Animal Behaviour

by C. Lloyd Morgan

V.—The Evolution of Feeling and Emotion

“Whatever conditions,” says Dr. Stout,[175] “further and favour conation in the attainment of its end, yield pleasure. Whatever conditions obstruct conation in the attainment of its end, are sources of displeasure. This is the widest generalization which we can frame, from a purely psychological point of view, as regards the conditions of pleasure and displeasure respectively.” Here Dr. Stout seems carefully to avoid the commonly accepted and much advertised conclusion, that pleasure and pain (to use this more familiar word as the antithesis of pleasure) are themselves the end of conative endeavour. And he is so far right that they by no means constitute the sole or indeed the primary end of all conative process. Attention is a conative act; but its primary end is not pleasure, but rather, as Dr. Stout says,[176] the fuller presentation of the object. No doubt this brings pleasure; but the fuller presentation comes first, and carries the pleasure with it. Instinctive response to felt stimulus falls within the conative attitude. In it there is that “inherent tendency to pass beyond itself and become something different,” which Dr. Stout assigns to conation as its chief characteristic. But the end is not pleasure, but simply the instinctive behaviour. And if we say that the attainment of this end does bring satisfaction, which is a form of pleasure, Dr. Stout would probably reply that this is rather a result of the process than its true end.

Now, in such cases, what we are really dealing with is a class of organic processes having conscious accompaniments. No doubt the conscious accompaniments are of importance; they certainly cannot be neglected by the psychologist: but their feeling-tone does not constitute that which makes instinct run its course. And I have introduced the subject for present discussion in this way to reinforce what has already been repeatedly urged in the foregoing pages, that individual behaviour, in its first intent, is a biological legacy with ends predetermined through heredity. The inherent tendency to pass beyond itself and become something different, which for the old psychology was a heaven-sent impulse, or, as Addison said, “an immediate impression from the first Mover and the Divine energy acting in the creatures,” becomes for the new psychology an organic bequest. But the attainment of ends thus already predetermined has feeling-tone, both as process and in its resulting consciousness, and this feeling-tone serves to modify, through the situation it introduces, future behaviour, and thus, in a sense, affords a new end to subsequent conation.

“Life,” wrote James Martineau,[177] “is a cluster of wants physical, intellectual, affectional, moral, each of which may have, and all of which may miss, the fitting object. Is the object withheld or lost? there is pain: is it restored or gained? there is pleasure: does it abide or remain constant? there is content. The two first are cases of disturbed equilibrium, and are so far dynamic that they will not rest till they reach the third, which is their posture of stability and their true end.” This is an adequate description of the essential features in conative process. But in genetic precedence, as in individual development, the physical wants come first, and, at the outset of behaviour, the satisfaction or content is not and cannot be foreseen, since it has never yet entered into experience. To adopt a distinction suggested by Professor Mackenzie,[178] the conation is purposive, since we see that an end is involved, but not purposeful, since there is no definite consciousness of the end aimed at. But when experience has introduced feeling-tone into the situation, we may say that this, in a sense, introduces a new end to subsequent behaviour.

Mr. Herbert Spencer has said[179] that pleasure is that which we seek to bring into consciousness and retain there; pain, that which we seek to get out of consciousness and keep out. May we assert, then, that, in the modification of behaviour due to experience, the pleasure to be gained or the pain to be avoided is the psychological end? Certainly not without qualification, unless we be among those who are content to accept any form of words which gives a general sort of notion of the kind of thing which we suppose is meant, and which is probably more or less correct. We want here and now to get clear ideas, and to express them with some approach to accuracy. To say that pleasure is the psychological end of intelligent behaviour is to put the matter too subjectively and in too abstract a form. Professor Mackenzie has clearly indicated the ambiguity in the word “pleasure.” “Pleasure,” he says,[180] “is sometimes understood to mean agreeable feeling, or the feeling of satisfaction, and sometimes it is understood to mean an object which gives satisfaction. The hearing of music is sometimes said to be a pleasure, but of course the hearing of music is not a feeling of satisfaction; it is an object that gives satisfaction. Generally, it may be observed that when we speak of ‘pleasures’ in the plural, or rather in the concrete, we mean objects that give satisfaction; whereas when we speak of ‘pleasure’ in the abstract, we more often mean the feeling of satisfaction which such objects bring with them.” May we not go a step further, but entirely in the same direction, and say that pleasure is a constituent part of the concept self as an object of thought or desire; that its proper sphere is in the ideational consciousness; and that, as we interpret the animal mind, it has no place as such therein? The hedonist regards pleasure as the most excellent and distinctive characteristic of his ideal self and his ideal community. But animals have not risen or fallen to the level of hedonism. Pleasure is not for them a motive of conduct, though nice objects, as such, are attractive, and through them impulse acquires direction and force.

