v CONATION 63 



Among ourselves sensori-motor action is acquired. It 

 is a matter of trained skill and disciplined judgment. 

 The type reactions employed are themselves for the most 

 part acquisitions, the perceptive judgment which combines 

 them a still more difficult acquisition. But there is no 

 difficulty in conceiving that hereditary type reactions 

 should be uniquely combined, provided there exists 

 in the animal some power strictly corresponding in 

 origin and function to our perceptual consciousness which 

 can combine present data. It would seem that we must 

 in fact carry such power down to the lowest grades of 

 animal life. The amoeba, which is pursuing a prey, 

 employs not one reaction but a number of type reactions 

 selectively, in combination or in succession, in accordance 

 with the behaviour of the prey, which again varies as the 

 play of circumstances may direct. Here is the description 

 of amoeba's hunting from Mr. Jennings's work : 



" I had attempted to cut an Amoeba in two with the tip of a 

 fine glass rod. The posterior third of the animal, in the form of 

 a wrinkled ball, remained attached to the rest of the body by only 

 a slender cord the remains of the ectosarc. The Amoeba began 

 to creep away, dragging with it this ball. This Amoeba may be 

 called a, while the ball will be designated b. A larger Amoeba 

 (c) approached, moving at right angles to the path of the first 

 specimen. Its path accidentally brought it in contact with the 

 ball b, which was dragging past its front. Amoeba c thereupon 

 turned, followed Amoeba a, and began to engulf the ball b. A 



to adapt itself in specified cases to the variations of individual circum- 

 stances. The reply is that in conation the act is so adjusted to 

 indefinitely varying changes in an outer object as to meet not the present 

 situation but one that is just about to occur. Now if there is a uniform 

 correlation between the acts, states or position of the object such that a 

 series of variations in its present state A^ A^ A 3 . . . are always succeeded 

 in definite time and space relation by a series a l9 a^ a 3 . . . such adjust- 

 ment might be mechanical. That is, the stimulus administered by A l 

 might by a uniform process discharge the movement suited to deal with 

 the object at a and so on. This would be an admissible explanation in, 

 say, the chase of a prey in open country. We might suppose all the 

 responses of the hunter to be adapted by heredity to those of the prey, 

 which, though endlessly varying, may vary on a fixed pattern. But when 

 we consider the synthesis of several independent objects which we find in 

 sensori-motor action, we are dealing with things that vary independently 

 and pass from one unique relation irregularly to another. In this case 

 the given situation varies in no uniform relation to the situation which 

 will emerge from it. The only thing that is common to the several 

 responses is their suitability to the result accruing from them. 



