THE CRITERION OF MIND. 21 



ones, in accordance with the results of its own individual 

 experience ? If it does so, the fact cannot be merely due to 

 reflex action in the sense above described ; for it is impossible 

 that heredity can have provided in advance for innovations 

 upon or alterations of its machinery during the lifetime of a 

 particular individual." 



Two points have to be observed with regard to this 

 criterion, in whichever verbal form we may choose to express 

 it. The first is tJiat it is not rigidly exclusive either, on the 

 one hand, of a possibly mental character in apparently non- 

 mental adjustments, or, conversely, of a possibly non-mental 

 character in apparently mental adjustments. For it is certain 

 that failure to learn by individual experience is not always 

 conclusive evidence against the existence of mind; such 

 failure may arise merely from an imperfection of memory, or 

 from there not being enough of the mind-element present to 

 make the adjustments needful to meet the novel circum- 

 stances. Conversely, it is no less certain that some parts of 

 our own nervous system, which are not concerned in the 

 phenomena of consciousness, are nevertheless able in some 

 measure to learn by individual experience. The nervous 

 apparatus of the stomach, for instance, is able in so con- 

 siderable a degree to adapt the movements of that organ to 

 the requirements of its individual experience, that were the 

 organ an organism we might be in danger of regarding it as 

 dimly intelligent. Still there is no evidence to show that 

 non-mental agents are ever able in any considerable measure 

 thus to simulate the adjustments performed by mental ones ; 

 and therefore our criterion, in its practical application, has 

 rather to be guarded against the opposite danger of denying 

 the presence of mind to agents that are really mental. For, 

 as I observed in " Animal Intelligence," " it is clear that long 

 before mind has advanced sufticiently far in the scale of 

 development to become amenable to the test in question, it 

 has probably begun to dawn as nascent subjectivity. In 

 other words, because a lowly organized animal does not learn 

 by its own individual experience, we may not therefore con- 

 clude that in performing its natural or ancestral adaptations 

 to appropiate stimuli, consciousness, or the mind-element, is 

 wholly absent ; we can only say that this element, if present, 

 reveals no evidence of the fact. But, on the other hand, if a 

 lowly organized animal docs learn by its own individual 



CK 



