Actions and How They Are Performed 135 



adaptable enough to live and prosper under changed conditions. 

 Thus the sparrow survives, but the fen buzzard is practically lost. 

 Even now animals are discovered to be coping with new conditions, 

 e.g. the tomtit has taken to breaking the metal foils which cover milk 

 bottles; swallows have discovered the advantages of making use of 

 the eaves of houses to build their nests. It would appear that even the 

 most rigid instinctive actions must have involved initiative at one 

 time. The instinctive action, like the laying of eggs in a living cater- 

 pillar, must originally have been a random impulse, which was suc- 

 cessful and became imprinted on the inherited nervous pattern. We 

 have to conclude that random impulses are often useful, but the 

 balance between initiative and routine is a very delicate one. Too 

 much initiative may be as destructive as too little. The animal is 

 often poised on a razor-edge between the perils of deviating too much 

 from a regular habit and too little. 



FREE WILL 



We can now ask whether animals, and human beings too, have any 

 real power of making a choice between the various possible actions 

 which they may be called upon to perform. In the last resort, do they 

 have any free will in making a choice among the various possible 

 actions — or, to put it another way, what is it which determines the 

 choice which they do finally make? We have seen that the power of 

 choosing varies very greatly. Some actions are almost automatic re- 

 sponses to the sensory stimulus; others are influenced to a greater or 

 less degree by learning from similar experiences. In these cases the 

 action is not a direct response to the sensation; it is obvious that it is 

 modified by the memory records of earlier experiences, so that the 

 action is the result not only of the present sensations, but also of what 

 has happened in the past. The present sensations are therefore modi- 

 fied by taking their place and being interpreted in terms of the whole 

 picture which the animal makes of his world. The action is deter- 

 mined to some extent by the whole previous life of the animal, and 

 by what he has learnt about the world. Under these circumstances 

 can we say that the animal really makes, or is capable of making a 

 choice? Is not its action really predetermined — even if it is modified 

 by the experiences of the past? Is it not still an inevitable consequence 

 of all the influences, past or present, which are acting on it? 



The answer to this seems to be that if an action is determined not 

 only by the immediate sensations — by what an animal sees, hears and 

 feels — but also by its past experience and what it has learnt through- 

 out its life, there may be an element of uncertainty. If the action is 



