A later utterance of Bain's comes nearer, as far as I am sure that I understand it, to the recognition of my view of the general value of pleasure and pain in the theory of organic accommodation. He says in his last edition: ^ "The law that a movement bringing pain tends to be arrested, and a movement bringing pleasure to be pro- moted, is with some plausibility referred to a general prin- ciple of nervous action, whereby, seeing that pleasure is in so many cases associated with increase, and pain with diminution, of vital energy, there should grow out of this circumstance a disposition of pleasure to feed, and of pain to sap its own producing energy [by an adaptation of movements by which the stimulation giving pleasure is retained, on one hand, and that giving pain broken with, on the other hand]. There is an undoubted consistency between the two sides of our being on this hypothesis " [of what I have called an 'imitative ' or 'circular activity ']...** The hypothesis in question demands for its ade- ^ See the quotation from Bain above.
2 Bain, Senses and Intellect^ 4th ed., pp. 328 f.
196 The Theory of Dcvelop7nent.
quacy a far-reaching, although not incredible or impossible, assumption — viz., that the tendency of pleasure, through the medium of its physical accompaniments, to heighten for the moment the activities of the framework in general, somehow finds a way to concentrate upon the specific move- ment adapted to the precise case \i.e., adapted to bring the organism into continued relation to the pleasure-giving stimulus]. This is a very large demand in itself and would seem to need a large number of chance experiments [or a congenital variation producing a bifurcate division of move- ments into 'expanding' and 'contracting' respectively] be- fore the lucky coincidence is reached. The hypothesis is by no means impossible...its natural place is under the hypothesis of Evolution, where it is an important, if not indispensable, item." ^ We now find ourselves introduced to another class of facts, which, when interpreted, lead us to another funda- mental innovation in the theory of adaptation.
It is evident that we have been dealing with the ques- tion of ontogenetic adaptation so far, the question as to how the indi\ idual organism manages to get new adapta- tions. Later on I shall ask how the fact of heredity can secure the preservation for the species of the adaptations secured by the individual. But when we come to view the general fact of race adaptation as a whole, the ques- 1 I think it well to say that Professor Bain in a private letter wrote me that he was taking account of my article on 'Imitation' in Mind (January, 1894). As he makes no reference, however, to my paper in his book, 1 may be wrong in thinking this to be a passage in which ho had my article in view. I may even be wrong in thinking that the 'hypothesis' he speaks of is capable of being interpreted in the way I have in the additions made by me in brackets in the text. In that case, the quotation may be read simply as a further exposition of my own views put largely in Professor Bain's words.
Citrrcnt Biological Theory of Adaptation. 197 tion which we have just been discussing takes on a further interest.
It has been needful to assume that in the simplest organic forms which have contractility, and which are able to adapt themselves by their movements to their environment — that in such forms the analogue of pleasure is a central excess process which discharges itself in movement. The question for phylogenesis, then, which comes upon us is this: how did this condition of things arise, and what form must we hold these excess move- ments to take.?
This question Mr. Bain simply begs. His principle of ' spontaneity ' is his starting-point; and he does not even see, as I have said above, that spontaneity must itself be construed in terms of some form of process which accounts for an organism's expenditures of energy in terms of such stimulations as its food-processes, etc. Hoffding says in reference to the fact of spontaneity: ^ " The inter- nal changes, which set free potential energy, must, in their turn, depend on the function of nourishment. The spon- taneous movement of living creatures is possible only because life itself is an uninterrupted process of taking in and using up certain constituents. Absolute spontaneity would be a consumption of one's own fat." It is evident that Bain never brings the genetic point of view into his theories, except by the merest attempts at grafting the evolution idea upon the trunk of his analysis of the actions of developed organisms.
Mr. Spencer, on the contrary, does attempt to account for the rise of the heightened nervous process in indi- viduals. He considers it a concentration of the energies 1 OutliJies of Psychology, p. 309, 198 The Theory of Developrnent.
of reaction into particular pathways; and so, indeed, it must be. But to him, also, it is an ontogenetic acquire- ment. It follows upon the first lucky adaptive movement, as we have seen above.
