176 BEGINNINGS OF INTELLIGENCE 



A new point of view in regard to our problem has been 

 presented by Hobhouse in his Mind in Evolution. To 

 illustrate this view let us recur to our chick. When a nasty 

 caterpillar is seen for the first time the visual stimulus sets 

 up a pecking reaction. This is followed by the stimulus of a 

 bad taste which sets up various rejection movements, such 

 as ejection of the food and wiping the bill. The order of 

 events is: 



Stimulus. . . . pecking. . . . bad taste. . . .rejection. 



When the same kind of caterpillar is met with a second 

 time the stimulus tends to elicit the rejection movements 

 with which it has been associated instead of the movements 

 of pecking. Is not the inhibition due to the fact that the 

 stimulus has become associated with a response which is 

 incongruous with the first? Movements of rejection and 

 avoidance are incompatible with those of pecking and swal- 

 lowing and it may therefore be unnecessary to look to any 

 peculiarity of the physiological correlates of pain for an 

 explanation of the inhibition of the original reaction. The 

 stimulus becomes coupled with a new reflex arc; nervous en- 

 ergy is drained off in a new channel, and the future behavior 

 becomes changed. If the taste is a very bad one, a great deal 

 of energy is involved and the connection with the rejec- 

 tion response made very permeable and the rejection move- 

 ment easily set up. If a person is confronted with a sight 

 of some nauseating medicine he has recently taken, avoid- 

 ing or rejection movements are set up, such as making a 

 face, or even retching movements of the stomach. Is it 

 not these movements or attempts at movements that really 

 inhibit the taking of the medicine? This is evinced by the 

 chick described by Lloyd Morgan, which after an experience 

 with a nasty caterpillar approached one a second time, 

 but stopped and wiped its bill and went away as if it actually 



