BEGINNINGS OF INTELLIGENCE 173 
immediately come certain pleasurable sensations with an 
accompanying draught of nervous energy toward the 
organs employed in eating, etc. That is to say, the lines 
of nervous communication through which the diffused dis- 
charge happened in this case to pass, have opened a new 
way to certain wide channels of escape; and, consequently, 
they have suddenly become lines through which a large 
quantity of molecular movements that were followed by 
success are likely to be repeated; what was at first an acci- 
dental combination of motions will now be a combination 
having considerable probability.” 
Bain’s view of learning is much like that of Spencer. 
“We suppose movements spontaneously begun, and acci- 
dentally causing pleasure; we then assume that with the 
pleasure there will be an increase of vital energy, in which 
increase the fortunate movements will share, and thereby 
increase the pleasure. Or, on the other hand, we suppose 
the spontaneous movements to give pain, and assume that, 
with the pain, there will be a decrease of energy, extending 
to the movements that cause the evil, and thereby providing 
aremedy. A few repetitions of the fortuitous concurrence 
of pleasure and a certain movement, will lead to the forging 
of an acquired connection, under the law of retentiveness 
or contiguity, so that, at an after time, the pleasure or its 
idea shall evoke the proper movement at once.” 
The theories of Bain and Spencer are discussed in de- 
tail by Baldwin, who, while differing from these writers in 
certain points which need not here be dwelt upon, adopts 
essentially the same view as regards the mechanism of re- 
inforcement and inhibition. With Bain and Spencer, 
Baldwin assumes that “the pleasure resulting from the first 
accidentally adaptive movement, issues in a heightened 
nervous discharge toward the organs which made the move- 