This account we now see to be inadequate, since it assumes, as I have shown at length, that when certain stimulations are present — stimulations covered by the vague word ' adjustments,' which the lucky movement happens to strike — these stimulations serve by their action to heighten the central processes. So the whole question remains quite unanswered as to why any stimula- tions do thus heighten the central processes, and so give an excess discharge in movement. Of course, the only answer is that those processes of stimulation do this to which the organism is already accommodated — those under the action of which it has come to be what it is — its food-supply, oxygen, chemical agents, gravity, contacts, etc., etc.
The general fact of adaptation by chance adjustments occurring among excessive diffused movements is, of course, true — that I have exemplified above in my theory of the rise of handwriting.^ What is not accounted for on the current theory is just the spontaneous or excessive movements, from which the selection is made. These, in my view, are due to the heightened central processes excited by vitally appropriate stimuli. This seems so ele- mentary and simple that it would not be worth while to speak further of it were it not for another fact, to which I may now revert.
Biologists find among very first adaptations of the organ- isms, the earliest in the phylogenetic series — in the mi- Current Biological Theory of Adaptation. 199 nutest bacteria, the most formless protozoa, the unicellular creatures of a day; in plants, in all life — a certain fun- damental difference of movements. All organisms behave in two great and opposite ways toward stimulations; they approach them, or they recede from them. Creatures which move as a whole move toward some kinds of stimu- lations, and recede from others. Creatures which are fixed in their habitat expand toward certain stimulations, and contract away from others. It is very evident that if this be true, the very uniformity of the relation entitles it to a place in any theory of development. And the question at once arises: why is it that we find these two well-marked differences in behaviour in each organism, whatever its type and place in the scale of animate nature.'' ^ Now if we assume this to be a fact in nature — I devote an entire chapter further on to the consideration of the facts, under the phrase ' Organic Imitation ' — that an organism tends to approach, move, strain, toward cer- tain stimulations, and away from others, it becomes easy to connect the fact with our former account of develop- ment, and to hold that the stimulations which the organ- ism tends toward are those which heighten its vitality, which give it pleasure, and those from which it draws back are those whose effect upon it is the contrary — the damag- ing, the painful ones. This is on the surface the most natural thing in the world for nature to do — to endow her creatures with a great power of self-preservation and self- 1 "Coextensive with the phenomena of excitability — that is to say, with the phenomena of Hfe — we find this function of selective discrimination — this power of discriminating among stimuli and responding to those which are the stimuli to which responses are appropriate." — Romanes, Mental Evolution in Anitnals, p. 51.
200 The Theory of Development.
improvement. An organism does not have to wait for a pleasure to come along, but after it has once had it, it can go out after it; nor to remain exposed to a pain, but after once experiencing it, it can retire with discretion.
This follows in such simple order from what we have found to be the method of adaptation — in each case by a movement whose adjustment consists just in its appro- priateness to secure a good stimulation — that the facts of biology which show this first contrast in movements are only what we would expect. And they tend in so far also to confirm the earlier view as to the method.
Coming to interpret this new result, therefore, we see that our early random, spontaneous, movements are not random or spontaneous at all. The ontogenetic growth of the individual at any race stage starts with this fun- damental adjustment of movements to the stimulations under which the phylogenetic development has so far pro- gressed. And it is only a statement of the law of phylo- genetic development to say that this antithesis of outward movements, expansions, on one hand, and withdrawing movements, contractions, on the other, is due to natural selection working among organisms; the first application of natural selection spoken of above in my introductory sketch of the theory of development.^ So when we come to consider phylogeny and ontogeny 1 I have the authority of Mr. Spencer for making the abihty to move toward or away from an object a sufficient cue to the operation of natural selection, i.e., in the development of the bilateral nervous system and the system of antagonistic muscles (^Loc. cit., I., § 233). But he entirely fails to see that the same thing is done by the minute creatures which swarm to red light and away from blue light, although they have no nervous or muscular systems at all. Dr. Ward also appeals to natural selection in discussing this subject as follows: " At first when only random movements ensue, we may fairly suppose both Cuj^rcnl Biological Theory of Adaptation.
