
we are justified in extending this inference it is difficult to say.
Probably our safest criterion is afforded by circumstantial evidence
that the animal in question profits by experience. If, as we watch
any given creature during its life-history, we see at first a number
of congenital or acquired modes of behaviour, we may not be able to
say whether they are accompanied by consciousness or not; but if we
find that some of these are subsequently carried out more vigorously
while others are checked, we seem justified in the inference that
pleasurable consciousness was associated with the results of the
former, and disagreeable consciousness with those of the latter. When
we see that a chick, for example, pecks at first at any small object,
it is difficult to say, on these grounds, whether it is a sentient
animal or only an unconscious automaton; and if it continued to behave
in a similar fashion throughout life, our difficulty would still
remain. But when we see that some objects are rejected while others are
selected, we infer that consciousness in some way guides its behaviour.
The chick has profited by experience. But even this is clearly only a
criterion of what we may term _effective_ consciousness. There may be
sentience which is merely an accompaniment of organic action without
any guiding influence on subsequent modes of behaviour. In that case it
is not effective; and whether it is present or not we have no means of
ascertaining.
We seem also to be led to the conclusion, both from _a priori_
considerations and from the results of observation, that effective
consciousness is associated with a nervous system. Its fundamental
characteristic is control over the actions, so that some kinds of
behaviour may be carried out with increased vigour, and others checked.
And it is difficult to see how this can take place unless the centres
of control are different from those over which they exercise this
influence. If we are to understand anything definite by the guidance
of consciousness, we must conceive it as standing apart from and
exercising an overruling influence over that which it guides. This
is unquestionably an essential characteristic of consciousness, as
generally understood by those who take the trouble to consider its
relation to behaviour; and though some would seek to persuade us
that a mere accompaniment of consciousness can somehow determine the
continuance or discontinuance of organic behaviour, it is difficult
to see how this can be the case. The accompaniment of air-tremors
can no more influence the vibrations of a sounding string than an
accompaniment of consciousness can affect the nature of the organic
changes in the tentacles of the Sun-dew leaf.
And if, instead of trusting to such general _a priori_ considerations,
we study with attention the conditions under which an animal so behaves
as to lead us to infer that it profits by experience, we find that it
is not the consciousness that accompanies the behaviour which leads to
future guidance, but the consciousness that arises from the results of
the behaviour. Let us willingly grant that the newly hatched, and as
yet inexperienced chick, when it pecks at a small object is conscious
of a visual impression, and is conscious also of movements of its
neck and beak. These do not constitute the experience by which it
profits. This is provided by the results of the pecking, according as
the morsel seized is nice or nasty. We may say, in popular language,
that the little bird remembers when it sees a similar object that the
former results were pleasant or distasteful, as the case may be; and
that it is through this remembrance that future guidance is rendered
possible. But all the evidence that we possess goes to show that the
sensory centres, stimulated by what we will assume to be the taste
of the morsel, are different from those which are affected by sight,
and the movements concerned in pecking. So that the consciousness
which is effective in guiding future action is an accompaniment of the
stimulation of centres that are different from those concerned in the
behaviour over which guidance is exercised. And if this interpretation
of the observed facts be correct, it supports the conclusions reached
from _a priori_ considerations. It seems further to show that, not
only is a nervous system necessary for the occurrence of controlled
behaviour, but that no little complexity in its intercommunications is
essential.
It may be urged that the chick’s behaviour which has been selected
for purposes of illustration, and the interpretation we have put upon
it, throws too much stress on remembrance, so called, and further
gives the false impression that all experience must be for _future_
guidance. There are surely numberless cases, it will be said, in which
nothing of the nature of distinct memory is involved, and in which the
guidance of consciousness is exercised at once over present behaviour,
without any postponement to the future. Even omitting for the present
the former point, the formula implied--that present experience is
for future guidance--cannot be accepted in view of the familiar fact
that present experience is constantly influencing present behaviour.
