54 CONSCIOUSNESS 
organic heritage—that the early stages of the acquisition of 
experience proceed so rapidly and so smoothly. The animal 
has not to make and fashion the early conscious situations ; 
it has only to accept them. It has not at first to enforce 
order on the multiplicity of sensory data raining in upon the 
conscious centres; it has only to take note of the existing 
order among them. It has not painfully to learn how to 
co-ordinate the efferent impulses proceeding to the many 
muscles concerned in some simple response ; it has only to be 
sensitive to the response as a whole. It has not to select the 
association of this, that, and the other group of data within a 
coalescent situation ; organic behaviour provides it with pre- 
determined sequences ready made—sequences which have for 
generations received the emphatic sanction of natural selection. 
Congenital tendencies which it has inherited but not acquired 
determine all its earliest behaviour, determine what elements 
in the sensory complex shall be thrust into conscious pro- 
minence, determine in what manner these data shall be asso- 
ciated ; determine, in fact, what salient points in the developing 
situations shall stand out clearly from the rest, and how these 
salient points shall be grouped and linked by the connecting 
threads of association and shall coalesce into effective wholes. 
And if in the comparatively helpless human infant the 
congenital modes of response seem less organized than those 
of the chick, if there is a larger percentage of random and 
apparently aimless movements, if the organic management of 
the bodily estate is less definitely ordered by the terms of the 
hereditary bequest, if there is more of maternal guidance and 
fosterage ; still the data are provided in a substantially similar 
way. The situations are indeed destined to become more 
complex, the distinctions which arise in consciousness are more 
numerous, the coalescence and association include a wider range 
and succession of salient points ; a longer time is required to 
become acquainted with the transactions of a business con- 
ducted in a far greater number of centres: but, at least in the 
early stages, the data are of the same kind, and are emphasized 
in the same way. Presentation and re-presentation play a 