together we find that if by an organism we mean a thing merely of contractility or irritability, whose round of move- ments is kept up by some kind of nutritive process sup- plied by the environment — absorption, chemical action of atmospheric oxygen, etc. — and whose existence is threat- ened by dangers of contact and what not, the first thing to do is to secure a regular supply to the nutritive pro- cesses, and to avoid these contacts. But the organism can do nothing but move, as a whole or in some of its parts. So then if one of such creatures is to be fitter than another to survive, it must be the creature which by its movements secures more nutritive processes and avoids more danger- ous contacts. But movements toward the source of stim- ulation keep hold on the stimulation, and movements away from contacts break the contacts, that is all. Nature se- lects these organisms; how could she do otherwise } This, too, is consonant with all that we know of growth. Increased vitality tends to enlargement, range of move- ment, activity, while lessened vitality and organic decay tend to the opposite series of effects, shrinking, contraction of range, torpidity.
We only have to suppose, then, that the nutritive growth processes are by natural selection drained off in organic expansions, to get the division in movements which repre- sents this earliest bifurcate adaptation. Then inside of that the chance of at once making a happy hit would be small and that the number of chances would also be small. Under such circumstances natural selection would have to do almost everything and sul)jective selection almost nothing. So far as natural selection worked we should have, not the indi- vidual subject making a series of tries and perfecting itself by practice, but we should have those individuals whose stuff and structure happened to vary for the better, surviving, increasing, and displacing the rest." — EncycL Brit., Art. ' Psychology,' p. 73.
^02 The Theory of Development.
this group of expansive movements — 'spontaneities' or 'heightened discharges' — it becomes the sphere of onto- genetic growth to secure the further refinements of adjust- ment which the phenomena of 'excess' — now identified both with pleasurable experience in consciousness and with motor discharges giving out-reaching movements — enables the organism to secure.
Finally, we found the Spencer-Bain theory to make one other presupposition. It requires a relatively constant, unchanging environment, in order to give the repetitions of stimulation which development requires. The organism is supposed to be battered, stormed, by repeated stimulations of the same general kinds. In this, the purely biological theories of development concur; by which I mean those theories which do not call in the pleasure-pain process at all, but rely simply upon the repetition of stimulations and reactions, and the resulting compounding of processes which these repetitions are supposed to give.
It is now evident that my theory renders the organism much less dependent upon such regularity and constancy in the environment. Creatures which have, in their own method of reaction, a way of reaching after the stimula- tions which they need — a way of retaining contact with the source of supply, say of food, or oxygen, or sunlight, or heat, or of increasing their forces by actually moving toward it, these creatures, can, in a measure, find or make for themselves the regularities which the environment may not guarantee.^ So, also, can they by their natural capac- 1 Think, for example, the difference it makes in the possible time required for the evolution of sense organs such as the eye, if we allow the organism a form of reaction which moves it toward the source of the light stimul- ation. Cf. Spencer's doctrine on this point. Psychology, I,, §§ 231 f.
Current Biological Theory of Adaptation. 203 ity of withdrawing from what is pain-giving, avoid and escape harmful things to which they are, perchance, con- stantly exposed. It is possible that the faculty of local movement, locomotion, possessed by animals, in contrast with plants, is simply a further emphasis of this very useful distinction in reactions. This follows, indeed, of necessity, when we come to see below, that the sys- tem of 'antagonistic' muscles is a product of just this original contrast of reaching and withdrawing move- ments.
When, further, we come to mental development proper, in later chapters of this work, we will see that this is exactly the method of that highest of all functions of accommodation, adaptation by volition. When we will to escape that which is brought upon us by the regular laws of nature, we simply adopt means of withdrawal from it by anticipation; and, on the other hand, we secure those pleasant and beneficial experiences which the environment of our lives would not, in itself perhaps, have brought us, by willing to go out and find them.