Practically speaking, this is perfectly true: because, practically,
under the term present we include quite an appreciable period of
time--say, a few seconds, or even minutes. If we narrow our conception
of the present, as is commonly done in philosophical discussions, to
the boundary line between past and future, then it will be seen that
even the guidance of what in popular speech is called present behaviour
is really exercised on the _subsequent_ phases of that behaviour. At
the risk of some technicality our position must be explained a little
more fully. It is assumed that the data of consciousness are afforded
by afferent impulses coursing inwards from the organs of special sense,
or those concerned in responsive movements. This conclusion rests on
such a wide body of psychological inference that it may be accepted
without discussion, at any rate for our immediate purpose. The efferent
impulses, those which effect the orderly contraction of the muscles,
are unconscious; but when the movement is produced afferent impulses
course inwards from the parts concerned in the behaviour, and these may
then contribute data to consciousness.
Now let us suppose that a chick, which has been hatched in an
incubator, be removed some twelve hours after birth, held in the hands
for a few minutes until its eyes have grown accustomed to the light,
and placed on a table near some small pieces of hard-boiled egg.
Let us watch its behaviour and endeavour to interpret it. We shall
have occasion to consider hereafter whether the conscious experience
of parents and ancestors is inherited as such; for the present we
will assume that it is not. The chick has to acquire for itself its
own experience. A piece of egg catches the eye of the little bird,
which then pecks at it, and just fails to seize it. Here is a piece
of congenital organic behaviour. Taken by itself one might find it
difficult to say whether it is accompanied by consciousness or not,
just as one finds it difficult to say whether the closure of the
Venus’s Fly-trap is conscious. But the subsequent behaviour of the
chick leads us to infer that it is a sentient animal; and we may,
therefore, fairly assume that it is sentient from the first. Dividing
the course of the observed behaviour into stages, we may say that the
first stage is that in which the chick receives a visual stimulus
accompanied by a sensation of sight. Upon this there rapidly follows
the second stage, when the bird pecks, and its experience is widened
by new data of consciousness derived from a group of motor sensations;
and upon this, again, there follows the third stage, when sensations
come in from the morsel of egg which the chick touched but just failed
to seize. After a pause the chick strikes again. But we have not a mere
repetition of the former sequence of stages. The visual stimulus at
first fell upon the eye of a wholly inexperienced bird; now it falls
upon the eye of one that has gained experience of pecking and tasting.
What we may call the _conscious situation_ has completely changed, at
all events if we assume that the items of consciousness, including
as essential the consciousness of behaviour, do not remain separate
and isolated, but have coalesced into a group through association.
And in this group the consciousness of behaving is perhaps the most
important element in the situation, making it of practical value.
What psychologists term the _presentative_ visual stimulus, now calls
up _re-presentative_ elements, motor and gustatory; and these place
the situation in a wholly new aspect. They give it what Dr. Stout
terms “meaning.” On the second or third attempt the chick seizes and
swallows the morsel of egg. Its experience is yet further widened; and
thereafter the situation has other new elements. Later it pecks at
some nasty grub; shakes its head, and wipes its bill on the ground.
The conscious situation has for the future become more complex, and
the behaviour is henceforth differentiated into that of acceptance and
that of rejection, in each case determined by the acquired meaning
in the coalescent conscious situation: the sight of a nice piece of
egg being one situation, that of a nasty caterpillar another, each
associated with its specific behaviour-consciousness. We need not
carry the illustration further on these lines: the essential feature
is that experience grows by the coalescence of successive increments,
and that each increment modifies the situation which takes effect on
the _succeeding_ phases of behaviour, even if they succeed within the
fraction of a second. That is what is meant by saying that present
experience is for future guidance. The future need not be remote, but
may be so immediate that in popular speech we may say that it is not
future but present guidance which is rendered possible.
We may now turn for a moment to the criticism that there are
numberless cases in which nothing of the nature of distinct memory
is involved. We may now substitute for the word remembrance, which
was used above, the more technical term _re-presentation_. Profiting
by experience, regarded as a criterion of the presence of effective
consciousness, involves re-presentative elements in the conscious
situation which carry with them meaning. Let us for the moment assume
an ultra-sceptical attitude with regard to any conscious accompaniment.
The chick when it pecks, let us say, is an unconscious automaton. It
seizes a piece of egg; this affords an unconscious stimulus, which sets
agoing unconscious acts of swallowing; or it seizes a piece of meal
soaked in quinine, which sets agoing unconscious acts of rejection and
touches the hidden springs which make the automaton wipe its bill.
