336 BEHAVIOR OF THE LOWER ORGANISMS 



a demonstration either of the existence or of the non-existence of con- 

 sciousness, for consciousness is precisely that which cannot be perceived 

 objectively. No statement concerning consciousness in animals is open 

 to verification or refutation by observation and experiment. There 

 are no processes in the behavior of organisms that are not as readily 

 conceivable without supposing them to be accompanied by conscious- 

 ness as with it. 



But the question is sometimes proposed : Is the behavior of lower 

 organisms of the character which we should "naturally" expect and 

 appreciate if they did have conscious states, of undifferentiated character, 

 and acted under similar conscious states in a parallel way to man ? Or 

 is their behavior of such a character that it does not suggest to the 

 observer the existence of consciousness? 



If one thinks these questions through for such an organism as Para- 

 mecium, with all its limitations of sensitiveness and movement, it appears 

 to the writer that an affirmative answer must be given to the first of the 

 above questions, and a negative one to the second. Suppose that this 

 animal were conscious to such an extent as its limitations seem to permit. 

 Suppose that it could feel a certain degree of pain when injured ; that 

 it received certain sensations from alkali, others from acids, others from 

 solid bodies, etc., would it not be natural for it to act as it does? 

 That is, can we not, through our consciousness, appreciate its drawing 

 away from things that hurt it, its trial of the environment when the 

 conditions are bad, its attempting to move forward in various directions, 

 till it finds one where the conditions are not bad, and the like? To 

 the writer it seems that we can; that Paramecium in this behavior 

 makes such an impression that one involuntarily recognizes it as a little 

 subject acting in ways analogous to our own. Still stronger, perhaps, 

 is this impression when observing an Amoeba obtaining food as shown 

 in Figs. 19 and 21. The writer is thoroughly convinced, after long study 

 of the behavior of this organism, that if Amoeba were a large animal, so 

 as to come within the everyday experience of human beings, its be- 

 havior would at once call forth the attribution to it of states of pleasure 

 and pain, of hunger, desire, and the like, on precisely the same basis 

 as we attribute these things to the dog. This natural recognition is 

 exactly what Miinsterberg (1900) has emphasized as the test of a 

 subject. In conducting objective investigations we train ourselves to 

 suppress this impression, but thorough investigation tends to restore it 

 stronger than at first. 



Of a character somewhat similar to that last mentioned is another 

 test that has been proposed as a basis for deciding as to the conscious- 

 ness of animals. This is the satisfactoriness or usefulness of the concept 



