400 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



and efficient in adapting themselves to variety and over- 

 coming obstacles. We have now to examine the extension 

 of its scope to Past and Future. 



///. Correlation based on Individual Experience. 



Of this process, which we have considered the special 

 work of Intelligence, we have distinguished four great 

 stages. 



Stage I. Inarticulate Correlation. 



While inherited behaviour, whether instinctive or 

 reflex, consists of the response to stimulus of a preformed 

 structure, we find in this stage a modification of such 

 response by experience of its effects. This process may 

 be regarded as the germ of all subsequent correlation. 

 In this first stage, the correlation is to be understood as 

 follows : 



The feeling consequent upon instinctive or random 

 reaction to a stimulus modifies the reaction to similar 

 stimuli in a manner determined by the nature of the 

 feeling. Simple instances are those of the spider refusing 

 after a few trials a fly which had been dipped in turpentine, 

 or of the fish which learns to come for food on the 

 approach of human beings. 



To the observer it is clear that the basis of the 

 modification is a certain relation of stimulus, reaction, and 

 feeling. But for the intelligence at this stage, these 

 elements and their relations are not explicit. They have 

 no distinct function each for itself, but act as a whole so as 

 to effect the particular modification described. We have 

 described this as a Correlation of Empirical Results^ or 

 negatively, as Inarticulate Correlation. As a thought 

 process we have compared it to a syllogism in which the 

 mind is explicitly aware of the practical conclusion alone, 

 the premisses being presented by a certain combination of 

 psychological forces from which the conclusion follows. 



The distinctive conscious function involved is an 

 impulse- feeling attached to a sensory excitement in con- 

 sequence of previous experience. 



The scope of the experience co-ordinated is the relation 

 between reaction upon stimulus and the immediately attend- 

 ant feeling. The scope of the adjustment effected is pre- 



