CONSCIOUSNESS OR AWARENESS 165 



instructions diminishes, and ultimately the proper driving 

 motions follow the receipt of the sensory stimuli as 

 promptly and as automatically as in any pure reflex. 

 Once this situation is realized we say the habit is fully 

 formed. There are, of course, all possible stages in habit 

 formation, depending on the complexity of the memories 

 involved and on the frequency of the repetition of the 

 stimuU. 



Consciousness or Awareness. — It should be clear 

 that the process of associating memories makes up what 

 we call thought, or intellectual activity. Does it follow 

 that every animal which is able to form associations has 

 the power of thought? In answering this question a 

 feature of intellectual activity or thought must be taken 

 into account which human beings and probably most of 

 the higher animals possess but concerning which we are 

 extremely doubtful when it comes to the lower animals 

 — this is the property familiarly known as consciousness, 

 and to which psychologists give the name awareness. 

 The mental processes of human beings are accompanied 

 very largely by a knowledge of what is being thought. 

 Thus we are in the habit of assuming that the process of 

 association always involves consciousness or awareness. 

 This, however, is by no means the case; there is good 

 proof that the process of associating memories can and 

 does go on without consciousness being at all involved. 

 Thus the fact that lower animals can associate memories 

 does not prove that they are aware of their associative 

 processes. 



The Feelings or Emotions. — There is a type of ner- 

 vous activity to which we give the name of feeling, or 

 emotion, which is not the same as the nervous activity 

 of the intellectual processes although the two kinds are 

 closely interwoven. The emotions are of the utmost im- 

 portance to human beings, because both the joys and the 

 sorrows of life are largely wrapped up in them. We know 

 by observation that many of the animals lower than man 



