BEGINNINGS OF INTELLIGENCE 173 



immediately come certain pleasurable sensations with an 

 accompanying draught of nervous energy toward the 

 organs employed in eating, etc. That is to say, the lines 

 of nervous communication through which the diffused dis- 

 charge happened in this case to pass, have opened a new 

 way to certain wide channels of escape; and, consequently, 

 they have suddenly become lines through which a large 

 quantity of molecular movements that were followed by 

 success are likely to be repeated; what was at first an acci- 

 dental combination of motions will now be a combination 

 having considerable probability." 



Barn's view of learning is much like that of Spencer. 

 "We suppose movements spontaneously begun, and acci- 

 dentally causing pleasure; we then assume that with the 

 pleasure there will be an increase of vital energy, in which 

 increase the fortunate movements will share, and thereby 

 increase the pleasure. Or, on the other hand, we suppose 

 the spontaneous movements to give pain, and assume that, 

 with the pain, there will be a decrease of energy, extending 

 to the movements that cause the evil, and thereby providing 

 a remedy. A few repetitions of the fortuitous concurrence 

 of pleasure and a certain movement, will lead to the forging 

 of an acquired connection, under the law of retentiveness 

 or contiguity, so that, at an after time, the pleasure or its 

 idea shall evoke the proper movement at once." 



The theories of Bain and Spencer are pliscussed in de- 

 tail by Baldwin, who, while differing from these writers in 

 certain points which need not here be dwelt upon, adopts 

 essentially the same view as regards the mechanism of re- 

 inforcement and inhibition. With Bain and Spencer, 

 Baldwin assumes that " the pleasure resulting from the first 

 accidentally adaptive movement, issues in a heightened 

 nervous discharge toward the organs which made the move- 



