46 CONSCIOUSNESS 
is sentient from the first. Dividing the course of the observed 
behaviour into stages, we may say that the first stage is that in 
which the chick receives a visual stimulus accompanied by a 
sensation of sight. Upon this there rapidly follows the second 
stage, when the bird pecks, and its experience is widened by 
new data of consciousness derived from a group of motor 
sensations ; and upon this, again, there follows the third stage, 
when sensations come in from the morsel of egg which the 
chick touched but just failed to seize. After a pause the chick 
strikes again. But we have not a mere repetition of the 
former sequence of stages. The visual stimulus at first fell 
upon the eye of a wholly inexperienced bird ; now it falls upon 
the eye of one that has gained experience of pecking and 
tasting. What we may call the conscious situation has com- 
pletely changed, at all events if we assume that the items of 
consciousness, including as essential the consciousness of be- 
haviour, do not remain separate and isolated, but have coalesced 
into a group through association. And in this group the 
consciousness of behaving is perhaps the most important 
element in the situation, making it of practical value. What 
psychologists term the presentative visual stimulus, now calls up 
re-presentative elements, motor and gustatory ; and these place 
the situation in a wholly new aspect. They give it what Dr. 
Stout terms “meaning.” On the second or third attempt 
the chick seizes and swallows the morsel of egg. Its ex- 
perience is yet further widened ; and thereafter the situation 
has other new elements. Later it pecks at some nasty grub ; 
shakes its head, and wipes its bill on the ground. The con- 
scious situation has for the future become more complex, 
and the behaviour is henceforth differentiated into that of 
acceptance and that of rejection, in each case determined by 
the acquired meaning in the coalescent conscious situation : 
the sight of a nice piece of egg being one situation, that of 
a nasty caterpillar another, each associated with its specific 
behaviour-consciousness. We need not carry the illustration 
further on these lines: the essential feature is that experience 
grows by the coalescence of successive increments, and that 
