through intelligent adjustment or otherwise; that the part played by consciousness in the evolution of the higher and more active animals is apt to pass unnoticed or unrecorded. It is well, therefore, to put in a reminder that a great number of animals would never reach the adult state in which they pass into the hands of the comparative anatomist save for the acquisition of experience, and the effective use of the consciousness to which they are heirs; that their survival is due, not only to their possession of certain structures and organs, but, every whit as much, to the practical use to which these possessions are put in the give and take of active life; and that many interesting problems which are keenly discussed by evolutionists in the light of natural selection presuppose conscious situations which are more or less tacitly taken for granted.

Let us cast a rapid glance over some of these topics of biological discussion. The fascinating subject of mimicry, involving as it necessarily does the discussion of the value of warning colours and behaviour, a subject opening up an extensive group of problems so brilliantly studied by Professor Poulton, is meaningless save in so far as there is implied a conscious reaction to colour and form on the part of animals which can learn from experience. The warning colours reinstate a conscious situation, so that, misled by appearances, a bird mistakes the mimicking insect for its nauseous "model."

The whole range of behaviour, included under play, experimentation, and practice, on the importance of which, following the lead so ably given by Professor Groos, we have insisted, is equally meaningless, save as a means to the acquisition of serviceable experience for use in the more serious business of after-life; and experience is the establishment, through association and coalescence, of conscious situations which possess guiding value. And if, as we shall hereafter see, they may also be regarded as a means of securing pleasure, as a psychological end of behaviour, it is not less obvious that it is only through the development of consciousness that such a psychological end can have any existence.

It matters not if the particular form assumed by play and experimentation be largely dependent on instinctive tendencies. For all the phenomena of instinct, profoundly organic as are the modes of behaviour comprised under this head, definite as are the inherited co-ordinations in the most typical examples of its occurrence, have also, except in some doubtful cases, a conscious aspect. At any rate this is the case in so far as instinctive response forms the hereditary basis on which is reared a more nicely adjusted intelligent edifice, in so far as instinctive procedure is subsequently modified and guided by acquired experience, in so far as there creeps in that "little dose of judgment" which Huber found in bees, Lord Avebury attributes to ants, Dr. Peckham sees in spiders and solitary wasps, and all observers find in birds and mammals. For if in these cases instinctive behaviour were unconscious, it would, as such, remain outside experience; and if outside experience, there could be no data on which consciousness could base any modification of inherited behaviour, no opportunity of taking up the ready-formed responses into the mental synthesis and utilizing them for the wider ends of intelligent purpose.

In social behaviour there is a reciprocity of suggestion between the members of the community. And such suggestion is operative through an appeal to consciousness. However instinctive the forms of procedure may be in social insects, there remains much beyond which is hard to explain on the hypothesis that there is, in them, nothing analogous to a conscious situation; while in such vertebrates as birds and mammals we cannot but believe that consciousness is the main determinant of much behaviour which seems to imply the germs, or more than the germs, of sympathy. The little monkey I saw in Hamburg cuddling up caressingly to a wounded companion, must surely have experienced a conscious situation analogous to that which prompts a child to nestle alongside her companion in distress. And he who has seen no signs of sympathy in dogs, has either watched their behaviour in vain, or is himself lacking in sympathy.

In sexual selection by preferential mating, even if we follow Professor Groos in believing that it is a special mode of natural selection, the conscious situation is essential. If we accept the theory in any form, we must regard the adornments, antics, and display of the male as an appeal in some way to the consciousness of the female, whatever particular form the effects in that consciousness may take, whether the appeal evoke a sense of beauty, or simply be a means of exciting to the consummation of the natural end of courtship. Even if we follow Mr. Wallace in regarding plume and song as "recognition marks," it is only by their appeal to consciousness in this way, if in no other, that they are of any biological value. And this, of course, applies equally to the whole range of his theory of recognition marks-their sole utility lies in their being a stimulus to consciousness through which the end of recognition is secured. So, too, not only the specialized behaviour which we dignify by the name of "courtship," but every case in which mate is drawn to mate through sight, smell, hearing-any of the leading senses-testifies to the importance of consciousness in furthering an end of supreme biological importance.

