136 Inside the Living Cell 



brought about by a process involving past experiences, which are 

 combined in various ways by trial and error or by the accident that 

 sometimes one recollection and sometimes another may be pre- 

 dominant, we may expect that the action which emerges from a given 

 situation may not be always the same, i.e. will not be completely pre- 

 determined. 



We can therefore allow an animal some ability to *choose' in its 

 actions. The extent of its power of choosing will depend on its ability 

 to distinguish between the various possibilities and the range of its 

 knowledge. If its experience and learning are very limited, the power 

 of choice will obviously be limited too. If its experience is extensive 

 and it has learnt a great deal about the world and about the conse- 

 quences of its actions, the effectiveness of its choice may be consider- 

 able. 



In such a case, the action is determined not only by the present cir- 

 cumstances, and also by old experiences acting in a delayed way, but 

 also by what has happened to these experiences in the animal's brain, 

 i.e. what it has learnt from them, how far it has succeeded in com- 

 bining them and extracting meaning from them — in putting two and 

 two together. In other words, the action is determined to some extent 

 by the personality of the animal, i.e. the way in which it differs from 

 other animals, either in its original set up or in its history. 



So we see that we cannot give a very simple answer to the question 

 of whether an animal has freedom of choice between possible actions. 

 From one point of view it might be considered that it has not, be- 

 cause, even if actions are determined by very complex influences, 

 arising from the present and past, it is still determined by the sum 

 total of all the effects present in the animal's brain. 



Yet this is not a very useful way of describing the animal's action. 

 It is more useful to regard the animal's brain as essentially an organ 

 for co-ordinating all its actions; of bringing its whole life and exper- 

 ience to bear on each distinct action. The life of the animal under 

 these conditions is not made up of isolated acts; it is a continuous 

 activity in which past and present are always blended. The degree to 

 which this is achieved of course varies enormously; but in the higher 

 animals where actions are controlled very largely by learning, we are 

 certainly justified in regarding this complex amalgam of past ex- 

 periences and learnt abilities as providing 'personality', i.e. each 

 animal is unique and therefore its responses contain at least a degree 

 of idiosyncrasy. We can conclude that we are justified in allowing a 

 degree of freedom of choice to the extent that the animal is capable 

 of distinguishing the different possibilities. 



