164 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



Still more indirect is the relation in cases of the vague 

 motions maintained, varied, or repeated under the influence 

 of an uncomfortable situation or a persistent stimulus. 

 Here the tendency of movements to give relief is quite 

 general and uncertain, and the conative influence is seen 

 only in the double fact that some movement is maintained 

 while each particular movement that brings no relief is 

 discarded, modified, or reversed. The bearing of the 

 result upon the act is only definite so far as it is 

 negative. 



Conation in general, we may conclude, is a state which 

 seeks to pass into some other which is, in fact, conditioned 

 by its tendency to do so. This other may be quite in- 

 definite, and the acts to which the conation gives rise equally 

 undefined and inappropriate ; or it may be definite but, as 

 in sensori-motor action, not foreseen, so that it operates 

 on the action only through the sense of approximation, 

 which confirms what falls into line and eliminates the rest. 

 Lastly, in purpose it may come before the mind as an 

 idea, and each act and the entire movement are then 

 determined definitely by the contribution which they make 

 to the result. 



d. Purpose and knowledge of relations. 



Purpose, if the above account is correct, involves 

 an idea of the end. Action can be directly based on 

 a relation of end to means only if there is knowledge 

 of that relation. Such knowledge, however, is in itself 

 quite distinct from a habit of action, and is attained 

 in a different way. It may, for example, be derived 

 directly or indirectly from passive observation. Hence 

 a second characteristic of purposive action. It is based 

 on knowledge, not on habit, and conversely, if we 

 have evidence that an act is based on knowledge, we have 

 evidence that it is purposive. Such evidence, as has been 

 hinted, may be derived from the nature of the experience 

 antecedent to an action. Thus, in the example of the 

 book, my movements are based on the knowledge of 

 various relations derived from experience (of the house 

 and its parts, memory of where I left the book, and so on), 

 and in its determining factors there is nothing either in- 



