CHAPTER VIII 



CONCRETE EXPERIENCE AND THE PRACTICAL JUDGMENT 



i. IN the lowest grade of intelligence an animal learns 

 by experience, and the experience is in a sense experience 

 of a relation. There is a stimulus, a reaction, and a feeling, 

 and this sequence, repeated many times over, modifies the 

 reaction. For the observer it is clear that it is the relation 

 between stimulus and feeling which operates, but we saw 

 no reason to assume that the relation is grasped in the same 

 way by the organism on which it operates. The fish or 

 reptile may be excited by the approach of the keeper, and 

 stimulated to come forward for their food. But we can- 

 not infer that they correlate the perception of the keeper 

 with an idea of food, and choose to come forward as a 

 means towards securing that desirable end, the first and 

 best morsel. In the present chapter we advance to the stage 

 in which correlations of this sort are effected. We must 

 inquire, first, what precisely the nature of such correlation 

 is as compared with lower forms of mental adjustment ; 

 next, what kind of experience it implies, and what behaviour 

 can be built up by its means ; and lastly, whether there is 

 any evidence that this stage is reached below the level of 

 humanity. 



I. General character of the Practical Judgment. 



a. Judgment and Assimilation. 



When we find that the burnt child dreads the fire, we 

 may explain the fact in either of two ways. It may be 

 that the child grasps and retains the relation between the 

 flame as a bright, shining, lambent object, attractive to its 



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