ii2 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



memory nor inference, but are even simpler and more 

 direct in their operation. When we look attentively at an 

 object a flower, for example several features emerge 

 successively into our consciousness the shape, the colour, 

 the petals, and so on and the result of each earlier stage 

 of perception endures, qualifying and enriching the latter 

 stages, so that at the end the whole character of the 

 object is more fully and clearly appreciated than at first. 

 The utterance of the concluding words of a verse carries 

 with it a penumbra of sound and meaning attaching to 

 the verse as a whole. This atmosphere that surrounds a 

 later perception has been termed its meaning, and, so far 

 as it is due to the result of earlier perceptions, has been 

 ascribed to primary retentiveness. 1 Jn very simple forms 

 of behaviour this primary retentiveness persists beyond the 

 moment of sense perception, and has an effect in directing 

 and modifying instinctive response. For example, in the 

 case of the crab stalking the sandhopper, quoted above, 

 the hunting impulses of the crab are concentrated for the 

 moment upon this particular sandhopper. They persist 

 while the crab buries itself, and prompt its subsequent 

 approach and leap upon the prey. Schneider 2 describes a 

 turtle hunting for a hermit crab, which had taken refuge 

 between some big stones, and regards this as proving the 

 existence of an idea of the crab in the mind of the turtle, 

 but all that the behaviour of the turtle actually implies is 

 that the perception of the prey maintains its influence 

 after it has passed. It causes the same sort of efforts to 

 get at the victim as would be put forward were the victim 

 still in sight. Similarly, the particular spot chosen as 

 a resting place or home must be admitted to influence the 

 animal which returns to it, although the home is no longer 

 in sight. The snail, after it has eaten and is well filled, 

 returns along its trail to rest in the corner that it has already 

 found secure and comfortable. The instinct to return 

 is of course directed by the particular place which serves 

 as home for the time being. These seem to be the most 

 elementary cases in which an experience has a certain after- 



1 Stout, Manual of Psychology, Book I. chap. 3, pp. 169-184. 



2 Tierische Wille, p. 312. 



