ADAPTIVENESS AND PURPOSIVENESS 341 



downwards; but deliberate purposefulness is a lofty spe- 

 cialisation of organic purposiveness. Without implying too 

 hard and fast boundary lines, we suggest that the w^rd pur- 

 poseful be kept for actions in which there is conscious antic- 

 ipation of the constraining end. The common note in pur- 

 poseful or purposive behaviour is that of the individuality 

 or total reaction of the organism. When the organism as a 

 whole works towards a future result which is not immediate, 

 there is purpose in some form or other. Where the concept 

 of purpose or intention is applied beyond the category of 

 individuality there is bound to be confusion of thought, and 

 care must be taken not to use it to denote the end which a 

 particular collocation subserves or the utility which any 

 particular collocation may have in the economy of Nature. 



§ 6. The Purposelikeness of the Ordinary Functioning of 

 the Body is Covered hy the Concept of Adaptation. 



The organism^s behaviour as a whole is fundamentally 

 purposelike. It makes for self-preservation and race- 

 preservation in the widest sense. It may, on occasions, ex- 

 hibit self-determination, selection, and control with reference 

 to a distant result. In higher animals, purpose probably 

 operates, as in man, as a cognitive anticipation of the future ; 

 in lower animals the nervous system is so different that we 

 dare not argue from analogy as to the degree of awareness 

 with which the conative bow is bent. 



It appears probable that activities originally dominated 

 by clearly perceived purpose, may, by individual habitua- 

 tion or by germinal variation, sink to a lower level of or- 

 ganised purposiveness. Not only the bending of the conative 

 bow, but the hitting of the mark, becomes part of the or- 

 ganisation, it may be part of the inheritance, part of the 



