The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) — John Shaqi
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)James, William
Philosophy
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
If, on the contrary, the right leg originally moved for the _purpose_
of wiping the acid, then nothing is more natural than that, when the
easiest means of effecting that purpose prove fruitless, other means
should be tried. Every failure must keep the animal in a state of
disappointment which will lead to all sorts of new trials and devices;
and tranquillity will not ensue till one of these, by a happy stroke,
achieves the wished-for end.
In a similar way Goltz ascribes intelligence to the frog's optic
lobes and cerebellum. We alluded above to the manner in which a sound
frog imprisoned in water will discover an outlet to the atmosphere.
Goltz found that frogs deprived of their cerebral hemispheres would
often exhibit a like ingenuity. Such a frog, after rising from the
bottom and finding his farther upward progress checked by the glass
bell which has been inverted over him, will not persist in butting
his nose against the obstacle until dead of suffocation, but will
often re-descend and emerge from under its rim as if, not a definite
mechanical propulsion upwards, but rather a conscious desire to reach
the air by hook or crook were the main-spring of his activity. Goltz
concluded from this that the hemispheres are not the sole seal of
intellect in frogs. He made the same inference from observing that a
brainless frog will turn over from his back to his belly when one of
his legs is sewed up, although the movements required are then very
different from those excited under normal circumstances by the same
annoying position. They seem determined, consequently, not merely by
the antecedent irritant, but by the final end,--though the irritant of
course is what makes the end desired.
Another brilliant German author, Liebmann,[2] argues against the
brain's mechanism accounting for mental action, by very similar
considerations. A machine as such, he says, will bring forth right
results when it is in good order, and wrong results if out of repair.
But both kinds of result flow with equally fatal necessity from their
conditions. We cannot suppose the clock-work whose structure fatally
determines it to a certain rate of speed, noticing that this speed is
too slow or too fast and vainly trying to correct it. Its conscience,
if it have any, should be as good as that of the best chronometer, for
both alike obey equally well the same eternal mechanical laws--laws
from behind. But if the _brain_ be out of order and the man says "Twice
four are two," instead of "Twice four are eight," or else "I must go to
the coal to buy the wharf," instead of "I must go to the wharf to buy
the coal," instantly there arises a consciousness of error. The wrong
performance, though it obey the same mechanical law as the right, is
nevertheless condemned,--condemned as contradicting the inner law--the
law from in front, the purpose or ideal for which the brain _should_
act, whether it do so or not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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