So far we find no great difficulty. It is when we have to consider
subsequent behaviour that a severe strain is felt on this method of
interpretation. One can understand an automatic action repeated again
and again as often as the stimulus is repeated. But the chick may shake
its head and wipe its bill on the mere sight of the quinine-soaked
meal, which, on the hypothesis of conscious experience, has already
proved distasteful. So that if we accept the unconscious automaton
theory we must assume an organic association which closely simulates
the conscious association to which our own experience testifies. But
the associations which take part in the guidance of behaviour in the
chick are so varied and delicate, so closely resemble those which in
ourselves imply conscious guidance, that a sceptical attitude throws
more strain upon our credulity than the acceptance of the current
belief in conscious control. We shall therefore assume that evidence
for such coalescent association is also evidence of the presence of
effective consciousness.
It may still be said, however, that in selecting an example from so
highly organized an animal as a bird, we are taking for granted that a
complex case of controlled behaviour may fairly be accepted as a type
of more simple cases. Unfortunately the only being with whose power
of conscious control we have any first-hand acquaintance is possessed
of a nervous system even more complex than that of the chick. Our
psychological interpretations are inevitably anthropomorphic. All
we can hope to do is to reduce our anthropomorphic conclusions to
their simplest expression. The irreducible residuum seems to be that
wherever an animal, no matter how lowly its station in the scale of
life, profits by experience, and gives evidence of association, it must
have some dim remembrance, or, let us now say, some re-presentation,
of the results of previous behaviour which enters into and remodels
the conscious situation; that through the re-presentative elements
behaviour is somehow guided; and, further, that the centre of conscious
control is different from the centre of response over which the control
is exercised.
II.--THE EARLY STAGES OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT
We use the phrase “mental development” in its broadest acceptation as
inclusive of, and applicable to, all phases of effective consciousness.
We shall assume that throughout this development there is a concomitant
development of nerve-centres and of their organic connections. And we
shall further assume that experience, as such, is not inherited.
The nature of the grounds on which the latter assumption is based must
first be briefly indicated. It is commonly asserted that fear of man,
the inveterate hunter and sportsman, is inherited by many animals, as
is also that of other natural enemies. This is, however, questioned,
or even denied, by many careful observers. Mr. W. H. Hudson has an
excellent chapter on “Fear in Birds” in his “Naturalist in La Plata,”
and concludes that fear of particular enemies is, in nearly all
cases, the result of experience individually acquired. I have found
that pheasants, partridges, plovers, domestic chicks, and other young
birds, hatched in an incubator, show no signs of fear in the presence
of dog or cat, so long as the animal is not aggressive. It should be
mentioned, however, that Miss M. Hunt[17] asserts that chicks do show
inherited fear of the cat. Dr. Thorndike’s[18] observations, on the
other hand, support my own, which I have since repeated with the same
results. Neither birds nor small mammals show any signs of fear of
stealthily moving snakes. My fox terrier smelt, nose to nose, a young
lamb which was lying alone in a field. I was close at hand, and could
detect no indication of alarm on the part of the lamb till the mother
came running up in great excitement. Then the lamb ran off to her dam.
Whenever opportunity has arisen, I have introduced young kittens to my
fox terrier, and have never seen any sign of inherited fear. He was a
great hunter of strange cats, but was trained to behave politely to all
birds and beasts within the precincts of my study. It is true that he
was on good terms, or at least terms of permissive neutrality, with the
kittens’ mother. And it may be said that this was inherited; but such
an argument cannot apply in the case of pheasant or lamb.
Here, as throughout our study of animal behaviour in its conscious
aspect, we have not only to conduct observations with due care, but
to draw inferences with due caution. Douglas Spalding described how
newly hatched turkeys showed signs of alarm at the cry of a hawk; and
he inferred that, since this sound was quite new to their individual
experience, the alarm was due to the inheritance of ancestral
experience of hawks. But since young birds show signs of alarm at any
sudden and unaccustomed sound--a sneeze, the noise of a toy horn, a
loud violin note, and so forth--the safer inference seems to be that
they may be frightened by strange sounds of many kinds. But this
does not imply the inheritance of experience, which is essentially a
discriminating process. There is no sufficient evidence that a peculiar
cry suggests the hawk, of which the progenitors have acquired bitter
experience; nothing to justify the belief that the sound carries
with it inherited meaning. And as with hearing, so with sight. Young
birds may be frightened by many strange objects. I have seen a group
of several species, filled with apparent alarm at a large white jug
suddenly placed among them, at balls of paper tossed towards them, at a
handkerchief dropped in their midst. It is, in fact, their inexperience
which is often the condition of such fear. As Mr. Hudson says:[19] “A
piece of newspaper carried accidentally by the wind is as great an
object of terror to an inexperienced young bird as a buzzard sweeping
down with death in its talons.”
