§ 197. What must be the ulterior results of this mode of development? Assuming some such process as that above suggested to be the one by which instincts in general are evolved; let us deduce the characteristics of the evolu- tion regarded in. its ensemble, and see how far they agree with the actual characteristics.
The progression from the lower to the higher instincts is, throughout, a progression towards greater speciality and complexity of correspondence. The movement produced in a creature having a rudimentary eye, when an opaque ob- ject is suddenly passed before that eye, is more general and more simple than is the movement produced in a creature which grasps the prey passing before it. In the first case the effect is produced whatever the relative position of the object, providing the obscuration be considerable; in the second case it is produced only when the object is just in front. To the outer relation between a moving opacity and a living solid body, is now added a relation of position; and not only a relation of position but one of magnitude, since the effect is not the same when a large as when a small body is presented. That is to say, the external phenomenon responded to is a co-ordinated group of attri- butes and relations; while internally, there is a co-ordi- INSTINCT. 441 nated group of changes — not a single impression and a single motion, but at least a pair of impressions and a con- siderable complication of motions. The correspondence is alike more complex and more special.
Now, that the evolution of intelligence, if caused by the multiplication of experiences, must follow this order, is demonstrable a priori. Phenomena become less frequent in proportion as they become more complex; and hence, the experiences of them can never be so numerous as are the experiences of simple phenomena. The relation between a passing obscuration and a living body, recurs oftener than the relation between a certain degree of obscuration and danger, or than the relation between a certain other degree of obscuration and food. Again, each of these relations is more general than the relation between a particular size and form of visual impression and an object of a particular class. And again, this relation is more general than that between a particular size, form, and colour of visual impression, and a certain species of that class. The inevitable corollary is, that if inner relations are moulded to outer relations by the accumulation of experiences, the simpler must be established before the more complex.
The necessity of this order will be still better seen on re- membering that complex relations, both external and in- ternal, being composed of simple ones, must be preceded by simple ones. Before there can exist the objective relations implied in the action of one body on another, there must exist the objective relations implied in the existence of each body. And similarly, before complex subjective rela- tions can be established there must have been established the simpler subjective relations they are composed of.
Observing that this inference from the experience-hypo- thesis harmonizes with the facts, so far as they are accessible to us, let us go on to observe some important corollaries.
§ 198. If simple and general relations in the environment 442 SPECIAL SYNTHESIS, must be those most frequently experienced, and those tc which, the response first becomes decided; if environing relations a grade less simple and general are thus rendered appreciable., and by a repeated,, though a less-frequently re- peated, experience, also establish answering internal rela- tions; and if this process slowly extends to relations suc- cessively more complex and special, and less frequent; then there will ultimately be established in the organism, nume- rous psychical relations having different degrees of cohesion. While an infinity of experiences will have rendered the first and simplest of these psychical relations indissoluble; while experiences extremely numerous, though less numerous, may have given indissolubleness to psychical relations one degree more complex or two degrees more complex or three degrees more complex; it is manifest that among relations increas- ingly involved and decreasingly frequent, there must come a stage at which the answering psychical relations are not indissoluble. This may be conveniently illustrated by symbols.
Let A and B represent two attributes of matter in general — say extension and resistance — to the constant relation be- tween which a responsive relation has been established in the organism. Let C and D be two extremely general at- tributes of animal matter — say motion and life — to which also there is a responsive internal relation. It will be at once understood that experiences of the united group of attributes A, B, C, D, recurring as they do in every living creature met with, may eventually establish an answering connexion of internal relations that is practically as absolute as the original ones. It is also comprehensible that if the creatures serving for prey are below a certain size, L, while those found to be enemies are mostly of a much greater size^ M; continued experience may establish different or- ganic responses to the different groups of co-existent attri- butes, A, B, C, D, L, and A, B, C, D, M. And it is not difficult to see that when each of these large classes comea INSTINCT. 443 INSTINCT. 443 to be distinguishable into sub-classes — say by means of dif- ferences of colour — the experiences of the two groups A B C D L S, and A B C D L T, and of the two groups A B C D M P, and A B C D M Q, may still be severally numerous enough to make the answering psychical actions automatic. But,, clearly, along with more involved and more varied groups there must eventually come imperfect psychical cohesions. As, by successive additions of perceived attri- butes and relations, the psychical states become more com- plex; and as each more complex combination of psychical states corresponding to a more special kind of object is, by consequence, less frequently repeated in experience; it fol- lows from the general law we are tracing out that its com- ponents cannot be so completely integrated. Not only must the clustered internal states by which the clustered external properties are symbolized, be less definitely aggregated (or at any rate the more recently added of them); but the com- posite impression they form must have a smaller power of producing the specially co-ordinated motions by which a fit adjustment is made.
