PLAY 253 
sase of the acts of the puppy or kitten they have to be further 
co-ordinated, or more elaborately grouped, through experience. 
To act in one way some of the reflexes have to be checked as 
redundant and not to the point: to act in another way other 
reflexes have to be similarly checked; and in a third way, 
yet others. But in all three some of the reflexes are utilized 
to different ends. Many conscious situations contain common 
elements; and this tends to give unity to the developing 
experience. But they contain also elements and groupings 
which afford that diversity without which conscious behaviour 
could not be accommodated to them. So that we have here 
the conditions under which what is technically termed “the 
concomitant differentiation and integration of experience” 
can proceed. 
And if we speak of the instinct of experimentation we 
must remember that what we are dealing with is rather an 
innate tendency or instinctive propensity than a definite and 
relatively clean-cut piece of instinctive behaviour. It com- 
prises a great number of inherited reflex acts, and may perhaps 
be fairly called instinctive in detail. But experimentation 
must be regarded rather as the proximate end of a conative 
tendency, or group of conative tendencies, whose ultimate 
biological end is success in dealing with the environment in 
the sterner struggle for existence during adult life. The 
tendency is inherited, and therefore falls under the head of 
instinctive propensity. But “experimentation” is a group- 
term under which we comprise the general drift of varied 
modes of behaviour, founded indeed on a congenital basis, 
but receiving its stamp and character from what is acquired 
in the course of the experience it provides. It is essentially 
a process whereby the conscious situations acquire what 
Dr. Stout terms meaning; and is specially interesting as 
affording an example of the way in which intelligence moulds 
and refashions a number of disconnected reflex responses. And 
if, following Professor Groos, we call it play, it is a little 
difficult to see how it can be brought in line with his statement * 
* Op. cit., pref., p. Xx. 