Until recently it was commonly asserted that birds avoid gaudy but
nauseous or harmful insects through the inheritance of experience
gained by their ancestors through many generations. But here again
the inference seems to have been incautiously drawn. Of the hundreds
of young birds I have had under observation, not one has avoided the
peculiarly distasteful cinnabar caterpillar, until it had gained for
itself experience of its nauseous character. So too of wasps and bees.
Only through experience are these avoided. It is true that chicks may
shrink from them if they buzz or even walk rapidly towards them. But a
large harmless fly will inspire just as much timidity. As the result of
careful observations, Mr. Frank Finn[20] concludes “that each bird has
to separately acquire its experience, and well remembers what it has
learnt.” And with this conclusion my own observations are entirely in
accord.
Such is some of the observational evidence on which is based the
provisional hypothesis that experience, as such, is not inherited.
What, then, is inherited? Clearly the organic conditions under which
experience can be acquired. Since a young bird inherits a tendency
to peck at small objects, especially, in the case of some birds such
as plovers or partridges, at small moving objects, opportunities
are afforded for discrimination in accordance with the results of
experience. Since its inherited timidity leads the chick to shrink
from many things seen or heard, a wide range of conscious data is
supplied. Inheritance provides the raw material of organic behaviour
for effective consciousness to deal with in accordance with the results
which are its data.
Having thus cleared the ground and laid bare some at least of the
assumptions which we accept as foundations on which to build, we may
now follow up the line of treatment which was suggested in the first
section of this chapter. Remembering that our aim is to understand the
influence of consciousness on behaviour--or, in more accurate, if more
cumbrous phraseology, the influence of certain nerve-centres which have
for their concomitant what we have termed effective consciousness--the
questions which present themselves in any given case are: What is the
conscious situation which is effective in guidance? what elements
enter into the situation, whence are they derived, and how were they
introduced? how do they take effect in behaviour?
If it be true that, in many of the lower forms of life, consciousness
or sentience, though presumably present in some dim form, is merely
an accompaniment of organic behaviour without reaching the level of
recognizable effectiveness; and if, during the development of one
of the higher animals from the fertilized ovum, the early stages of
organic behaviour are in like manner merely sentient; it follows
that, when effective consciousness enters upon the scene (who can say
at what exact stage of evolution?), it finds itself a partner in a
going concern. Much organic business is being transacted with orderly
regularity; preparations have been made for more extensive operations;
and energies lying dormant, or expending themselves aimlessly in starts
and twitches, await the guidance which shall direct them to higher and
wider biological ends. Or, to vary the analogy, consciousness is the
heir to a wide estate, over which he has no control until he comes of
age. Up to that time the estate is managed in strict accordance with
the dictates of the hereditary bequest. He may be aware of what is
going on, but merely as a spectator without power of interference. And
when he comes into possession his first business is to gather up the
threads. He must learn bit by bit how the estate is being managed, that
he may have data for the guidance of his own management within the wise
limits of the hereditary entail.
Now, when a mammal is born, a bird is hatched, an insect emerges from
the chrysalis, we have, if not the beginning, at any rate a great and
sudden extension of the range of effective consciousness. In the case
of the mammal and bird the experience gained in the womb or within the
egg-shell is presumably of little value for the wider life upon which
an entrance is made. It is true that an insect has passed through a
previous stage of active and no doubt consciously guided existence as
a caterpillar. But we do not know whether the experience thus acquired
is effectual for use in the later imago stage. And we may perhaps
infer from the extensive remodelling of the nervous system, which
occurs during the chrysalis sleep, that this itself serves to break
the continuity of experience. In any case the newly hatched chick, if
it inherit no experience, and can have gained little of guiding value
in the egg, enters upon a situation which from the number and variety
of the data supplied may well seem to us bewildering. If we picture
ourselves in such a position, with sights, sounds, motor sensations,
touches, and pressures raining in upon a virgin experience, we wonder
how we should make a beginning; how we could possibly decide on
the first step towards reducing this multiplicity and diversity to
something like unity and order. And perhaps we wonder how we ourselves
made a beginning when we were pink newly born babies.
