Pleasure, Pain, and the Circular Reaction 127 



tive name, i.e., the * circular reaction,' in that its signifi- 

 cance for evolution is that it is not a random response 

 in movement to all stimulations alike, but that it dis- 

 tinguishes in its very form and amount between stimula- 

 tions which are vitally good and those which are vitally 

 bad, tending to retain the good stimulations and to draw 

 away from and so to suppress the bad. The term ' circu- 

 lar ' is used to emphasize the way such a reaction tends to 

 keep itself going, over and over, by reproducing the con- 

 ditions of its own stimulation. It represents habit, since 

 it tends to keep up old movements ; but it secures new 

 accommodations, since it provides for the overproduction of 

 movement variations for the operation of selection. This 

 kind of selection, since it requires the direct cooperation 

 of the organism itself, is known as * Functional Selection.' 

 It might be called 'motor' or even 'psychic' selection, 

 since the part of consciousness, in the form of pleasure 

 and pain, and — later on — experience generally, intelli- 

 gence, etc., is so prominent.^ 



This is a psychological attempt to discover the method of 

 the individual's accommodations; it has detailed applications 

 in the field of the higher mental process, where imitation, 

 volition, etc., afford direct exemplifications of the circular 

 type of reaction. But if the truth of it be allowed 

 by the biologist for the individual's development, the 

 suggestion would arise from the doctrine of recapitulation 

 that this type of function should run through all life. 

 This would mean that something analogous to conscious- 

 ness (as pleasure and pain, etc.) is coextensive with life, 

 that the vital process itself shows a fundamental differ- 



^See Chap. VII. on 'The Theory of Development,' in the work, Mental 

 Development in the Child and the Race (2d ed., 1895). 



