vii ASSIMILATION AND READJUSTMENT 121 



tongue or palate, and if we divide these two stages of the 

 consequence p of the reaction, we get altogether not three 

 stages, but four. 



s r c p 



(the sight) (pecking) ("unpleasant" (movement of 



taste) rejection). 



Afterwards we have s followed at once by p 



(the sight) (rejection). 



Strictly, what is altered is not p, which came into exist- 

 ence, at any rate, in tendency and effect, in the first 

 experience, but the effect of s. J, which before called 

 forth r, now excites /?, and the intervening stage c seems 

 to have nothing to do with the matter. How then is the 

 action of s modified ? 



We can partly answer this by understanding accurately 

 how far it has been modified. In this way : that instead 

 of evoking as before a pecking movement, it either has no 

 outward result at all, or it evokes a contrary movement of 

 rejection or aversion, which movement is of the same 

 character as one that it previously excited through an 

 intermediary. This gives us the broad character of the 

 whole proceeding. The excitement aroused by a certain 

 stimulus has taken to itself or assimilated the character of 

 another excitement which it has previously brought about. 

 The excitement originally produced by the sight of the 

 orange-peel prompted pecking. Pecking produced a con- 

 tact with the inside of the bill, which in its turn produced 

 a violent movement of rejection. Now the first excitement 

 becomes clothed with the character of the second in greater 

 or less degree, so that either the two motor excitements 

 the original and the acquired cancel each other and 

 produce absolute indifference, or the acquired effect pre- 

 dominates, and there is a movement of disgust. 1 



1 Mr. Stout, with whose very clear account of this process the above is, 

 generally speaking, in close agreement, passes one criticism on the alter- 

 nation theory which seems to go too far. This theory attributes to the 

 chick a " faintly revived sensation of disgust " accompanying the sight of 

 the caterpillar. Mr. Stout objects (Manual of Psychology, p. 88) that this 

 would lead to two movements which would interfere with one another 

 only so far as they are " mechanically incompatible." " One would expect 

 a nondescript blend of the two movements, or an alternation between 

 them." Mr. Stout seems to overlook the point that it would be two 

 divergent cerebral processes that would be set up, and that these might 

 fight it out within the brain and without appearing in outward action. 