The implication lies on the surface. If, as the instincts rise higher and higher, they come to include psychical changes that are less and less coherent with their funda- mental ones; there must arrive a time when the co-ordina- tion is no longer perfectly regular. If these compound reflex actions, as they grow more compound, also become less decided; it follows that they will eventually become comparatively undecided. They will begin to lose their j distinctly automatic character. That which we call Instinct I will merge into something higher. v The facts are thus rendered comprehensible. We see? that, if produced by experience, the evolution of Instinct must proceed from the simple to the complex, and that by 3i progression thus wrought out, it must insensibly pass into| a higher order of psychical action; which is j'ist what wej iind it to do in the higher animals.
CHAPTEB VI- MEMORY.
§ 199. Tliat growing complication of the correspondence -which, as we have just seen, necessitates aJransi^Qn^jrpjn actions to non-automatic actions, brings with it of the 'process of correspondence into parts. In its simple form, the adjustment of certain inner relations to certain outer relations is one indivisible action; but in its complex form, such adjustment consists of several stages admitting of greater or less dissociation from one another — capable of "becoming fragments of correspondences. Thus, j among others, results the order of psychical actions known as Memory.
While, in any instinctive act, we see an entire process of bringing internal relations into harmony with external relations, Memory, taken alone, exhibits relations in.,conjsciousness *wnich do §.qts include any active adjustment of TEe organism to relations in the environment. Though I those successions of ideas which constitute Memory, nearly all represent past experiences of the outer world; yet, as many if not most of them stand for past experiences of the outer world that are fortuitously combined, it is clear that, even considered as fragments of correspondences, they cannot be held to have as marked a harmony with the environment as have the homologous parts of automatic actions. True, each act of recollection is the establishment MEMOBY. 445 of an inner relation answering to some outer relation; but as that outer relation is often a transitory one,, the inner relation established in the act of recollection is often one answering to no relation now existing or ever likely to exist again; and in that sense is not a correspondence. The • correspondence here becomes evanescent.
Prom this it will probably be inferred that a satisfactory account of Memery, as viewed from our present stand-point,; is impracticable. The doctrine that all psychical changes are interpretable as incidents of the correspondence between the organism and its environment, seems to be at fault. Besides the fact that part of the psychical changes con- stituting Memory have reference to no existing outer rela- tions, there is the further fact that many trains of thought have apparently little or nothing to do with adjusting the COD duct to the requirements. But though the position of Memory in the psychological system here sketched out, may not be at once understood, we need only pursue the synthesis a step further to see how Memory results from/ that same process of development by which Instinct., becom- 1 ing morjTaScL more complicated, finally merges into the] higher forms of psychical action.
Some clue will be gained on observing that while,, on the one hand, Instinct may be regarded as a kind of organized memory; on the other hand., Memory may be regarded as a k^i,pf w^r^ejit instinct. The automatic actions of a bee building one of its wax cells, answer to outer relations so constantly experienced that they are, as it were, organically remembered. Conversely, an ordinary recollection implies a cohesion of psychical states which becomes stronger by repetition, and so approximates more and more to the in- dissoluble, the automatic, or instinctive cohesions. But leaving rough suggestions, let us take up the general argu- ment from the point reached at the close of the last chapter, § 200. So long as the psychical changes are completely £40 SPECIAL STOTHESIS.
automatic, Memory, as we understand it, cannot exist— there cannot exist those irregular psychical changes seen in the association of ideas. But when, as a consequence of ad- vancing complexity and decreasing frequency in the groups of external relations responded to, there arise groups of internal relations which are imperfectly organized and fall short of automatic regularity; then, what we call Memory becomes nascent. For the elucidation of this we must again have recourse to symbols.
