52 TJie Place of Consciousness in Evolution 



on the part of consciousness; though, of course, Profes- 

 sor Cope himself can say whether such a construction is 

 true in his case.^ Many psychologists are about done with 

 a view like that. The question at issue when we ask 

 whether consciousness has had a part in the evolutionary 

 process is really that as to whether we may say that the 

 presence of consciousness — in the form say of sensations 

 of pleasure and pain — with its correlative nervous or or- 

 ganic processes, has been an essential factor in evolution ; 

 and if so, further, whether its importance is because it is 

 in alliance with the consciousness aspect that the organic 

 aspect gets in its work. Or, to take a higher form of 

 consciousness — does the memory of an object as having 

 given pleasure modify the organism's reaction to that object 

 the second time } Such may be the case, even though it 

 is only the physical basis of memory that has an efficient 

 causal relation to the other organic processes of the animal. 

 Conceiving of the function of consciousness, therefore, 

 as in any case not that of a deiis ex machiita, the question 

 at issue is whether it can have an essential place in 

 the evolution process as the Darwinians construe that 

 process. Professor Cope believes not.^ I believe that the 

 place of consciousness may be the same — and may be 

 the essential place that Cope gives it in his left-hand 

 column and which is given to it in Mental Development — 

 on the Darwinian view. I have argued briefly for this 

 indifference to the particular theory one holds of heredity, 

 in the volume referred to,^ reserving for later pages 

 certain arguments in detail based upon the theory of the 



1 In a reply made to this paper by Professor Cope he declares for such a 

 view {American Naturalist, April, 1896, p. 342); see the next Chapter. 



2 See his Primary Factors of Organic Evolution. ^ Chap. VII. 



