PROCEEDINOS OF THE SOCIETY. 251 



our progress which we ought to try to hold on to, Init which seemed to 

 be sadly forgotten by certain people and nations. 



Dr. J. R. Lesson said it ranst be realized that this question in 

 dispute was largely a question of the meaning of words. To him the 

 meaning of " purpose " was " acts adapted to ends," and on that view 

 one must admit that the Foramiuifera were undoubtedly adapting their 

 various functions and activities to definite ends. 



Professor J. Arthur Thomson said when he left Aberdeen there was 

 much snow ; some of the roads were blocked, and he saw the wind 

 making beautiful snow wreaths. He asked himself whether there was 

 any purposeful ness in the wind's finely finished work, and he answered 

 emphatically, No, because he felt he could interpret it all, without intro- 

 ducing any concept of purpose, purely by means of the laws of dynamics. 

 Then he asked himself whether, in coming south, he had himself any 

 purpose, whether his behaviour in making the journey was purposeful 

 or purposive ; and, with all deference to Professor Moore, he felt 

 compelled to answer in the affirmative. The difficulty in the present 

 discussion seemed to lie, then, between those two extremes, between the 

 work of the wind and the higher reaches of man's work. When rooks 

 took freshwater mussels up in their claws and let them fall on the 

 shingle with the result that the shells were broken and the flesh made 

 available, that also was probably intelligent purposefulness. 



He believed that man's behaviour, when it was on a high level, 

 illustrated conceptual purjwsefuJness, while that of the rook alluded to 

 illustrated perceptual purposefulness. The starfish often did battle with 

 the sea-urchin ; it wrenched off with its tube-feet the snapping blades 

 which are called pedicellarise. And having done that with one sector, 

 it proceeded to the next, until it had wrenched off all the weapons. 

 The starfish could not be following the line of least resistance in so 

 doing ; it required time and energy, and perhaps discomfort, to disarm 

 the sea-urchin in that way. And it must be remembered that the 

 starfish had not a single ganglion or nerve centre. Yet there was 

 prolonged l^ehaviour directed towards an end which was not immediate ; 

 it was prolonged activity directed towardsfia future result. He called 

 that organized purposlveness, and it was, he believed, in the same 

 category as the activity of the President's Foramiuifera. His suggestion 

 was that they should recognize a long inclined plane — conceptual 

 purposefulness, perceptual purposefulness, instinctive purposiveness and 

 organized purposiveness. What would be the criterion of purpose ? 

 He would say that purposefulness, or, it might be, purposiveness, was 

 exhibited when an organism showed a capacity for summarizing past 

 experiences in such k manner that an "endeavour was engendered\vhich 

 dominated Ijehaviour towards a result not immediately attained. But 

 the measure of awareness or pre-awareness, as Professor Lloyd Morgan 

 called it, which attended this endeavonnmust remain largefy a matter 

 of opinion. 



Professor Arthur Dendy, Messrs. Bullamore and Blood continued 

 the discussion. 



The President then dealt at some length with Sir Edwin Ray 

 Ivankester's criticisms. 



