xvn STAGES OF CORRELATION 401 



cisely the same that is, adaptation of reaction so as to 

 produce the most suitable feeling. 



Correlation of this type prunes and perfects hereditary 

 tendencies and forms useful habits out of random acts. 

 The general biological effect is to render instinct more 

 plastic. 



Ethically considered, action in this stage is Impulsive, 

 and so far as determined by experience, must be regarded 

 as limited to adjustments based on and relative to the 

 feeling of the individual alone. 

 Stage II. Concrete Experience and the Practical Judgment. 



It is clear that in the first stage the scope of intelligence 

 is at a minimum, being confined to the felt character of 

 the excitement of the moment. This character must * 

 contain a motor impulse more or less definite, but is not 

 in any way differentiated into distinct elements. Hence 

 discrimination is also at its lowest point. The first 

 advance in both these respects brings us to the second stage. 

 Psychologically, the new departure which has taken place 

 in this stage is that the related term which in the previous 

 stage merely influences action, is now brought explicitly 

 into consciousness. In other words, the perceptual 

 relation, the concrete whole in which distinct terms are 

 united, now appears to be the basis of action, or even 

 to enter, along with other experiences, into higher com- 

 binations. Thus in the previous stage, where an excita- 

 tion A led to a consequence B, it acquired thereby a 

 motor character /3. But in proportion as ft becomes 

 accurately defined and individualised in each new case, it 

 comes to be equivalent to what is in human consciousness 

 a motor idea of B in a definite relation to A. The content 

 thus arrived at is a whole constituted by related elements. 



The judgment in which distinct elements are held in 

 relation must rest upon a perception, and thus the founda- 

 tion of the change we are describing must lie in the growing 

 distinctness and comprehensiveness of perception whereby 

 related objects can be apprehended distinctly and yet 

 together. Such apprehension again becomes possible as 



1 At least in the lower stages. The development of sensation into Per- 

 ception does not depend exclusively on motor impulses. 



D D 