It is evident from what has now been said, that the fundamental difference between my theory and that cur- rent among psychologists, concerns the first 07'ganic adap- tation. On my theory, the first adaptation \s phylogenetic; i.e., it is a variation. By the operation of natural selection among organisms, those survive which respond by expan- sion to certain stimulations of food, oxygen, etc., and by contraction to other certain stimulations; this expansion gives, by reason of the new stimulations which it brings within range, a heightened central process which is the organic basis of the hedonic consciousness; and this issues in the varied excess movements from which the ontoge- 204 The Theory of Development.
netic adaptations of the individual organism are selected by association, as fitted in turn to perpetuate the stimula- tions which give pleasure, and so again to arouse the excess process, and so on.
The current Spencer-Bain theory, on the contrary, holds, as I understand it, that the first adaptation is 07itoge7ietic; i.e., it is due to accidental adjustments occurring among diffused or spontaneous movements of a single organism, these adjustments giving a heightened central process which is the organic basis of the hedonic consciousness, and which issues again in excess movements from which again further adjustments are selected by chance; these adjustments all being made permanent by the association between the idea of the movements thus giving pleasure, and the memories of the pleasure which they give.
With these criticisms, the outline of the theory of development stands out clearly enough, I think. I shall now go on to show briefly that the theory would not be affected by the truth or falsity of either of the opposed views of heredity now so bitterly opposed to each other in biological circles.
§ 3. Development and Heredity.
No theory of development is complete, in general opin- ion, which does not account for the transmission in some way, from one generation to another, of the gains of the earlier generations, turning individual gains into race gains. I wish, therefore, to inquire briefly what treat- ment the view of development held above has a right to expect from the two current theories of heredity.
The neo-Darwinians hold that natural selection, operat- Development and Heredity, 205 ing upon congenital variations, is adequate to explain all progressive race gains. This theory, therefore, is able to dispense with the ontogenetic acquirements of the par- ticular organism. It accordingly denies that what an individual experiences in his lifetime, the gains he makes in his adaptations to his surroundings, can be transmitted to his sons.
This theory, it is evident, can be held on the view of development sketched above. For, granting the onto- genetic progress required by the Spencer-Bain theory and adopted in my own, — the learning of new movements in the way which I have called 'organic selection,' — yet the ability to do it may be a congenital variation. Indeed, I have made the excess process itself, which gives the movements from which * organic selection ' selects the fittest, together with the great antithesis of expansions and contractions with pleasure and pain, just such vari- ations seized upon by natural selection. And all the later acquirements of individual organisms may likewise be con- sidered only the evidence of additional variations from these earlier variations. So it is only necessary to hold to a view by which variations are cumulative to secure the same results by natural selection as would have been secured by the inheritance of acquired characters from father to son. Mr. Spencer and others seem to me to be quite wide of the mark in saying that the only alternative to the inheritance of acquired characters is a doctrine of * special creation.' The life history of the mammal embryo shows us, as a matter of fact, as we have already seen, a single creature going through many of the variations of the race series, without giving us the actual life-history of the beings which in their lives represented any single one 2o6 The Theory of Developme^tt.
of these stages. As Balfour says: ^ " Each organism re- produces the variations inherited from all its ancestors, at successive stages in its individual ontogeny which corre- spond with those at which the variations appeared in its ancestors." The embryological record emphasizes the vari- ations, not the means by which they were produced, nor their detailed organic outcome in particular generations.^ The problem which is left on the hands of the neo- Darwinian, therefore, is to construct a theory of variations. The ' why,' the ' how much,' the ' in what direction,' of vari- ation — these questions he must answer. And, of course, the burden of proof lies on him to show that his adversa- ries have not correctly answered the question of ' the how ' of variation by their hypothesis of the transmission of acquired characters.
It is not as generally seen, however, that the only way that such a theorist can answer these questions is by an actual examination of existing variations both as to the facts of their existence and of their modes of develop- ment. He must recognize all the processes of the devel- opment of the individual in order to define the variation which rendered these results possible in the life of the individual. This is what gives value to the Spencer-Bain theory, considered as an attempt to define the actual ontogenetic process of adaptation. On the basis of that theory we may ask the question, therefore: how can or- ganic selection — individual growth in adaptation — be a fact.? What is the neurological process seen in it and 2 And this emphasis is made more emphatic, possibly, in the light of the ' discontinuous variations ' recently discussed by Bateson, and earlier pointed out by Gallon under the name of ' sports.'
