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The Psychic Factor in Living Organisms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Ralph S. Lillie
Ralph S. Lillie*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

In my recent paper on Living Systems and Non-living Systems I considered briefly the question of the special rôle assignable to the psychic, as natural factor associated with yet different from the physical, in the activities of living organisms. The general conclusion was reached that this rôle is primarily integrative, in correspondence with the integrative character which is the essential distinguishing feature of the psychic in our experience. As integrative, the psychic factor has a special relation to the synthetic activity so highly developed in living organism, since synthesis is by its nature integration or whole-formation. Originative or novelty-producing activity is the special prerogative of the psychic, rather than simple repetition or routine; the latter, as exemplifying the stable or conservative side of nature, belongs in the field of the physical. According to this conception, the psychic is the source of initiative when action takes on a novel or creative form, as in conscious voluntary activity or (in a broader sense) in natural creative action in general. For example, in animals vegetative or routine processes may be purely physiological and unconscious, while actions requiring special initiative or innovation demand conscious effort and attention.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , October 1943 , pp. 262 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1943

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References

1 Philosophy of Science, 1942, Vol. 9, p. 307; cf. pp. 320–321.

2 Not merely the adult organism, since the complete organism includes more than the adult stage,—namely, the whole life history from germ to senescence, as a single unified sequence or cycle.

3 “I have tried hard, Dr. Johnson, to be a philosopher, but cheerfulness keeps breaking through” (Dr. Johnson's old school friend in conversation with him: see Boswell's Life).

4 For a recent discussion cf. Alfred E. Emerson, “Basic Comparisons of Human and Insect Societies”, Biological Symposia, 1942, Vol. 8, p. 163.

5 The parallels between morphogenetic processes in development and in instinctive structure-building activities like nest-making are discussed by E. S. Russell in a paper, “Instinctive Behavior and Bodily Development,” in Folia Biotheoretica, 1937, Vol. 2, p. 67. See also his book, “The Behavior of Animals,” London, 1934, Chapters 5 and 6.

6 Cf. the recent book of Joseph Needham: Biochemistry and Morphogenesis. Cambridge University Press, 1942.

7 The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to individual development and activity.

8 This was recognized by Darwin, and has recently been emphasized by W. C. Allee in his vice-presidential address before the American Society of Zoologists: “Where Angels Fear to Tread”. Science, 1943, vol. 97, p. 517.