for the well-being of the organism. In these cases we have what we shall call control over the environment by the organism; the organism is a controlling factor in the process of adjustment.

(2) Kinds of control.

a. Racial control.

The control which the organism exercises may be of either of two typical kinds,-racial control or individual control. The instinctive acts of animals furnish the best illustrations of racial control. The squirrel does not take the winter environment just as it is and adjust himself to it, but he introduces into it certain modifications. In the fall he gathers nuts and stores them away in places which shall be more convenient for him, and is thus supplied with food under different conditions than those of the natural winter environment. The beaver does not take nature as it is, but he introduces extensive changes into his environment. He builds dams, cuts ditches, fells trees, etc. Thus he modifies the conditions of his environment and compels it to meet his needs more adequately.

While there may be afforded through instinctive action quite a wide sphere of control by the organism over the environment, yet the nature of this control is primarily racial in character. It is nothing that is inherent in the individual as such, representing his personal achievement. It has been acquired by the species in the process of natural evolution, and as it operates in the life of any particular member of the species it is dependent primarily upon the special organization of his nervous system and of his body as a whole. Such control as is exercised is effected through inherited methods of reaction, rather than those which have been determined by the experience of the individual. This is one reason why progress is slow, if not a wholly negligible quantity, in all species below the human.

b. Individual control.

The human being exercises control over the environment

in the process of satisfying his needs not by using methods of reaction which are determined wholly in their organization by heredity, but which are subject to great modification by consciousness. In so far as consciousness is the dominant factor in the determination of motor responses, the control is individual rather than racial in character. Even where modes of control are the same among human beings, yet they may be highly individual in character. Their form is not determined by heredity but by the solution of the same problem in the same way. And where likeness is due to imitation, this is a social fact rather than a racial one, and it may represent a strong individual element in so far as it involves choice and the consciousness of the relevancy of the particular mode of procedure to the attainment of individual ends.

The human race did not come through racial heredity into the use of tools, or of fire, or of steam and electricity in its attempt to control the environment for the satisfaction of its needs. While these achievements may have had in them accidental elements, yet they are due primarily to the functioning of consciousness. And the individuals of one generation may, even within the period of a decade, modify extensively their modes of life, as in the case of the application of electricity to the problems of lighting and transportation.

But even within the confines of the same social group, individuals may vary widely from one another in their modes of adjustment. Each one may be specifically adjusted to the world in which he lives in a variety of ways that are peculiar to himself, and which satisfy more fully the peculiar needs or exigencies of his individual life. Racial control brings about adjustments which meet only general classes of needs common to all the members of a certain species; individual control is more varied, bringing about greater delicacy of adjustment to meet the needs which are peculiar to the individual.

The great problem of the organism is the attainment of control over the environment. The acme of achievement in this direction is individual control. This is of incalculable biological significance. It increases the possibility of self-maintenance immeasurably above that of the lower animals which do not possess it. In the greater delicacy of adjustment which it effects between the individual and his environment, whereby his individual needs are satisfied, it makes life something that is richer in personal values and hence more worth maintaining. It is the most significant function of consciousness to make possible the attainment of individual control. Indeed, the whole history of civilization may be written in terms of the progressive realization, through the use of his mental powers, of man's increasing control over the forces of his environment and the more perfect adaptation, both social and individual, which has resulted therefrom.

6. SUMMARY OF THE FUNCTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

We have seen that where already organized modes of reaction meet the needs of the organism, consciousness does not intervene. Consciousness is the factor of variation and of change. It reconstructs old modes of action and organizes new ones to meet needs that cannot otherwise be met. Consciousness is the pioneer, the scout, always concerning itself with the new and unattained. It is continually conquering new realms of action and adding them to that which has already been brought under control.

But not only is consciousness the factor of variation and reconstruction of reactions, it is also the great factor of individual control. Through it we are freed from the tyranny of racial heredity and are able to meet the exigencies of the world in which we live in terms of our own experience. Consequently one generation may make progress beyond the achievements of its ancestors, and the individual may establish modes of reaction which adjust him very

delicately to his environment in ways that satisfy and emphasize that class of needs which are peculiar to himself as an individual. Progress and personality, these are the great fruits of conscious, or individual, control.

7. CONCLUSION.

In closing this chapter, we might point out the difference between the older interpretation of evolution and the line of thought which we have been developing here. The Spencerian formula makes evolution consist in the process of more perfect adaptation of the inner factors to the outer, in other words, of the adaptation of the organism to the environment. There is a newer view, with which our line of thought is in harmony, but which has perhaps not been so strongly stated elsewhere as it is here. We have practically reversed the Spencerian formula and made evolution culminate in the attainment of control of the organism over the environment, in other words, the adaptation of the environment to the organism. This is made possible through the functioning of the conscious processes, which reach their culmination in the thinking of man.

Supplementary Readings for Chapter IV

Angell, Psychology, Ch. III.

Horne, The Philosophy of Education, Ch. II, especially pp. 3034 and 48-54.

O'Shea, Education as Adjustment, pp. 84-93, 99-104.

Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Part II, Chs. XVI, XXI, XXII.

Mr. Fiske here gives the first modern scientific formulation of the meaning and significance of prolonged human infancy. The same thought in simpler form may be found in his Excursions of an Evolutionist, Ch. XII, pp. 306-19, and also in Butler's Meaning of Education, pp. 6-17, 31-2.

James, Psychology, Briefer Course, pp. 4, 193-4, 170-4.
James, Talks to Teachers, Ch. III.

Chamberlain, The Child, Ch. I.

Kirkpatrick, Fundamentals of Child Study, pp. 3-7.

DIFFERENTIATION AND ORGANIZATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

1. NATURE OF THE FIRST CONSCIOUSNESS.

The child's first consciousness is a vague, undifferentiated whole, formless and relatively void. The human being may come into the world with some quite definite tendencies to action; but he brings with him no inherited knowledge. Everything which affects his senses is new and strange. Nothing can be discriminated from anything else. The truth of this can be seen by inference from adult experience. When we adults come into the presence of that which is new and strange, we have no specialized power of apprehending it as such. If we enter a factory, with all its mass of whirring and flying machinery, our minds are dazed and confused. Our first impression, however, is a total one of some sort. We do not get separate impressions which are later put together to form the whole. We get a vague total impression first. If the adult's consciousness in presence of the new and strange is thus a vague, undifferentiated whole, how much more should we expect this to be true in general of the consciousness of the baby to whom the whole world is new!

2. GENERAL PRINCIPLE OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

(1) Statement of the principle.

Consciousness becomes differentiated and organized in the process of organizing and controlling activities. The specialization of consciousness goes hand in hand with the attitudes which our experiences impel us to take toward 'James, Psychology, Briefer Course, p. 16.