THE EARLIEST ORGANIC MOVEMENTS. A6g 



may it not have developed late, when the difficulties of living called 

 for a new aid to life ? Why may we not return to the belief that mind 

 has a survival value? 



I reply, as I have replied in another connection, that the formula- 

 tion of the question begs the issue. The question assumes that there is 

 a causal connection between biological adaptation and consciousness. 

 Since the facts can be formulated both in biological and in psycho- 

 logical terms, without lapse or break in the separate series of material 

 and mental processes, the proof of survival value must be sought else- 

 where. We have considered the evidence, and found it wanting. But 

 we can, also, meet the question on its own terms. We may answer that 

 tlie difficulties of adjustment were present from the outset, nay, must 

 have been peculiarly pressing at the outset, when life was young and 

 inexperienced ; so that mind must also have been present from the first, 

 and could not disappear until adjustment had already proceeded some 

 little distance. Taken in the abstract, the one possibility is as likely 

 as the other. There is, however, a direct answer which — if we bear in 

 mind the limitations of theory at large — seems to be satisfactory. Mind 

 appears with life. At first, there is no differentiation of functions; 

 mind and life are uniformly coextensive. Later, with growing com- 

 plexity of the organism, come differentiation of functions and the de- 

 velopment of a central coordinating organ. If mind and life run 

 parallel to each other, we must suppose that mind has also suffered 

 differentiation, and that the supreme consciousness of the organism 

 now accompanies the functions of the supreme organ. But this is what 

 we find. There is, in strictness, no evidence of a complete 'disappear- 

 ance' of mind; our ovoi reflexes and automatic actions, though not 

 attended by our consciousness, may have a consciousness of their own. 

 This hypothesis has, in fact, recommended itself to many investigators.* 



This last objection, then, does not shake our position. Have we, 

 now, shown the 'necessity of mind at the first appearance of life?' We 

 have at least made its presence so reasonable and probable that we need 

 stand in no fear of the law of parsimony. But the recurrence of the 

 counter-arguments at the very end of our enquiry is suggestive. It re- 

 minds us that we have been dealing, throughout, with inferences and 

 probabilities, not with demonstrations and mathematical certainties. 

 And an argument from probability is like an india-rubber ball; you 

 hit it, and it may fly away, or it may return to you, all the more vigor- 

 ously the harder you hit. So far from convincing the reader, this paper 

 may simply prompt him to refutation and rebuttal. All the better — 

 provided only that he adduce new arguments. 



♦ Cf., e. g., E. F. W. Pfluger, Muller's Arch. f. Anat., 1851, 484-494. 