If it may be said without paradox, we never did make a beginning. The
beginning was made for us. For we habitually associate ourselves with
the control centres, and regard our bodies, like our watches, as ours
and not us. We wind the bodily watch, and set its hands from time to
time; but we did not make it, and it was already going when heredity
handed it to us over the counter of birth. The first step towards
reducing the seeming chaos of sensory experience to something like
order is not due to the selection by consciousness of this or that
element for prominence among the rest, but to the thrusting forward
of certain modes of behaviour by the conditions of organic life. The
differentiation of the field of vision in the chick is not effected
by any conscious determination to fix the attention on that wriggling
maggot, but through the congenital response it calls forth. This serves
not only to make the grub stand out clearly amid its surroundings, but
also to emphasize a motor group, called into vigorous action in the
midst of other motor sensations, and, in rapid sequence, to lay stress
on a sensation of taste suddenly called into prominence.
Nor, as we have seen, do the organic effects cease here. The functional
action of three sensory centres is thus called into play. But they are
constituent parts of one nervous system. The direct stimulation of each
by nerve impulses from eye, motor organs, and beak, gives temporary
predominance to certain sensory data which are termed presentative. But
the several centres are connected with each other. And thenceforward,
in subsequent stages of experience, the direct stimulation of the
visual centre indirectly calls into play the other two, so that the
presentation through sight evolves re-presentations of the motor group,
and of taste. Hence sentience is not sufficient for guidance; there
must be _consentience_ involving the presence of several elements. But
these elements must not be regarded as separate save in our analysis;
they form constituent parts of the coalescent situation as a whole,
of which alone the chick is presumably conscious, without analysis of
detail.
It is just because the chick is a going concern when consciousness
comes of age and begins to assume control--just because a wide range
of congenital behaviour is part of the organic heritage--that the
early stages of the acquisition of experience proceed so rapidly and so
smoothly. The animal has not to make and fashion the early conscious
situations; it has only to accept them. It has not at first to
enforce order on the multiplicity of sensory data raining in upon the
conscious centres; it has only to take note of the existing order among
them. It has not painfully to learn how to co-ordinate the efferent
impulses proceeding to the many muscles concerned in some simple
response; it has only to be sensitive to the response as a whole. It
has not to select the association of this, that, and the other group
of data within a coalescent situation; organic behaviour provides it
with predetermined sequences ready made--sequences which have for
generations received the emphatic sanction of natural selection.
Congenital tendencies which it has inherited but not acquired determine
all its earliest behaviour, determine what elements in the sensory
complex shall be thrust into conscious prominence, determine in what
manner these data shall be associated; determine, in fact, what salient
points in the developing situations shall stand out clearly from the
rest, and how these salient points shall be grouped and linked by the
connecting threads of association and shall coalesce into effective
wholes.
And if in the comparatively helpless human infant the congenital modes
of response seem less organized than those of the chick, if there is a
larger percentage of random and apparently aimless movements, if the
organic management of the bodily estate is less definitely ordered
by the terms of the hereditary bequest, if there is more of maternal
guidance and fosterage; still the data are provided in a substantially
similar way. The situations are indeed destined to become more complex,
the distinctions which arise in consciousness are more numerous, the
coalescence and association include a wider range and succession of
salient points; a longer time is required to become acquainted with
the transactions of a business conducted in a far greater number
of centres: but, at least in the early stages, the data are of the
same kind, and are emphasized in the same way. Presentation and
re-presentation play a similar _rôle_; and the chief difference lies
in the fact that less stereotyped congenital behaviour is supplemented
by some guidance, probably far less than is generally supposed, from
those who lovingly minister to the course of infant development.
No attempt can here be made to trace even in outline (an outline
which must in any case be imaginary and conjectural) the sequence of
situations which marks the course of mental development in its earlier
stages. An example may, however, serve to show how the exercise of
congenital tendencies may give rise to a new situation, and lead to a
further development of behaviour.
