GENETICS AND ETHICS 465 



perience to avoid the flame. Its reactions are 

 relatively fixed and machine-like. Many other 

 animals learn by experience to inhibit respon- 

 ses to certain stimuli; a tame fish or frog will 

 take food from your hand, but if it is repeat- 

 edly frightened when it attempts to take food 

 it will not come near you though it is starv- 

 ing, — it inhibits the strong impulse of a 

 hungry animal to take food by the counter 

 impulse of unpleasant memories or of fear. 

 Here we have the beginnings of what we call 

 freedom, the immediate response to a stimulus 

 is suppressed, internal stimuli are balanced 

 against external ones and final action is de- 

 termined largely by past experience. Owing 

 to his vastly greater power of memory, reflec- 

 tion and inhibition man is much freer than 

 any other animal. Animals which learn little 

 from experience have little freedom and the 

 more they learn the freer they become. 



In both ontogeny and phylogeny there has 

 been development of freedom. The reactions 

 of germ cells and of the lowest organisms are 

 relatively fixed. In more complex organisms 

 reactions become modifiable through conflict- 



