Luck or Cunning? by Samuel Butler
page 22 of 291 (07%)
page 22 of 291 (07%)
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changes have become organic (p. 527).
The doctrine that the connections among our ideas are determined by experience must, in consistency, be extended not only to all the connections established by the accumulated experiences of every individual, but to all those established by the accumulated experiences of every race (p. 529). Here, then, we have one of the simpler forms of instinct which, under the requisite conditions, must necessarily be established by accumulated experiences (p. 547). And manifestly, if the organisation of inner relations, in correspondence with outer relations, results from a continual registration of experiences, &c. (p. 551). On the one hand, Instinct may be regarded as a kind of organised memory; on the other hand, Memory may be regarded as a kind of incipient instinct (pp. 555-6). Memory, then, pertains to all that class of psychical states which are in process of being organised. It continues so long as the organising of them continues; and disappears when the organisation of them is complete. In the advance of the correspondence, each more complex class of phenomena which the organism acquires the power of recognising is responded to at first irregularly and uncertainly; and there is then a weak remembrance of the relations. By multiplication of experiences this remembrance becomes stronger, and the response more certain. By further multiplication of experiences the internal relations are at last automatically |
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