TYPICAL MODES OF ADJUSTMENT 1. POINT OF VIEW AND PURPOSE OF THIS CHAPTER. We have seen that there is an organic circuit of activities involved in the life process. From the biological point of view, conscious processes are not isolable from the complex of activities which are going on all the time in the attempt of the organism to secure and maintain the proper adjustment between itself and the environment. The thinking process is no exception to this rule. We cannot isolate it either from the rest of the conscious processes or from the process of reaction to which it is relevant. We cannot rightly interpret thinking apart from the conditions under which it is called forth, apart from the concrete situations in which it functions. It is intelligible only as a phase within a complete circuit of adjustment activity comprising both mental and motor processes, and the nature of the thinking process is strictly relevant to the conditions which call for its functioning and to the situations which it is its task to control. If we wish, then, to locate exactly the place of the thinking process in the concrete life of the organism, we must study the characteristic modes of adjustment of which organisms are capable, with special reference to the problem of determining whether consciousness functions in them and in what way. This it is our purpose to do in this chapter. Though we shall find that thinking is confined to quite a narrow field of activity, it will more sharply define our conception of its significance if we first get clearly in mind, more precisely than through a mere assertion of the fact, the extent and nature of the processes through which the needs of the organism may be satisfied without the function of thinking. [In the evolution of species, the acquisition of the power to think is undoubtedly a comparatively recent accomplishment.] And quite likely we must pass quite well up into the scale of the vertebrates before we find consciousness functioning at all in definite modes more developed than a vague sentiency, or, at best, in forms of sense perception and of crude memory that must be thought of as more organic than intellectual in character. Even in the case of the human being, there is a large amount of useful activity which goes on smoothly, meeting the needs of the organism, without the intervention of thinking processes. We shall now take up for study some of the typical modes of adjustment, both animal and human, by means of which needs are met without thinking. Thus we shall lead up to those modes of adjustment in which the thinking process functions. 2. ADJUSTMENT WITHOUT THE INTERVENTION OF CON SCIOUSNESS. (1) Automatic action. Automatic action, illustrated by breathing, beating of the heart, the digestive processes, etc., meets the dominantly vegetative needs of the organism and keeps its vital processes going without the exercise of consciousness. This is important in view of the fundamental character of these processes and the need of continuity in their operation. They are removed by nature from the need of attention. (2) Reflex action. We have seen that there are also many reflex acts of which the organism is capable, acts which "occur in immediate response to sensory stimulation without the interposition of consciousness.1 Such acts are relatively simple, and their function is to produce adjustments which are 'Angell, Psychology, p. 337. directly for the well-being, often the protection, of a single member, or part, and only indirectly for the well-being of the organism as a whole. For example, the sudden withdrawal of the hand or the foot from an irritant is a relatively simple reaction, involving little coördination of activities, and it is dominantly for the good of the member affected. The same principle applies to winking, to the dilation and contraction of the pupil of the eye, to coughing, sneezing, etc. The difficulty is primarily local and the remedy is found in a local mechanism. In certain acts of the reflex type consciousness is sometimes present, as in the case of winking or of sneezing, but it is not the determining factor. Normally the reaction is determined by laws of nervous discharge entirely independent of the higher centers through which consciousness functions. The conscious processes which appear are not, however, necessarily without any functional significance. They may be important within a larger circuit of activity, an organic circuit of which the reflex is but a part. For example, the consciousness involved in sneezing may determine that I shall get up and close the window, thus adjusting myself to a situation in which there is danger of catching cold. But the reflex act itself represents a simple, useful adjustment of a purely mechanical type. There is no variation or control by consciousness. 3. ADJUSTMENT ON THE ORGANIC LEVEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS. (1) Instinctive action. a. General nature of instinctive action. If we examine the conduct of the lower animals, we find certain modes of adjustment characteristic of each species. These modes of adjustment seem not to have been learned as the result of experience, but to be predetermined by heredity, yet they are complex and highly adaptive. Common illustrations of these characteristic modes of adjust ment are the building of nests by the birds, the gathering and storing of honey by bees, etc. These forms of behaviour are commonly called instinctive acts. The term instinctive is popularly used to refer to any act which is the expression of some natural tendency. Psychologists themselves use the term quite freely in this sense. We shall use it, however, in a more limited sense, a sense which has not very wide usage, but which ought, nevertheless, to be cultivated. If we are careful to analyze what it is that we have in mind when we use the term instinctive act, we shall find that the dominant thought is some organization of activity which the animal has not had to learn, yet which meets his needs. It is an organized mode of procedure in which the organization is predetermined, the animal being able to perform the act at birth, or as the result of the purely physical processes of growth and development. In so far as acts approximate to this type, we may properly call them instinctive. Many of the characteristic activities of animals may depart from the type, but it is not the departure from the type, it is the large degree of conformity to it, which impels us to call the acts instinctive. b. Impulse and instinct. Instinct is the inner aspect of instinctive action. Instinct is the impulse, or specific inner tendency, which is expressed in the form of the instinctive act. Not every impulse, or inner tendency, however, is an instinct. Those only are instincts for which nature has provided in advance, or in the process of physical growth and development itself, a specific and characteristic complex mode of procedure. From this point of view every instinct is an impulse, but not every impulse is an instinct. Impulse may have other modes of expression than in terms of instinctive action. In the broad sense, impulse is the inner aspect of all actions from the simplest to the most complex, from the blindest to the most highly voluntary. In a narrower sense, the term applies only to inner tendencies to action whose pressure, or tension, is felt in consciousness, and who cannot be called either an instinctive act or a one. The baby's aimless and random movements legs are impulsive, and not instinctive. T coördination and organization of the instinct his clutching of the hand upon the object whi touch it may perhaps be called an instinctive tainly his original mode of taking nourishme tive; for here the inner impulse has a specif and inherited mode of expression. Play, in curiosity are to be classed as impulses rather stincts because their modes of expression are The inner tendencies are inherited and nat special modes of expression are provided by most every physical structure may be used in p too, in a variety of ways. Yet it must be adn the case of the lower animals the activities of tion, and curiosity are limited quite closely 1 lines and partake largely of the nature of insti c. Instinct of man and of animals compar It is evident that instinctive action, in the term which we employ, is more characteristic o than of man. Man has many impulses, but f This is an inevitable corollary of his greater birth and his longer period of infancy. He car with so many definitely organized modes of b may have all the fundamental impulses which li instinctive acts of animals, and many more; bu of expression on the one side, and their deve clear and specific inner tendencies on the ot both problems of his experience. The signifi fact we have already pointed out. With a ri 'This is the view of Baldwin in the Editor's Pref The Play of Animals, p. vii. Groos adopts this vie work, The Play of Man, pp. 2, 283-289. |