VIII 



THE IMPLICATIONS OF TRIAL AND ERROR 



' I A HE concept of trial and error is one that has 

 * played a prominent role in modern writings on 

 comparatively psychology, and especially those which 

 concern themselves with the problem of how be- 

 havior comes to be adaptively modified. The activi- 

 ties of animals must obviously be so shaped as to 

 preserve the life of the individual or its race. To 

 a certain extent successful acts may be hit upon by 

 sheer accident, but for the most part the purposive 

 behavior of an animal is due to its congenital 

 make-up. According to the reflex theory of instinct, 

 which commands a wide following at the present 

 time, instinctive activities are fatally determined by 

 structural mechanisms which are set going either 

 by external or internal stimulations. In either case 

 instinct, even in its most wonderful and complex 

 manifestations, is, in essence, nothing but response 

 to stimulus. And if we ask for an explanation of 

 the teleological character of the responses we are 

 referred to "inherited organization" for an answer. 

 As the machine is constructed, so will it work. 



Whatever the merits or demerits of the reflex 

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