Affective Tendencies 399 
of its action seems to be present in some way at the be- 
ginning, determining what the action shall be. In this 
the action of living things appears to contrast with that 
of inorganic things.” 5° 
Now this “final result of its action” exists really from 
the beginning in the form of mnemonic accumulation. 
For that environment or those special environmental con- 
ditions to which the animal is gravitating operate now as 
vis a fronte in so far as they were formerly vis a tergo and 
in so far as the physiological activities then determined 
by them in the organism have left behind a mnemonic 
accumulation which now itself constitutes the real and 
true vis a tergo moving the living being.®! 
Thus it is clear that one and the same explanation 
applies to all the “finalism’” of life. For from the onto- 
genetic development which creates organs that cannot per- 
form their functions until the adult state, to the tendency 
of all physiological states determined by certain environ- 
mental conditions to remanifest themselves at the first ap- 
pearance of phenomena usually preceding these conditions, 
but in no wise constituting them; from the perfect way 
in which the organism in its entirety is morphologically 
adapted to its environment before the latter can exercise 
its formative influence, to all the wonderful formations 
and special structures so exactly adapted to all the most 
probable conditions to which this organism might later be 
exposed ; from the simplest reflex motions that are directed 
so perfectly toward the preservation and welfare of the 
individual to the most complex instincts by means of 
50Jennings, Behavior of Lower Organisms, p. 338. 
51, Mach, Die Analyse der Empfindungen, 5th ed., pp. 79, 78, 
Jena, Fischer; English edition: Chicago, Open Court Publishing 
Company, 1897. 
