20 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS. 



there is certainly something to distinguish. For even if we 

 take the most mechanical view of mental processes that is 

 possible, and suppose that conscious intelligence plays no 

 part whatever in determining action, tliere still remains the 

 fact that such conscious intelligence exists, and that prior to 

 certain actions it is always affected in certain ways. There- 

 fore, even if we suppose that the state of things is, so to 

 speak, accidental, and that the actions in question would 

 always be performed in precisely the same way whether or 

 not they were thus connected with consciousness, it would 

 still remain desirable, for scientific purposes, that a marked 

 distinction should be drawn between cases of activity that 

 proceed without, and those that proceed with this remarkable 

 association with consciousness. As the phenomena of sub- 

 jectivity are facts at any rate no less real than those of 

 objectivity, if it is found that some of the latter are invariably 

 and faithfully mirrored in those of the former, such pheno- 

 mena, for this reason alone, deserve to be placed in a distinct 

 scientific category, even though it were proved that the mirror 

 of subjectivity might be removed without affecting any of the 

 phenomena of objectivity. 



Without, therefore, entertaining the question as to the 

 connexion between Body and Mind, it is enough to say that 

 under any view concerning the nature of this connexion, we 

 are justified in drawing a distinction between activities which 

 are accompanied by feelings, and activities which, so far as 

 we can see, are not so accompanied. If this is allowed, there 

 seems to be no term better fitted to convey the distinction 

 than the term Choice ; agents that are able to choose their 

 actions are agents that are able to feel the stimuli which 

 determine the choice. 



Such being our Criterion of Mind, it admits of being 

 otherwise stated, and in a more practically applicable manner, 

 in the following words which I quote from " Animal Intelli- 

 gence :" — " It is, then, adaptive action by a living organism 

 in cases where the inherited machinery of the nervous system 

 does not furnish data for our prevision of what the adaptive 

 action must necessarily be — it is onl}^ here that we recognize 

 the objective evidence of mind. The criterion of mind, 

 therefore, which I propose, and to which I shall adhere 

 throughout the present volume, is as follows : — Does the 

 organism learn to make new adjustments, or to modify old 



