August 23, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



219 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND EVOLUTION. 



The quotation by Professor Cattell in 

 Science, July 26, of Professor Cope's table 

 (from the Monist, July, 1895) shows that he 

 was equally struck by it with myself. Prof. 

 Cope gives in this table certain positions on 

 points of development, in two contrasted 

 columns, as he conceives them to be held by 

 the two camps of naturalists divided in re- 

 gard to inheritance into Preformists and the 

 advocates of Epigenesis. The peculiai-ity 

 of the Epigenesis column is that it includes 

 certain positions regarding consciousness, 

 while the Preformist column has nothing 

 to say about consciousness. Being struck 

 with this I wrote to Professor Cope — the 

 more because the position ascribed to con- 

 sciousness seemed to be the same, in the 

 main, as that which I myself have recently 

 developed from a psychological point of 

 view in my work on Mental Development 

 (Macmillan &Co.). I learn from him that 

 the table* is not new; but was published in 

 the ' annual volume of the Brooklyn Ethical 

 Society in 1891:' and the view which it em- 

 bodies is given in the chapter on ' Conscious- 

 ness in Evolution;' in his Origin of the Fitted 

 (Appletons, 1887). 



Apart from the question of novelty in 

 Professor Cope's positions — and that Mr. 

 Cattell and I should both have supposed 

 them so can only show that we had before 

 read hastily ; I myself never looked into 

 Professor Cope's book until now — I wish to 

 point out that the placing of consciousness, 

 as a factor in the evolution process, exclus- 

 ively in the Epigenesis column,appears quite 

 unjustified. It is not a question, as Mr. 

 Cattell seems to intimate in his note I'eferred 

 to in Science, July 26, of a causal in- 

 terchange between body and mind. I do 

 not suppose that any naturalist would hold 

 to an injection of energy in any form into 



*This table is given in the issue of Science for 

 July 26, p. 100. The three points from it which are 

 taken up now are cited below. 



the natural processes bj' consciousness ; 

 though, of course, Professor Cope himself 

 can say whether such a construction is true 

 in his case. The psj^chologists are, as Mr. 

 Cattell remarks, about done with a view 

 like that. The question at issue when we 

 ask whether consciousness has had a part 

 in the evolutionary process is, I think, as 

 to whether we say that the presence of con- 

 sciousness — say in the shape of sensations 

 of pleasure and pain — with its nervous or 

 organic correlative processes, has been an 

 essential factor in evolution; and if so, fur- 

 ther, whether its importance is because it 

 is through the consciousness aspect of it 

 that the organic aspect gets in its work. 

 Or, to take a higher form of consciousness, 

 does the memory of an object as having 

 given pleasure help an organism to get that 

 object a second time? This may be true, 

 although it is only the physical basis of 

 memory in the brain that has a causal rela- 

 tion to the other organic processes of the 

 animal. 



Conceiving of the function of conscious- 

 ness,therefore, as in any case not a deus ex ma- 

 china, the question I wish to raise is whether 

 it can have an essential place in the develop- 

 ment process as the Preformists construe 

 that process. Professor Cope believes not. 

 His reasons are to appear fully in his pro- 

 posed book. I believe that the place of 

 consciousness may be the same — and may 

 be the essential place that Mr. Cope gives 

 it in his left-hand column and which I give 

 it in my Mental Development — on the Pre- 

 formist view. I have argued briefly for 

 this indifference to the particular theory 

 one holds of heredity, in my book (Chap. 

 VII.), reserving for a further occasion cer- 

 tain ai-guments in detail based upon the 

 theory of the individual's personal relation 

 to his social environment. The main point 

 involved, however, may be briefly indicated 

 now, although, for the details of the social 

 influences appealed to, I must again refer 