I kept some young chicks in my study in an improvised pen floored
with newspaper, the edges of which were turned up and supported, to
form frail but sufficient retaining walls. One of the little birds,
a week old, stood near the corner of the pen, pecking vigorously and
persistently at something, which proved to be the number on the page
of the turned-up newspaper. He then transferred his attention and his
efforts to the corner of the paper just within his reach. Seizing this,
he pulled at it, bending the newspaper down, and thus making a breach
in the wall of the pen. Through this he stepped forth into the wider
world of my study. I restored the paper as before, caught the bird, and
replaced him near the scene of his former efforts. He again pecked at
the corner of the paper, pulled it down, and escaped. I then put him
back as far as possible from the spot. Presently he came round to the
same corner, repeated his previous behaviour, and again made his escape.
Now, here the inherited tendency to peck at small objects led, through
the drawing down of the paper, to a new situation, of which advantage
was taken. The little drama consisted of two scenes, which may be
sufficiently described as “the corner of the pen,” and “the open way,”
this being the sequence in experience. Subsequently the first scene
was again enacted in presentative terms, and there followed first
a re-presentation of scene ii., with its associated behaviour, and
then the presentative repetition of this scene. We may take this as
a sample of the nature of a conscious situation which is effective
in guidance. We have seen the nature of the elements (sensory data,
including as essential those supplied by the behaviour itself, with a
pleasurable or painful tone) which enter into such a situation; we have
seen that they owe their primary origin to direct presentation, but
that they may be subsequently introduced indirectly in re-presentative
form; we have seen that the situation as a whole results from the
coalescence of the data. There only remains the question how the
felt situation takes effect on behaviour. And to this question,
unfortunately, we can give but a meagre and incomplete reply. All
we can say is, that connections seem to be in some way established
between the centres of conscious control and the centres of congenital
response; and that through these channels the responsive behaviour may
be either checked or augmented (as a whole or in part), according to
the tone, disagreeable or pleasant, that suffuses the situation. How
this is effected we do not fully know.
III.--LATER PHASES IN MENTAL DEVELOPMENT
Some surprise may be felt that in our brief discussion of the early
stages of mental development nothing has been said of percepts and
concepts, nothing of abstraction or generalization. The omission
is not only due to a desire to avoid the subtle technicalities of
psychological nomenclature. It is partly due to the wish not to
forejudge a difficult question of interpretation. Spirited passages of
arms from time to time take place between psychologists in opposing
camps, as to whether animals are or are not capable of forming abstract
and general ideas; and untrained camp followers hang on the skirts
of the fray, making a good deal of noise with blank-cartridge. The
question at issue turns partly on the definitions of technical terms;
partly, when there is agreement on this point, on the interpretation
to be put on certain modes of behaviour. Nothing seems at first sight
much easier than to say what we mean by an abstract idea or by a
general idea. We are thinking about colour, which is both abstract
and general--abstract, because in itself it is a special quality of
visible objects floated off, so to speak, from other qualities, such
as hardness and weight, shape and size; general, because it includes
many different colours in one group. Looking up at the bookshelves, we
see a volume with a red back. We neglect the shape, the contents, the
lettering; it is the colour with which we are immediately concerned,
which forms an important feature in the present thought-situation;
and this is, in virtue of that situation, abstracted from the rest.
But a chick a few days old may have acquired experience of several
kinds of caterpillars much alike in shape and size; of which, one kind
is ringed with orange and black. And while the others are eagerly
seized, caterpillars of this kind are left untouched. It is not the
size or the shape which is an effective element in the situation; it
is the peculiar coloration of the cinnabar caterpillars. Now, does the
effectiveness of this quality in the stimulus justify the inference
that the chick forms an abstract idea of colour? That clearly depends
on our definition of abstract idea, and on our inferences concerning
the nature of the chick’s mind.
A dog lies dozing upon the mat, and hears a step in the porch without.
His behaviour at once shows that this enters into the conscious
situation. There is, moreover, a marked difference according as the
step has the familiar fall of the master’s tread, the well-known
shuffle of the irrepressible butcher’s lad, or an unfamiliar sound.
These several situations are, without question, nicely distinguished.
