68 



The Animal Mind 



object (418). Shall we say that Hydra possesses, then, a 

 food sensation and a contact sensation that are distinguish- 

 able in its consciousness, provided such consciousness exists ? 

 It may be that the contrast between the two is more nearly 

 analogous to that between pleasantness and unpleasantness 

 in our own experience, for the food-taking reaction in Hydra 



is the only form of the 

 positive reaction, and the 

 response to mere contact 

 is distinctly negative in 

 character. The influence 

 of physiological condition 

 in Hydra's reactions is 

 shown by the fact that 

 although ordinarily the 

 food response is brought 

 about only by contact 

 with food, if the animal 

 is very hungry any 

 chemical stimulation, 

 even quinine, will pro- 

 duce it (418). This 

 blunting of discrimina- 

 tion has, of course, the 

 adaptive aspect that the 

 starved animal can afford to lose no chances, and suggests the 

 analogy from our own experience of the loss of intellectual 

 discrimination in moments of intense emotion. For the 

 emotion too represents a situation where the organism can- 

 not afford to lose chances by hesitating in reaction long 

 enough for nice discrimination. 



In Tubularia crocea, a ccelenterate belonging to the family 

 of hydroids which form colonies of many individuals on a 



FIG. 6. Hydra, mth, mouth; *, tentacle. 

 After Parker. 