66

And if, as Darwin urged, the "law of battle" among the males co-operates with preferential mating, as we can hardly deny, in securing strong, vigorous, and healthy fathers of the generation they beget, here, too, consciousness is an important factor. Can we conceive a law of battle" among unconscious beings? If success in the combat were a mere matter of brute strength, it would imply some consciousness in its dull exercise. But it is more. It is also a trial of skill. Were it not so our forefathers would not have spent hours in watching a cock-fight, or laid heavy odds on their particular "fancy."

We need not labour the theme. In the search for food or a nesting site, in the capture of prey and escape from enemies, in all that demands attention, and in all that necessitates practice, in what M. Houssay calls "the industries of animals," and in that which Mr. Hudson calls "tradition," consciousness has a part to play. Even plants unconsciously appeal to the

レ

consciousness of insects, birds, and mammals. Their bright, scented, nectar-bearing flowers, and their sweet, coloured fruits are means of effecting the biological ends of fertilization and the dissemination of seeds, but only on condition that their colours stimulate the sense of sight, and their scent and sweetness the senses of smell and taste. It is, perhaps, going too far to claim that, wherever sense-organs exist they imply at least some dim and rudimentary form of conscious situation of guiding value so far as it goes; for it is possible that in some cases the coalescence of elementary items of sentience has not been carried far enough to justify us in speaking of experience by which the animal can profit. But it is surely not going too far to claim that, wherever two or three such sense-organs are gathered together in any living being, there is consciousness in the midst of them, beginning to exercise that guidance which serves so markedly to differentiate the typical animal from the typical plant.

But throughout the animal kingdom, until we reach its highest development in man, the guidance of consciousness, important as it is, seems to be almost wholly subservient to a biological end, that of the preservation of the race, and for the race of the individual. Practical utility is the touchstone of animal intelligence, and of the whole range of feeling and emotion in beings still under examination in the stern school of natural selection. By this we mean that practical utility has determined what degree and complexity of intelligence, feeling, and emotion shall be attained. If the requisite level be not attained-elimination. Higher levels no doubt bring advantage so long as they are practically useful. But in the school of natural selection useless accomplishments are not much taught. Although its examinations are in a sense competitive, all are allowed to pass who qualify for survival. But the competitors become more numerous and the standard for a pass rises. As the school increases in size higher classes with harder problems to solve are established. Progress is an incident of the constant survival of the fittest when there are variations in fitness.

III. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT

On the hypothesis of monism, the nature of which, so far as it bears on our inquiry, was briefly indicated in the foregoing section, the conscious situation is the psychical or mental expression of that which for the physiologist is what we may term a neural situation. As such it does not enter into the chain of physical causation; nor do physical events as such that is to say, save as experienced enter into the chain of mental causation. For mental development they have no independent existence, and are negligible except in so far as they enter as items of experience into the conscious situation.

But altogether apart from the way or ways in which we may attempt to explain the fact, most of us believe, with unquestioning confidence, that the growth of practical experience, somehow associated with nervous changes in the brain or sensorium, is of real value in the guidance of behaviour in such manner as to secure biological ends. Con> scious experience must therefore, in the animal world, serve its biological purpose, or it will be of no avail. If there be not a pre-established harmony, there must be an evolved harmony; and how such a harmony could be evolved if consciousness be not by some means in vital touch with behaviour, influenced by and in turn influencing it, we cannot conceive. The steam-whistle theory of consciousness leaves the matter, for the evolutionist, in this inconceivable position.

We need not, however, flog a dead horse. We need not ask how, on the steam-whistle theory, those states of feeling which we broadly classify as pleasurable could become associated with behaviour conducing to welfare, and those which we group as hurtful with behaviour which is biologically harmful. It is more important, again, to notice that, associated and consonant with the biological end, there arises a psychological end of behaviour-what we may term, with the qualifications before considered, the getting of pleasure and the * Vide supra, p. 285.

*