112 A Factor in Evolution 



for example, effects the adjustment aimed at, even more 

 perfectly, and the accompanying excessive and useless 

 movements fall away. This is the kind of selection that 

 intelligence makes in the acquisition of new movements." 



Accordingly, all ontogenetic accommodations are neuro- 

 genetic.^ The general law of ' motor excess ' is one of 

 overproduction ; from movements thus overproduced, ad- 

 justments survive ; these adjustments set the direction of 

 development, and by their influence in securing the sur- 

 vival of variations secure the same determination of direc- 

 tion in evolution also.^ 



The advantages of this view seem to be somewhat as 

 follows : — 



1. It gives a method of the individual's accommodations 

 of function which is one in principle with the law of over- 

 production and survival now so well established in the case 

 of competing organisms. 



2. It reduces nervous and mental evolution to strictly 

 parallel terms. The intelligent use of congenital variations 

 for functional purposes in the way indicated, puts a pre- 

 mium on variations which can be so used, and thus marks 

 out lines of progress in directions of constantly improved 

 mental endowment. The circular reaction which is the 

 method of intelligent accommodation is itself liable to 

 variation in a series of complex ways which have produced 

 the evolution of the mental functions known as memory, 

 imagination, conception, thought, etc. We thus reach a 

 phylogeny of mind which proceeds in the direction set by 



1 Barring, of course, those violent compelling physical influences under 

 the action of which the organism is quite helpless, so far as such results can 

 be called adaptive. 



2 Some of the bearings of this general theory are indicated in the following 

 chapters. 



