2 ORGANIC BEHAVIOUR 
The word will be employed in the following pages in a 
wide and comprehensive sense. We shall have to consider, not 
only the kind of animal behaviour which implies intelligence, 
sometimes of a high order ; not only such behaviour as animal 
play and courtship, which suggests emotional attributes ; but 
also forms of behaviour which, if not unconscious, seem to lack 
conscious guidance and control. We shall deal mainly with 
the behaviour of the animal as a whole, but also incidentally 
with that of its constituent particles, or cells; and we shall 
not hesitate to cite (in a parenthetic section) some pode of 
plant life as examples of organic behaviour. 
Thus broadly used, the term in all cases indicates and 
draws attention to the reaction of that which we speak of as 
behaving, in response to certain surrounding conditions or 
circumstances which evoke the behaviour. ‘The middy would 
not talk of the behaviour of his ship as she lay at anchor in 
Portland harbour ; the word is only applicable when there is 
action and reaction as the vessel ploughs through a heavy sea, 
or when she answers to the helm. Apart from gravitation the 
glacier and the river would not “ behave in a similar manner.” 
Only under the conditions comprised under the term “mag- 
netic field” do iron filings exhibit certain peculiarities of 
behaviour. And so, also, in other cases. The behaviour of cells 
is evoked under given organic or external conditions ; instinc- 
tive, intelligent, and emotional behaviour are called forth in 
response to those circumstances which exercise a constraining 
influence at the moment of action. 
It is therefore necessary, in a discussion of animal beha- 
viour, that we should endeavour to realize, as far as possible, 
in every case, first, the nature of the animal under considera- 
tion ; secondly, the conditions under which it is placed ; thirdly, 
the manner in which the response is called forth by the cir- 
cumstances, and fourthly, how far the behaviour adequately 
meets the essential conditions of the situation. 
