Harmony and Conflict in the Living World - Alexander F. Skutch [82]
It is significant that in the growing animal the consummatory phase of instinctive activity often appears before the appetitive phase. One sees young birds going through the movements of picking up inedible objects before they have searched for and found proper food, of digging a burrow before they have found an earthen bank, of building a nest before they have selected a site or gathered materials. These stereotyped procedures, for which nerves and muscles are already set, may thus be carried out as though in a vacuum, without reference to appropriate external conditions or their place in the whole pattern of the animal's life. In the more mature animal, going about the proper business of its kind, the appetitive phase necessarily precedes the consummatory phase: it must find food before it eats, select a site before it builds its nest. The student of animal behavior, trying to discover how much his subjects can learn, or what intelligence they display in solving problems and overcoming difficulties, is significantly concerned with the appetitive phase of behavior, which is where intelligence first appears in the living world. In these tests, food is usually the incentive, or else escape from an uncomfortable situation. The animal is required to pit its wits against the variable circumstances of the external world that threaten to overcome it, or to surmount obstacles interposed between itself and the satisfaction of its appetite.
We can hardly overestimate the full significance of the place and manner in which intelligence was inserted into the system of animal behavior, and the profound influence this was to exert on the
Page 168
subsequent history of mind. It was not in the performance of highly integrative, constructive activities that intelligence first acquired value. The whole immensely complex business of organic growth, the coordination of the body's manifold functions, recuperation from the effects of strenuous activityall these had long been accomplished without conscious guidance. Likewise, such constructive occupations as building a nest, winning a mate, and caring for young, could follow stereotyped hereditary patterns, owing nothing to deliberate planning or forethought, whenever the proper or normal conditions were present. It was to deal with the variable and frequently hostile circumstances of the external world that intelligence was born. To capture prey, to outwit predators, to defeat competitors for a mate or homesite, to overcome the difficulties and obstructions of the endlessly mutable environmentsuch endeavors demanded a flexibility of behavior scarcely compatible with fixed inborn patterns.
In the performance of stereotyped consummatory acts an animal is like a machine all primed and set, needing only the touch of a button to release a train of movements that will automatically continue until the task is done. But appetitive behavior, often carried on under stress and making great demands upon the animal's persistence and endurance, might relax and prematurely cease without strong and persistent motivation. Appropriate appetites and emotions were needed to keep the animal eager and tense for the sustained effort. And what affective states would fittingly accompany endeavors such as we have specified? Hunger as a nagging discomfort to goad it to find food; fierceness to steel it to spring upon its prey; fear of its pursuer to spur it onward to the last gasp of breath; hatred of rivals; rage when thwarted; enmity toward all that frustrated and opposed it. Thus, neither the activities that dawning intelligence directed, nor the emotions that incited and accompanied them, were concordant with the central character