The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)James, William
Philosophy
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
If now we pass from such actions as these to those of living things,
we notice a striking difference. Romeo wants Juliet as the filings
want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by
as straight a line as they. But Romeo and Juliet, if a wall be built
between them, do not remain idiotically pressing their faces against
its opposite sides like the magnet and the filings with the card. Romeo
soon finds a circuitous way, by scaling the wall or otherwise, of
touching Juliet's lips directly. With the filings the path is fixed;
whether it reaches the end depends on accidents. With the lover it is
the end which is fixed, the path may be modified indefinitely.
Suppose a living frog in the position in which we placed our bubbles
of air, namely, at the bottom of a jar of water. The want of breath
will soon make him also long to rejoin the mother-atmosphere, and he
will take the shortest path to his end by swimming straight upwards.
But if a jar full of water be inverted over him, he will not, like the
bubbles, perpetually press his nose against its unyielding roof, but
will restlessly explore the neighborhood until by re-descending again
he has discovered a path round its brim to the goal of his desires.
Again the fixed end, the varying means!
Such contrasts between living and inanimate performances end by leading
men to deny that in the physical world final purposes exist at all.
Loves and desires are to-day no longer imputed to particles of iron or
of air. No one supposes now that the end of any activity which they
may display is an ideal purpose presiding over the activity from its
outset and soliciting or drawing it into being by a sort of _vis a
fronte_. The end, on the contrary, is deemed a mere passive result,
pushed into being _a tergo_, having had, so to speak, no voice in its
own production. Alter the pre-existing conditions, and with inorganic
materials you bring forth each time a different apparent end. But
with intelligent agents, altering the conditions changes the activity
displayed, but not the end reached; for here the idea of the yet
unrealized end co-operates with the conditions to determine what the
activities shall be.
* * * * *
_The pursuance of future ends and the choice of means for their
attainment are thus the mark and criterion of the presence of
mentality_ in a phenomenon. We all use this test to discriminate
between an intelligent and a mechanical performance. We impute no
mentality to sticks and stones, because they never seem to move for
_the sake of_ anything, but always when pushed, and then indifferently
and with no sign of choice. So we unhesitatingly call them senseless.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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