[134] Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 449.
[135] Psy. Rev., Vol. II, p. 15 f.
[136] Ibid., p. 24 f.
[137] Ibid., p. 24.
CHAPTER V THE EVOLUTIONARY STANDPOINT
Dewey's psychology is linked up with his logical theory, as has already been suggested, through the interpretation of the thought-process as a mode of adjustment involving inference. This conception of thought implies, of course, that thought is an instrument of adaptation, and this in turn suggests that the organ of reflection is a product of evolutionary forces operating on the individual and on the race. In the period now to be reviewed Dewey, for the first time in his career, displays an active and intense interest in evolutionary theory, especially as applied in the fields of ethics and psychology.
An article published in the Monist, in 1898, on "Evolution and Ethics,"[138] deserves special attention. The central thought of the article is to be found in the following passage: "The belief that natural selection has ceased to operate [in the human sphere] rests upon the assumption that there is only one form of such selection: that where improvement is indirectly effected by the failure of species of a certain type to continue to reproduce; carrying with it as its correlative that certain variations continue to multiply, and finally come to possess the land. This ordeal by death is an extremely important phase of natural selection, so called.... However, to identify this procedure absolutely with selection, seems to me to indicate a somewhat gross and narrow vision. Not only is one form of life as a whole selected at the expense of other forms, but one mode of action in the same individual is constantly selected at the expense of others. There is not only the trial by death, but there is the trial by the success or failure of special acts—the counterpart, I suppose, of physiological selection so called."[139] We have here a refinement upon the doctrine of natural selection. The keynote of Dewey's new psychology is a process of selection constantly occurring within the individual organism. He points out that, in dealing with man, we have a highly adaptable, not merely a highly adapted animal. "It is certainly implied in the idea of natural selection that the most effective modes of variation should themselves be finally selected."[140] The capacity to vary, or adapt, is highly developed in man. Through these variations, the organism is able to react against the environment, changing its character quite completely. The environment of the modern human is tremendously complicated by his reaction upon it. "The growth of science, its application in invention to industrial life, the multiplication and acceleration of means of transportation and intercommunication, have created a peculiarly unstable environment."[141] Under these conditions, the ability of the individual to adapt himself to changing circumstances is largely determined by his degree of flexibility in the selection of right acts and responses. "In the present environment, flexibility of function, the enlargement of the range of uses to which one and the same organ, grossly considered, may be put, is a great, almost the supreme, condition of success."[142] The human mind is to be interpreted as a highly developed organ whose special function is to make adaptation more flexible and response more varied and discriminating. "That which was 'tendency to vary' in the animal is conscious foresight in man. That which was unconscious adaptation and survival in the animal, taking place by the 'cut and try' method until it worked itself out, is with man conscious deliberation and experimentation."[143]
This view of consciousness is worked out on the basis of an evolutionary metaphysics. Man is viewed as an organism, placed amid the changing whirl of things, stimulated into action by his needs and wants, adapting himself to conditions, making the situation over, or meeting it habitually where he can and suffering the consequences where he cannot make the necessary adjustment. If this be taken, as would seem, for the ultimate truth about reality and man's place in it, it must be called a metaphysics. Against this background Dewey's logical theory is developed. The most important result, from the standpoint of the student of mind and spirit, is the reduction of self-conscious reflection to the position of a nervous function of the organism. The purely theoretical evidence by which this position is sustained should be subjected to closer scrutiny than can be undertaken in this limited space.