xxviii Unconscious Memory 



Protista, the simplest of living beings, with the idea that 

 only accurate and ample observation was needed to enable 

 us to explain all their activities on a mechanical basis, and 

 devised ingenious models of protoplastic movements. He 

 was led, like Driesch, to renounce such efforts as illusory, 

 and has come to the conviction that in the behaviour of 

 these lowly beings there is a purposive and a tentative 

 character— a method of " trial and error "—that can only 

 be interpreted by the invocation of psychology. He points 

 out that after stimulation the " state " of the organism 

 may be altered, so that the response to the same stimulus 

 on repetition is other. Or, as he puts it, the first stimulus 

 has caused the organism to pass into a new " physiological 

 state." As the change of state from what we may call the 

 " primary indifferent state " is advantageous to the or- 

 ganism, we may regard this as equivalent to the doctrine 

 of the " circular reaction," and also as containing the 

 essence of Semon's doctrine of " engrams " or imprints 

 which we are about to consider. We cite one passage 

 which for audacity of thought (underlying, it is true, most 

 guarded expression) may well compare with many of the 

 boldest flights in " Life and Habit " :— 



" It may be noted that regulation in the manner we have 

 set forth is what, in the behaviour of higher organisms, at 

 least, is called intelligence [the examples have been taken from 

 Protista, Corals, and the Lowest Worms]. If the same method 

 of regulation is found in other fields, there is no reason for 

 refusing to compare the action to intelligence. Comparison 

 of the regulatory processes that are shown in internal physio- 

 logical changes and in regeneration to intelligence seems to be 

 looked upon sometimes as heretical and unscientific. Yet 

 intelligence is a name applied to processes that actually exist 

 in the regulation of movements, and there is, a priori, no 

 reason why similar processes should not occur in regulation 

 in other fields. When we analyse regulation objectively there 

 seems indeed reason to think that the processes are of the 

 same character in behaviour as elsewhere. If the term in- 

 telligence be reserved for the subjective accompaniments of 

 such regulation, then of course we have no direct knowledge 