Let us suppose the situation of the moment is introduced by a strange
footfall. It seems to suggest man; but this cannot be any particular
man, since he is as yet invisible and is a stranger. Does the dog,
then, frame a general idea of man? Does the chamois do so when,
bounding across the snow field, he stops suddenly on scenting the
distant footprints of a mountaineer? Do you do so when you hear the
bleating of an invisible lamb in the meadow behind yonder wall? Here,
again, the answers we give to these questions depend partly on the
exact meaning of the term “general idea;” partly on our interpretation
of what passes through the mind of the being concerned. We have sought,
so far, rather to avoid than to answer these questions. We seem to be
on safe ground so long as we content ourselves with saying that the
orange and black of the cinnabar caterpillar, the strange footfall,
or the trail of the mountaineer, enter as effective elements into the
immediate conscious situation.
But when we pass to the higher phases of mental development we can
no longer wholly ignore such questions. When we are dealing with
intellectual human beings, there can be no doubt that they at least
are capable of framing, with definite intention, and of set purpose,
both general and abstract conceptions. And how do they reach these
conceptions? By reviewing a number of past situations, analyzing them,
intentionally disentangling and isolating for the purposes of their
thought certain elements which they contain, and classifying these
abstracts under genera and species--that is to say, into broader and
narrower groups. The primary and proximate object of this process is to
reach a scheme of thought by which the scheme of nature, as given in
experience, can be _explained_. And, no doubt, underlying this primary
object is the purpose of guiding future behaviour in accordance with
the rational scheme which is thus attained. Man is sometimes described
as _par excellence_ the being who looks before and after. All his
greatest achievements are due to his powers of reflection and foresight.
What share the symbolism of speech takes in the process briefly
indicated in the last paragraph is the subject of much discussion.
Without going so far as to urge that the very beginnings of reflective
thought are inexplicable without its aid, it may be accepted as
obviously true that words are a great assistance. They may be regarded
as intellectual pegs upon which we hang the results of abstraction
and generalization. It may be said that we often think in pictures
or images, and not in words, but the more abstract and general our
thought, the more it is dependent on the symbolic elements.
We may say, then, that the higher phases of mental development are
characterized by the fact that the situations contain the products of
reflective thought, presumably absent in the earlier stages; they are
further characterized by a new purpose or end of consciousness, namely,
to explain the situations hitherto merely accepted as they are given
in presentation or re-presentation; they require deliberate attention
to the relationships which hold good among the several elements of
successive situations; and they involve, so far as behaviour is
concerned, the intentional application of an ideal scheme with the
object of rational guidance. We shall follow Dr. Stout in terming
this later stage of mental development the _ideational stage_; and in
speaking of the simpler situations considered in the preceding section
as belonging to the _perceptual stage_.
It should be observed that we are not attempting to determine just
where, in the scale of organic existence, the line between the
perceptual and the ideational stages of mental development is to be
drawn. We are certainly very far from asserting that the one does not
give rise to the other in the course of an evolution which is orderly
and progressive. We are merely contrasting the rational guidance
of effective consciousness at its best with the earlier embryonic
condition out of which it has arisen by natural genesis. In doing this
we have been forced to make some reference to the difficulties of
technical nomenclature. And some further reference is necessary lest
our point of view be misunderstood.
We shall regard these abstract and general ideas as the products of
an intentional purpose directed to the special end of isolating the
one and of classifying the other; we shall reserve the term _rational_
for the conduct which is guided in accordance with an ideal scheme or
deliberate plan of action; while for behaviour to the guidance of which
no such reflection and deliberation seems to have contributed we shall
reserve the term _intelligent_. If, for example, the rejection of a
cinnabar caterpillar by the chick is the direct result of experience
through the re-presentation in the new situation of certain elements
introduced during the development of a like situation, we shall call
it an intelligent act. But if we have grounds for supposing that the
situation is reflectively considered by the chick in relation to an
ideal and more or less definitely conceived plan of action which is
(perhaps dimly) taking form in its mind, we shall regard it as so
far rational. And so, too, in other cases of animal behaviour. Now,
with regard to the control through which consciousness is effective
in the guidance of behaviour, it is necessary, in view of these
considerations, to distinguish its intelligent from its rational
exercise. And this is of importance since we generally speak of control
in the latter sense in reference to human conduct. Intelligent control
(on the perceptual plane) is due to the direct operation of the results
of experience without the intervention of any generalized conception or
ideal. In rational control (on the ideational plane), such conceptions
and ideals exert a controlling influence. If, to prevent a boy sucking
his thumb we administer bitter aloes, we trust to intelligent control
through the immediate effects of experience; but if he be induced to
give up the habit because it is babyish, he so far exercises rational
control. What we call self-control is of this type. Only one more
distinction need be drawn. Intelligent behaviour, founded on direct
association gained through previous experience, we shall attribute to
_impulse_; but for rational conduct, the outcome of reflection and
deliberation, we seek to ascertain the _motive_. In human affairs our
motives are referred to certain categories each of which presupposes
an ideal scheme, prudential, æsthetic, ethical, or other. To act from
motive and not from impulse is to act deliberately, because we judge
the action to be expedient, seemly, or right, as the case may be. If,
then, we contrast the lower perceptual stages of mental evolution with
the higher ideational phases, the former includes behaviour due to
impulse; but from it conduct due to motive is excluded.
