Page:Philosophical Review Volume 22.djvu/84

68 impress of circumstances, i.e., adaptation, and Conduct, either 'spontaneous' or 'elicited' follows. This is the clue to the whole book. The purposes or ends that conduct seeks to attain are numerous and may be divided into ultimate, intermediate and proximate. Ultimate ends are in all cases dictated by instincts which are the result of an inherited nervous mechanism; reason finds the means to attain those ends. This is where 'choice' comes in; which means, I take it, that the action of the inherited nervous mechanism is not absolutely fixed and determinate, but is modified and directed by the external factor, i.e., the stress of circumstances. The habitual pursuit of subordinate ends, which are necessary to the attainment of primary ends, results in such a modification of the inherited nervous structure that what were once 'reasoned' desires tend to become inherited or instinctive. Expressed in psychological terms, we have the fruitful principle here called the 'law of anticipation of motive' (cf. pp. 31, 160, 171, 338), according to which ultimate ends drop out of sight and conduct originally followed as means to a further end comes to be followed as an end in itself.

The ultimate end of all life and action is the continuation of the race to which the organism belongs. This involves the activities prompted by the self-preservative, reproductive and parental instincts; and to these must be added those social instincts that grow out of the biological importance of living together in communities. Thus the three great departments of conduct are that which is subservient to the conservation of the individual; that which subserves the preservation of the community; and that which provides for the continuation of the race. Since instinct dictates with imperious urgency the ends that we must pursue, a classification of ultimate purposes is also a classification of instinctive desires. Each of the above named main divisions of conduct has its subdivisions with its own instincts, primary, secondary, tertiary, and so on (pp. 80-84). This gives the plan of the volume. Conduct is either spontaneous or elicited, and it is either directly or indirectly conservative of the individual, the community, or the race. The true balance between the self-regarding instincts and the social instincts is, however, not yet reached (pp. 250, 262-272); and this creates an ethical problem which I do not think the author's biological explanation of Conduct is calculated to solve. I regret that I have no space to comment upon the important chapter on Elicited Morality. The whole book is exceedingly interesting, and no doubt will prove satisfying to those who accept the author's psychology.