October 13, 192 1] 



NATURE 



213 



Consciousness and the Unconscious.^ 

 By Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan, LL.D., D.Sc, F.R.S. 



Emergent Evolution. 



BY general consent we live in a world in which 

 there seems to be an orderly passage of 

 events. That orderly passage of events, in so 

 far as something new comes on to the scene of 

 Nature, is what I here mean by evolution. If 

 nothing really new emerges — if there be only per- 

 mutations of what was pre-existent (permutations 

 predictable in advance by some Laplacean calcu- 

 lator) — then, so far, there is no evolution, though 

 there may be progress through survival and 

 spread, on one hand, and elimination on the 

 other. Under Xature is to be included the plan, 

 expressive of natural law, on which all events (in- 

 cluding mental events) run their course. 



From the point of view of a philosophy based 

 on science our aim is to interpret the natural plan 

 of evolution, and this is to be loyally accepted 

 just as we find it. The most resolute modern 

 attempt to interpret evolution from this point of 

 view is that of Prof. S. Alexander in his "Space, 

 Time, and Deity." He starts from the world of 

 oommon sense and science as it seems to be given 

 for thought to interpret. In order to get at the 

 very foundation of Nature he bids us think out of 

 it all that can possibly be excluded short of the 

 utter annihilation of events. That gives us a 

 world of ultimate or basal events in purely spatial 

 and temporal relations. This he calls "space- 

 time," inseparably hyphened throughout Nature. 

 From this is evolved matter, with its primary and, 

 at a later stage of development, its secondary 

 qualities. Here new relations, other than those 

 which are only spatio-temporal, supervene. Later 

 in logical and historical sequence comes life, a 

 new quality of certain systems of matter in 

 motion, involving or expressing new relations 

 thus far not in being. Then within this organic 

 matrix, already "qualitied" (as he says) by life, 

 there arises the quality of consciousness, the 

 highest that we know. What may lie beyond this 

 in Prof. Alexander's scheme may be learnt from 

 his book. 



This thumb-nail sketch can do slight justice to 

 a theme worked out in elaborate detail on a large 

 canvas. The treatment purports to formulate the 

 whole natural plan of progressive evolution. 

 From the bosom of space-time emerge the in- 

 organic, the organic, the conscious, and, per- 

 chance, something beyond. And with this suc- 

 cessive emergence of new qualities goes the pro- 

 gressive emergence of new orders and modes of 

 relatedness. The plan of evolution shows succes- 

 sively higher and richer developments. 



Such a doctrine, philosophical in range but 

 scientific in spirit, to which, I may perhaps be 

 allowed to say, I, too, have been led bv a rather 

 different route — I call emergent evolution. 



1 Abridged frcm the presidential' address delivered to Section T 

 i'sychologv) of the British Association at Edinburgh on September g. 



NO. 271 1, VOL. 108] 



The concept of emergence is dealt with by J. S. 

 Mill, in his "Logic," under the consideration of 

 " heteropathic laws." The word "emergent," as 

 contrasted with "resultant," was suggested by 

 G. H. Lewes in his "Problems of Life and Mind." 

 When oxygen, having certain properties, com- 

 bines with hydrogen having other properties, 

 there is formed water, some of the properties of 

 which are quite different. The weight of the 

 compound is an additive resultant, and can be 

 calculated before the event. Sundry other proper- 

 ties are constitutive einergents, which could not 

 be predicted in advance of any existent example 

 of combination. Of course, when we have learnt 

 what happens in " this " particular instance in 

 "these" circumstances, we can predict what will 

 happen in "that" like instance in similar cir- 

 cumstances. We have learnt something of the 

 natural plan of evolution. We may also predict 

 on the basis of analogy as we learn to grasp more 

 adequately the natural order or plan of events. 

 But could we predict what will happen prior to 

 any given instance — i.e. prior to the development 

 of this stage of the evolutionary plan? Could we 

 predict life from the plane of the inorganic, or 

 consciousness from the plane of Ufe? In accord- 

 ance with the principles of emergent evolution we 

 could not do so. The Laplacean calculator is here 

 out of court. 



In Mind. 



To come to closer quarters with our sectional 

 topic, what do we mean when we say that this 

 or that is "in mind "? In a well-known passage 

 Berkeley distinguished that which is in mind "by 

 way of attribute " from that which is in mind "by 

 way of idea." Fully reahsing that this should be 

 read in the light of Berkeley's adherence to the 

 creative concept, one may none the less claim for 

 it validity on the empirical plane where mind is 

 regarded as a product of emergent evolution. The 

 former, therefore (i.e. what is present in mind by 

 way of attribute), I shall speak of as minding, the 

 latter as that which is minded. The former is a 

 character constitutive of the mind — that in virtue 

 of which it is a mind; the latter is objective to 

 the mind or for the mind. That which is minded 

 always implies minding ; but it does not necessarily 

 follow that minding impHes something minded. 



The distinction based on that drawn by 

 Berkeley may be expressed in another way. One 

 may be said to be cohscious in perceiving, re- 

 membering, and, at large, minding; that which 

 is perceived, remembered, or minded is what one 

 is conscious of. 1 am conscious m attending to 

 the rhythm or the thought of a poem ; I am con- 

 scious of that to which I so attend. I need not 

 then be conscious of attending to the poem, 

 though perhaps I may, in psychological mood, 

 subsequently make the preceding process of atten- 

 tion an object of thought. 



