76 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



pretty confidently assume that ideas first arise as subsidiary 

 to conation and as directing it. Now we have seen cona- 

 tion in its earliest forms as a spasmodic activity excited by 

 discomfort and continuing till the discomfort is removed. 

 But in the most developed forms of sensori-motor action 

 we have already reached a more definite species of effort 

 than this. Particularly as the < distance receptors,' i.e. the 

 senses of sight, hearing and smell, evolve, we have action 

 directed definitely to certain distant objects. Such effort 

 again we have seen will be confirmed by an agreeable experi- 

 ence, and in this we have a form of 'revival.' The general 

 character of this revival is that a conation involving 

 perhaps an ordered series of actions may be set going by 

 a stimulus which has previously been a starting point of a 

 successful effort, i.e. one that has had agreeable results. 

 Now let us suppose revival to operate on a mind capable of 

 perceiving three objects A, B, C in definite space and time 

 relations, C being something desirable, e.g. food. If the 

 three objects are present to the senses, the first two leading 

 up to the third (e.g. as intervening objects in space), cona- 

 tion will be definitely directed to C via A and B. Let this 

 have happened and then let A alone be given. If the 

 animal is hungry, i.e. if there is a conational basis to go 

 upon, A will, according to the law of revival, excite a 

 conation corresponding to the previous one, but this was 

 a conation definitely directed to B and C in succession as 

 things standing in a definite relation to A. The animal 

 then directs its efforts to the point where, in accordance with 

 the first experience, B and C should be. It looks for them, 

 or if B is some change which brings C about, sets itself 

 to perform B and so obtain C. Its action is directed to 

 something not given, and this appears to be the germ of 

 a conational or practical idea. The further step required 

 is the disengagement of the idea on the one hand from 

 the direct conational interest, on the other from the order 

 of past experience. This may be conceived as arising from 

 the circumstance that any desired object will stand in 

 relation with many different things, one of which will be 

 relevant in one case and another in another. Without 

 pursuing this development here we may conclude that the 