As before, let A B 0 D, represent the group of co- existent attributes common to living bodies in general. Let Q} £ gy stand for the further attributes distinctive of some class of creatures mostly serving for prey. And let h, k, be the attributes peculiar to some species of that class, which, when attacked, defends itself in a particular way; while A, m, are the somewhat similar attributes peculiar to another species whose defence is a retaliation worse than the attack. We have, then, two very similar complex groups of co- existent attributes, ABODefgA7c, and A B 0 D e f g Ji m, which, by the hypothesis, are not frequently repeated in experience; but which, when they do occur, are attended by different consequences. The attributes A, B, C, D, being presented in every experience of living creatures, are responded to by automatically-connected internal states. Similarly, e, f, g, the attributes of creatures serving for prey, being extremely general, have also answering internal states that are automatically - connected with the first and with those motor changes which the presentation of prey calls for. But A, &, and Ti, m, not recurring so often, are represented by internal states that are not organically co-ordinated with their respective groups, or with the motor changes which those groups should produce, Such being the conditions of the case, what must happen?
In the first place, the mere complication in the sets of im- pressions serving as stimuli to special actions, itself implies .something like a nascent Memory. For as, on the one haind, MEMORY". 44 7 the nervous centre by which any impressions A, B. G. I), e, f, g, h, K} are co-ordinated, cannot receive all these impressions at absolutely the same instant; and as, on the other hand, the special actions to be produced can be pro- duced only by co-operation of all these impressions; it follows that they must severally have some slight per- sistence, so that the last may arise before the first fades away.
Not to dwell on this, however, let us now observe that since the states answering to hy k, and those answering to h, m, have been unfrequently connected with their respective groups of states and the sequent actions, the nervous changes by which they are themselves produced and by which they produce subsequent changes, must be slow. Psychical states that often recur in a given order, not only become increas- r ingly coherent but the transitions from each to the next j become more and more rapid; and, conversely, the cohesion of psychical states that have been rarely connected, is not only feeble but the transitions take appreciable times — a fact well exemplified in learning a language. But the toler- ably deliberate succession of psychical states is one of the conditions to Memory. A remembrance implies a conscious- ness, and a consciousness implies a perceptible duration. The nervous states which are gone through instantaneously — as those by which we infer the distances of the objects we look at — do not enter into what we term Memory at all: we are unconscious of them because they have no appreciable persistence. Hence, the occurrence of these comparatively- slow psychical changes is a step towards the evolution of Memory.
A further consequence is now to be noted. When either i, of the groups of attributes ABCD e f g /& &, or A B . B C D e f g, produced in common by both of them, and t, by all creatures serving for prey, tends to excite the actions I by which prey is ordinarily caught. At the sane time the 443 SPECIAL SYNTHESIS.
impression produced by h lc, or h m, as the case may be, tends to excite those modified actions which occurred in experience after it. Not only, however, is the actual pro- duction of these modified actions uncertain, from the ex- perience having been insufficiently repeated, but either of the two tendencies must be partially opposed by the other. The impression resulting from the attribute Ji, being common to both groups, tends equally to excite either of the modified sets of actions; while from & the incipient effect is a particular mode of attack, and from m the incipient effect is running i way. Hence, one general and two special sets of actions are instigated; and from the balance of the instigations, it \ will often happen that no immediate action at all ensues. i The various psychical states involved in each set of motions, severally become nascent; but none of them reach that intensity which they would have were the motions per- formed. In the chief nervous centre the different impres- sions serve as different motor impulses; and these, being severally supplanted by one another before they pass into actual motor changes, will each of them consist of an inci- pient or faint form of that nervous state which would have accompanied the actual motor change had it occurred. But such a succession of states constitutes remembrance of the motor changes which thus become incipient — constitutes a rnetnn-ry. To remember a motion just made with the arm, is to have a feeble repetition of those internal states which accompanied the motion — is to have an incipient excitement of those nerves which were strongly excited during the motion. Thus, then, these nascent nervous excitements that conflict with one another, are really so many ideas of the motor changes which, if stronger, they would cause; or rather, they are the objective sides of those changes which are -ideas on their subjective sides. Consequently, Memory necessarily comes into existence whenever automatic action is imperfect.
