1896.] Psychology. 848 



to as many ends as there are benefits to l.e obtained. It is evident that 

 the physical basis of memory undergoes a change from the condition 

 in which it is first produced. Its component parts are evidently rear- 

 ranged in accordance with some purely psychic factors, i. e., in aeeoid- 

 ance with qualities and properties which are only appreciable by con- 

 scious states. One may suppose that a reflection of the physical bftsu 

 of a memory may 1 

 that in o 

 fication, i 



In other words, the 

 structure of the physi 



duction of it. These representative functions may be of the s 

 — i.e., they may consist only of criteria of size, color, utility, etc., or 

 they may be more complex, involving judgments, concepts, etc. 

 Finally, no criteria can violate the ultimate " forms of thought," 

 which are essentials of all representative mental action. These, in 

 short, are the fundamental reasons why mental conditions may he be- 

 lieved to direct the course of energy, without increasing the amount of 

 that energy. 



The relation of this factor of evolution to the the theories of Prefor- 



lieve that the process of mental evolution has been and is at bottom epi- 

 genetic, is because there is no way short of supernatural revelation by 

 which mental education can be accomplished other than by contact 

 with the environment through sense impressions, and by transmission 

 of the results to subsequent generations. The opinion is amply a con- 

 sistent application to brain tissue of a doctrine supposed to be true oi 

 the other organic structures. The injection of consciousness into the 

 process does not alter the case, but adds a factor which necessitates the 

 progressive character of evolution. 



I do not perceive how promiscuous variation and natural selection 

 alone can result in progressive psychic evolution, more than in struc- 

 tural evolution, since the former is conditioned by the latter. The ob- 

 jections to this mode of accounting for progressive structural evolution 

 are well known, and are enumerated in my book on page 474. It is 

 true, no doubt, that as we rise in the scale of mental faculty the capa- 

 city for acquisition increases. How far these acquisitions are in in- 

 heritable is a question of detail, but no one denies, so far as I am 

 aware, excepting consistent preformationists, that they are more or less 

 inheritable. It is to be supposed that the longer special aptitudes art 

 cultivated the more likely they are to be inherited, precisely as the ef 