IV.--THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The origin of consciousness, like that of matter or energy, appears
to be beyond the pale of scientific discussion. The appearance of
effective consciousness on the scene of life does indeed seem to
justify the belief in the prior existence of sentience as the mere
accompaniment of organic behaviour. _Ex nihilo nihil fit._ And
since effective consciousness must, on this principle, be developed
from something, it is reasonable to assume that this something is
pre-existing sentience. Again, we may assume that this sentience is a
concomitant of _all_ life-processes, or only of some. But we have no
criterion by which we can hope to determine which of these alternatives
is the more probable.
We appear, however, at all events to have evidence that when effective
consciousness does enter on the scene and play its part in the guidance
of behaviour, its progress is, in technical phraseology, marked by
that differentiation of conscious elements, and that integration of
these differentiated items, which are seemingly the correlatives of
the differentiation and integration of nervous systems. There is thus,
presumably, a progressive development of orderly complexity in the
conscious situations of which controlled or guided behaviour is the
outcome. And when this has reached a certain stage--what stage it is
most difficult to determine--the relationships, at first implicit in
the conscious situations, as they naturally arise in the course of
experience, begin to be rendered explicit with the dawn of reflection.
Intentional abstraction and generalization to which data are afforded
by the reiterated emphasis in experience of the salient features in
successive situations, supply new elements to the more highly developed
situations of rational life. Ideal schemes and plans of action, the
products of reflection and foresight, take form in the mind and enter
into the conscious situation. And the intelligent animal, hitherto the
creature of impulse, guided only by the pleasurable or painful tone
which gives colour to experience, becomes a rational being, capable of
judging how far his own behaviour and that of others is conformable to
an ideal.
If, then, we were asked to characterize in the briefest possible
terms the stages of conscious evolution, we should say that in the
first stage we have consciousness as accompaniment; in the second,
consciousness as guide; in the third, consciousness as judge. And if
we were pressed to apply distinctive terms to these three, we should
adopt St. George Mivart’s term _consentience_ for the mid-phase,
and speak of mere sentience in the first stage; consentience in the
second; and consciousness, with restricted signification, in the
third and highest stage. Such a distinction in terms is, however, a
counsel of perfection, and we shall not attempt to preserve it in the
following pages, in which the word “consciousness” will be used in a
comprehensive sense.
Ever since the publication of Darwin’s “Origin of Species,”
evolutionists have been divided into two sections where consciousness
in the narrower sense is under discussion. The members of the one
have contended that, though the physical and perhaps the lower mental
nature of man is the outcome of evolutionary process, his higher mental
attributes are of other origin. The members of the second section have
urged that the higher not less than the lower characteristics of the
mind of man have been evolved. It is somewhat strange that naturalists
who accept the latter position are not infrequently impatient when
any serious attempt is made to discuss it from the standpoint of
psychology. It is, however, becoming more and more clearly evident that
the discussion of the relation of the animal to the human mind, if it
is to be made a subject of scientific inquiry, must be conducted on
psychological lines by those who have devoted years of study to the
subject. In this work such a discussion will be attempted, and animal
behaviour will be treated as the precursor of human conduct, and as
affording evidence of the germs from which the distinctively human
mental attributes may have been evolved.