Tins, however, is not all Besides a memory of its own MEMORY.
movements and modes of action, there results in the or- ganism a memory of those combinations of impressions it receives through the senses. Under its primary form this advance is a concomitant of the advance just described. As the external groups of attributes and relations responded to become more complex,, and by implication more infrequent, the answering psychical changes become more loosely con- nected with one another and with the motor changes appro- priate to them**; and the groups of impressions being less coherent, a nascent memory of the component impressions becomes possible. But under its secondary or derivative form, this advance is a far larger one, as we shall now see. For the same progress which gives the ability to receive the complex impressions required to de- termine complex actions, gives the ability to receive com- plex impressions which do not tend to determine any actions at all. Evolution of the senses and the nervous system, while it makes possible the discrimination of various kinds of enemies and prey, by the special combinations of attri- butes they severally present, also makes possible the discrimination of various other objects. The power of co- ordinating the impressions of size, form, colours, motions, which stand for a particular animal, is likewise a power of co-ordinating the impressions that stand for trees, plants, stones, and surrounding things- Most of these surrounding things, however, have no immediate relations to the needs of the organism — are not habitually followed by special motor changes; and therefore do not tend to excite motor changes. But while the clustered psychical states produced by the clustered properties of inanimate objects have usually no direct connexions with the actions, they have direct connexions with one another of all degrees of constancy; and, by consequence, have all degrees of the tendency to arouse one another, While the absolutely -persistent rela- tions among external attributes, are responded to by inseparable relations of psychical states; the others, in their 450 SPECIAL SYNTHESIS.
respective grades of persistence., are responded to by psy- chical states proportionate in their degrees of cohesion. Hence, of the impressions produced by adjacent objects during the movements of the organism, each is apt to make nascent certain other impressions with which it has been connected in experience — calls up ideas of such other im- pressions; that is, causes a remembrance of the attributes previously found in connexion with the perceived attributes. As these psychical states have in their turns been connected with others, they tend to arouse such others; and thus there arises that succession of ideas, partly regular, partly irregular, which we call Memory — regular in so far as the connexions of external phenomena are regular, and irregu- lar in so far as the groups of those phenomena occur irregularly in the environment.