Developme7it and Heredity. 207 what kind of congenital variations does the presence of this process presuppose?
The theory of individual adaptation, accordingly, comes first as a matter both of fact and of interpretation, and should be treated quite apart from the problem of hered- ity. We are justified accordingly, from the point of view of the neo-Darwinian theory, in attempting to answer it in the preceding pages.
The same is true also from the point of view of the neo-Lamarkian theory of heredity, as is evident; for just such examination and interpretation of the facts of indi- vidual experience and development supplies on this theory the very means and method of interpreting hereditary race progress. Granting the inheritance of acquired characters, of course the biologist then asks: Well, what has the indi- vidual at each stage been able to acquire, and how did he acquire it.'* This is what we have been attempting to answer above.
It is being gradually recognized by biologists that the requirements of fact are about equally well served by either theory, which means that facts have not yet re- futed either theory. Whatever a particular creature may be endowed with, he may have got in either way — or in both together. Instinct, for example, may be held to have a twofold origin; it may have arisen in some- cases by the natural selection of creatures having accidental reflex adaptations, and in other cases by intelligent adapta- tion. And both processes can be construed without sup- posing the inheritance of acquired characters; for the ability to make intelligent adaptation may be considered as itself a variation, and so may the reflex adaptations.
I should say, therefore, that, supposing the analogue 2o8 The Theory of Developmcfit.
of the pleasiirc-pain process is in all cases the actual evidence and accompaniment of the excess process from whose discharges adaptations of movement are secured, then either of two further views may be held. Either on one hand the pleasure-pain process is a variation (and with it, the actual hedonic consciousness), the environment of the individual in each generation simply serving to give it scope for special adaptations; or on the other hand, this process itself is an organic selection, a thing acquired by the individual in his experience and then transmitted by inheritance with the accretions of each generation simi- larly acquired. But in either case, the pleasure-pain pro- cess is the same and performs the same fuictions; both are exactly what the facts show them to be. And the hered- ity problem may be left to one side.
In the foregoing pages I have seemed, however, to find reason for saying that the pleasure-pain process, with its antithesis of outward and inward movements, was due to natural selection, that is, that it was phylogenetic in its origin. Further considerations may now be adduced quite apart from the general question of heredity. We are in fact brought here face to face with the question of the origin of consciousness, and upon this I shall be able to express only very hypothetical opinions.
§ 4. The Origin of Coiiscionsness.
The foregoing paragraphs seem to give us some indica- tions of the relation of consciousness to the phenomena of life. We have found it necessary to hold that the physical basis of hedonic consciousness — the fact of heightened central vital processes issuing in expansive The Origin of Consciousness. 209 movements — is a variation in primitive organisms of phylogenetic origin, rather than an acquisition due to adjustment secured in the life-history of particular organ- ism.s. The original bifurcation of movements, as out- reaching and retiring, I have described as a phylogenetic distinction and product; a variation among the earliest contractile forms. Some arose by variation which did discharge their increased vitality in expansive movements, and by the advantage of it lived longer and propagated more.
It is possible, however, to hold a different view; in fact, we have found the ordinary Spencer-Bain theory of adaptation doing so. On this view the heightened central process is an adaptation secured in the lifetime of the creature. On this view, further, it is necessary to suppose that all stimulations, including those of nutrition, varied in their effects upon the organism from enlargement, ex- pansion, etc., in some instances, to diminution, contraction, etc., in other instances, in the same organism. Mr. Spen- cer does indeed attempt to give a purely mechanical deduction of the association between withdrawing move- ment and pain,i making it arise in the * experience ' of uniform contractile tissue. In that case, ontogenetic adap- tation precedes phylogenetic, and if we bring in conscious- ness at all, we would have in such a creature an association between the pleasure of the success of certain expansive movements which were also adaptive, and the sense of the movements themselves.
This, it is evident, makes consciousness of pleasure and pain arise at some point in the creature's life; just where, we have no clear answer from Spencer. But if we say P 2IO The Theory of Development,