THE LIMITS OF EDUCABILITY IN PARAMCECIUM. 



STEVENSON SMITH 



With Four Figures. 



The theory of the phylogenetic development of adaptive behav- 

 ior in animals has given interest to the question of the develop- 

 ment of consciousness in animals, and to the possibility of the two 

 developments having been coexistent throughout. A synthetic 

 study of animal behavior, beginning with the lowest form, points 

 out the possibility of an adaptive phylogenetic development, 

 becoming more and more complex as we ascend in the scale of 

 life, and all this without the coexistence of consciousness. 



If we start with the lowest possible form and determine that all 

 its behavor may be described solely by mechanical laws, it may 

 be possible to interpret the more complex behavior of the higher 

 forms as the action of a more complex mechanism. As we have 

 empirical evidence of such facts as inheritance and individual 

 variation we may assume these as factors in evolution and still 

 exclude consciousness as in no way explaining them. 



Some writers have looked upon natural selection as involving 

 consciousness in that some organisms, possessing better memory 

 than others, would be educated more easily and so adapt them- 

 selves sooner and better to their environment than the rest. But 

 these writers fail to see that memory has another than a psychic 

 side. This is memory as we observe it in others; when a stimulus 

 has acted upon an organism one or more times the next stimulation, 

 of a like kind, produces a different reaction from that which the 

 previous stimulus occasioned. This form of memory is observed 

 in inorganic manifolds as well as in organic. For instance, 

 through continued use an old lock acts differently from the ame 

 lock when it was new. The action of any mechanism is subject 

 to such a change. This change may be to the advantage or to the 

 disadvantage of the organism, but it is still memory. 



Thus, more complex and more advantageous memory, though 

 accounted for by evolution, may in no way involve consciousness. 