If, in animal psychology, we are to use the words pleasure and pain (as the antithesis of pleasure)—and they seem more properly to belong to a plane of mental development to which animals probably have not attained—we may say that the pleasure or the pain which attaches to any centre of interest in the situation is that which gives it attractive or repellent meaning; it furthers conation either towards or, as Hobbes would say, fromwards. But if we put the matter in this somewhat abstract form, let us keep in view, if it be only in the background of our thought, the kind of concrete example which may be adduced in its illustration—the dog with his attractive bone, the kitten that has raced off at sight of him, the cock-sparrow with trailing wings hopping after his mate, the falcon stooping on her quarry, the rabbit diving into his burrow at sight of the fox, and so forth. If we have such cases in view, where the centre of the situation has acquired or is acquiring meaning, a meaning which in large degree attaches to the external nucleus of the situation with only the germs of subjective reference, we may, perhaps, summarize the position by saying that in each case some pleasure to be gained or some pain to be avoided is the psychological end of conation.

But in each case the conation has also a biological end—the preservation and conservation of the race. “An animal,” said Darwin,[181] “may be led to pursue that course which is most beneficial to the species by suffering, such as pain, hunger, thirst, or fear; or by pleasure, as in eating and drinking, and in the propagation of the species; or by both combined, as in the search for food.” The important point here to notice is that the two ends agree—the psychological end of the attainment of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, and the biological end of race preservation. Under the joint influence of pleasure and pain, the needle of animal life sets towards the pole of beneficial action.

This consonance of end was in old days ascribed to the beneficent foresight of the Creator. The modern view, that it is a product of evolution, does not necessarily ascribe it to any other ultimate cause. For many still piously hold that evolution is only a name which we give to the method of creation. And there is not a fact or generalization in science by which such a conclusion can be disproved, for the premises lie outside the field of scientific inquiry. But the consonance of end is, for science, a remarkable fact, and one worthy of attentive consideration.

We have already seen that, if the claim for the inheritance of acquired characters be, on the evidence, judged unproven, and if instinct cannot be ascribed to transmitted habit, or regarded as a legacy of that which has been ancestrally acquired, the only scientific explanation of instinctive behaviour is one which involves the principle of natural selection. But no one doubts that, in the course of experience, animals acquire modes of procedure which are beneficial to the race. This is well seen in the play of animals as interpreted by Professor Groos. Now, why do animals play? From the psychological point of view, because they like it; from the biological point of view, because they thus gain practice and preparation for the serious business of their after-life. But why do they like it? because, under natural selection, those who did not like it, and therefore did not play, proved unfit for life’s struggle, and were eliminated. Suppose that an animal were born with a rooted hereditary aversion to everything nutritious and an inherited hunger for anything harmful and unfit for food. What chance would it stand of survival? Hereditary likes and dislikes determine the general course of acquired behaviour, just as hereditary nerve-connections determine the course of instinctive behaviour. Wherein, then, lies the difference between the two? In the fact that in the one case the nerve-connections are transmitted ready-made, while in the other they result from association or coalescence in the course of individual life. But in both cases the pursuit and attainment of the beneficial brings satisfaction.