336 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



a common character, and () thereby to form a guide in 

 dealing with a further mass of experience to come. Under 

 both aspects it brings the action of the moment into 

 explicit relation not merely with the immediate circum- 

 stances or the particular end, but with that which is of 

 enduring significance in the order of the world. 



Under this aspect, once again, we find the universal 

 rendering explicit influences which have already been 

 operative without being expressly formulated. In both 

 the lower stages of intelligence, the influence of often 

 repeated experience appears in ways too manifold and too 

 obvious to need mentioning in detail. Indirectly the 

 same influence may be traced even in pre-intelligent 

 organic reaction since even if we exclude any direct 

 transmission of " acquired qualities," it is the broad 

 average result of ancestral experience that goes to deter- 

 mine the constitution of the individual, and his reflexes 

 and instincts thereby. Thus, in an indirect, cumbersome, 

 and imperfect manner, with much loss of life and 

 efficiency, the actions of animals in the lower stages 

 become shaped by the preponderant results of great 

 masses of experience, and fitted to conform roughly not 

 merely to momentary ends, but to the general plan of 

 their lives. When the results of experience can be 

 succinctly summed up and communicated, it would seem 

 that this process should become far more speedy and 

 effective. There is evidently more scope for tradition and 

 training ; less necessity for perfection of instinct ; less 

 elimination ; less waste of life ; less time and energy lost 

 in learning. One sees how it is that with the growth of 

 intelligence in human life, the ready-made perfect instinct 

 tends to disappear, while yet the power of maintaining life 

 increases. 



TO. Thus the "world of ideas" or of universals, which 

 is generally, and I believe rightly, taken as the distinctive 

 property of humanity, is built up by a special application 

 of that power of correlating its experiences which is the 

 universal property of mind. But the correlation follows 

 a different line and rests on a more articulate form of 

 experience. Experiences are now correlated not merely in 



