■^98 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 769 



are almost automatic in character. As 

 MacDougall has pointed out, the represen- 

 tations in consciousness of automatic tend- 

 encies are the emotions. Moral conduct, 

 ■being that behavior which is adapted to the 

 individual's position in his community, is 

 largely determined by these paths of auto- 

 matic action, and the moral individvial is 

 he whose automatic actions and consequent 

 emotions are most in accord with the wel- 

 fare of his community, or at any rate with 

 what has been accepted as the rule of con- 

 duct for the community. 



Rise in Type dependent on Brain.— 

 Thus, in the evolution of the higher from 

 the lower type, the physiological mechan- 

 isms, which have proved the decisive fac- 

 tors, can be summed up under the head- 

 ings of integration, foresight and control. 

 In the process of integration we have not 

 •only a combination of units previously 

 ■discrete, but also differentiation of strue- 

 fture and function among the units. They 

 l^ave lost, to a large extent, their previous 

 independence of action and, indeed, power 

 of independent action, the whole of their 

 energies being now applied to fulfilling 

 their part in the common work of the or- 

 •ganism. At first bound together by but 

 "slight ties and capable in many cases of 

 ■separating to form new cell colonies, they 

 have finally arrived at a condition in 

 •which each one is absolutely dependent for 

 ^ts existence on its connection with the 

 irest of the organism and is also essential 

 ^0 the well-being of every other part of 

 'the organism. 



This solidarity, this subjection of all 

 •selfish activity to a common end, namely, 

 preservation of the organism, could only be 

 effected by a gradual increase in the con- 

 'trol of all parts by one master tissue of 

 'the body, whose actions were determined 

 Iby impulses arriving from sense organs 

 "which themselves were set into activity by 



coming events. We thus have with the 

 rise in type a gradually rising scale in 

 powers of foresight, in control by the cen- 

 tral nervous system, and in the solidarity 

 of the units of which the organism is com- 

 posed. 



In the struggle for existence the rise in 

 type has depended, therefore, on the central 

 nervous system and its servants. Rise in 

 type implies increased range of adaptation, 

 and we have seen that this increased range, 

 from the very beginning of a nervous sys- 

 tem, was bound up with the powers of this 

 system. Whatever opinion we may finally 

 arrive at with regard to the types of ani- 

 mals which we may claim as our ancestors 

 on the line of descent, there can be no 

 doubt that Gaskell is right in the funda- 

 mental idea which has guided his investi- 

 gations into the origin of vertebrates. As 

 he says, "the law for the whole animal 

 kingdom is the same as for the individual. 

 Success in this world depends upon 

 brains. ' ' The work by this observer which 

 has lately appeared sets forth in greater 

 detail than I have been able to give you to- 

 day the grounds on which this assertion is 

 based, and furnishes one of the most note- 

 worthy contributions to the principles of 

 evolution which have been published dur- 

 ing recent years. 



We must not, however, give too restrict- 

 ive or common a meaning to the expres- 

 sion "brains" used by Gaskell in the 

 dictum quoted above. By this word we 

 imply the whole reactive system of the 

 animal. In the ease of man, as of some 

 other animals, his behavior depends not 

 merely on his intellectual qualities or 

 powers, to which the term "brain" is 

 often in popular language confined, but on 

 his position as a member of a group or 

 society. His automatic activities in re- 

 sponse to his ordinary environment, all 

 those social acts which we ascribe in our- 



