Consciousness and Instinct. 127 



as a means of guidance amid the comparativelj^ simple 

 conditions of the chick's life. 



Now, if, on the one hand, it cannot be said without ex- 

 travagance that the egg with which we start is endowed 

 with consciousness ; and if, on the other hand, it cannot 

 be said without extravagance that the day-old chick is an 

 unconscious automaton; there must be some intervening 

 moment at which this consciousness has its origin. When 

 is this, and how does it arise ? If we attempt to answer 

 this question with anything like thoroughness, we shall 

 open up the further question. From what does conscious- 

 ness take its origin? And this would lead to a difficult 

 and, for most of us, not very interesting discussion. We 

 should have to decide whether consciousness arises out 

 of merely material and physical conditions within the 

 developing chick; or whether it is somehow introduced 

 from some external source; or whether it arises out of 

 something associated with the material egg which, though 

 not yet consciousness, developes into consciousness. 

 These problems we will not here attempt to solve. The 

 probabilities appear to me to be in favour of the third 

 alternative; on which view the question takes the more 

 practical form. When does consciousness become effective? 

 By effective consciousness, I mean that which enables 

 an animal to guide its actions in the light of previous 

 experience. It is clear that, on the hypothesis indicated, 

 we cannot deny that there may be sentient states (if 

 one may so term them), which merely accompany organic 

 or other processes, but which are not thus effective 

 in the guidance of life. They are of no practical value, 

 however, unless they afford data by which the animal is 

 able to profit by his experience. In the series of changes, 

 for example, which take place in the duly fertilized egg, 

 there may be sentient states of this kind. But there is no 