§ 201. This truth, that Memory comes into existence when the involved connexions among psychical states render their successions imperfectly automatic, is in harmony with e obverse truth, that as fast as those connexions among psychical states which we form in Memory5 grow by constant ^repetition automatic, they cease to be part of .Memory. We do not speak of ourselves as recollecting re- lations which have become organically registered. We re- collect those relations only of which "the registration is in- complete. No one remembers that the object at which he looks has an opposite side; or that a certain modification of the visual impression implies a certain distance; or that tho 'jthing he sees moving about is a live animal. To ask a man whether he remembers that the sun shines, that fire burns, that iron is hard, would be a misuse of language. Even .the almost fortuitous connexions among our experiences, c^ase to be classed as memories when they have become .thoroughly familiar. Though, on hearing the voice of some unseen person slightly known to us, we say we recollect to whom the voice belongs, we do not use the same expression MEMORY. 451 respecting tiie voices of those with whom we live. The meanings of words which in childhood have to be cou^ sciously recalled, seem, in adult life to be immediately pre- sent.. But the clearest instance of the gradual lapse of memor^Jntp automatic cohgrgjace, is yST3ed by the musician. Originally, he was taught that each marl: on* the paper has a certain name, and implies that a particular key on the piano is to be struck; and during his first lessons, each recurrence of this mark was accompanied with a distinct process of recollecting which key on the piano he must strike. By long- continued practice, however, the series of psychical changes that occur between seeing this mark and striking this key, have been reduced into one almost automatic change. The visual perception of the crot- chet or quaver; the perception of its position on the lines of the stave, and of its relation to the beginning of the bar; the consciousness of the place on the piano where the answering key lies; the consciousness of the muscular ad- justments required to bring the arm, hand, and finger, into the attitudes requisite for touching that key; the conscious- ness of the muscular impulse which will give a blow of the due strength, and of the time during which the muscles must be kept contracted to produce the right length of note — all these mental states, which were at first so many sepa- rate recollections, ultimately constitute a succession so rapid that the whole of them pass in an instant. As fast as they cease to be distinct states of mind — -as fast as they cease to fill appreciable places in consciousness, so fast do they be- come automatic. The two things are two sides of the same thing. And thus it happens that the practised pianist can play while conversing with those around — while his* memory is occupied with quite other ideas than the mean- ings of the signs before him., * Now the fact that in ourselves psychical states which are originally connected by the process we call recollection, be- come by perpetual repetition, connected automatically o: .,..-:. ^-vf-lr Is manifestly the obverse of the fact that as, '^^^jVvil. pment of the instincts, the psychical states ,, ^ -* Allure involved groups that are less frequently *', VrCthtrl occur among them connexions that are not "A /7l^ one fact confirms our deduction of the other.
*\ 3^-Liorv, then, pertains to that class of psychical ^M;.-h are in process of being organized. It continues > *,a the organizing of them continues, and disappears * L.*• animation of them is complete. In the advance <. impendence, each more complex cluster of attri- * -,zi.l relations which a creature acquires the power , r j-ii-'zing- is responded to at first irregularly and un- * -,"i^ • aiiJ there is then a weak remembrance. Byraul- M>* at"< ^ cf.xperiences this remembrance is made stronger — 'L. IL, ^rnal cohesions are better adjusted to the external ^ -i-*t'L j_-; and the response is rendered more appropriate. %! *• *•,uT multiplication of experiences^ the internal rela- * • -, r- ^t last structurally registered in harmony with the ..i! nus; and so^ conscious memory passes into uncon- »- i r cr=anic memory. At the same time,, a new and * i" L. r complex order of experiences is rendered appreci- .. TLj relations that occur between these groups of I L *:; mena that have thus been severally integrated in i^icusness occupy Memory in place of the relations betn t a the components of each group. These become gradu- . y ^.rjamzed; and^ like the previous ones, are succeeded iy others more complex still.
f i CHAPTER VII.
REASON.
§ 203. That tlie commonly-assumed hiatus between Reason and Instinct has no existence, is implied both in the argument of the last few chapters and in that more general argument elaborated in the preceding part. The General Synthesis,, by showing that all intelligent action whatever is the effecting of correspondences between internal changes and external co-existences and sequences, and by showing that this continuous adjustment of inner to outer relations progresses in Space, in Time, in Speciality, in Generality, and in Complexity, through insensible gradations; implied that thejujrfiest forms of psychical activity arise little bvi little quA.of,,, the lowest, and cannot be definitely separated; from them. Not only does the recently-enunciated doctrine, that the growth of intelligence is throughout determined by| the repetition of experiences, involve the continuity of ^Beason} with Instinct; but this continuity is involved in the pre- viously-enunciated doctrine.
The im|)ossibilityj)f establishiag any line of demarka^n| between the two may be clearly demonstrated, If every in-f stinctive action is an adjustment of inner relations to outer relations, and if every rational action is also an adjustment of inner relations to outer relations y then, any alleged dis- tinction can have no other bask than some difference in the characters of the relations to which the adjustments are made. It must be that while, in Instinct, the correspondence is- be- 45| SPECIAL SYNTHESIS.