hing further is, therefore, required to account for the
genesis of habit from random movements; but I see no reason to suppose
that what is further required involves "consciousness."

Mr. Thorndike (op. cit., p. 244) formulates two "provisional laws of
acquired behaviour or learning," as follows:

"The Law of Effect is that: Of several responses made to the same
situation, those which are accompanied or closely followed by
satisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, be more
firmly connected with the situation, so that, when it recurs, they will
be more likely to recur; those which are accompanied or closely followed
by discomfort to the animal will, other things being equal, have their
connections with that situation weakened, so that, when it recurs,
they will be less likely to occur. The greater the satisfaction or
discomfort, the greater the strengthening or weakening of the bond.

"The Law of Exercise is that: Any response to a situation will, other
things being equal, be more strongly connected with the situation
in proportion to the number of times it has been connected with that
situation and to the average vigour and duration of the connections."

With the explanation to be presently given of the meaning of
"satisfaction" and "discomfort," there seems every reason to accept
these two laws.

What is true of animals, as regards instinct and habit, is equally
true of men. But the higher we rise in the evolutionary scale, broadly
speaking, the greater becomes the power of learning, and the fewer are
the occasions when pure instinct is exhibited unmodified in adult life.
This applies with great force to man, so much so that some have thought
instinct less important in the life of man than in that of animals.
This, however, would be a mistake. Learning is only possible when
instinct supplies the driving-force. The animals in cages, which
gradually learn to get out, perform random movements at first, which
are purely instinctive. But for these random movements, they would never
acquire the experience which afterwards enables them to produce the
right movement. (This is partly questioned by Hobhouse*--wrongly, I
think.) Similarly, children learning to talk make all sorts of sounds,
until one day the right sound comes by accident. It is clear that the
original making of random sounds, without which speech would never be
learnt, is instinctive. I think we may say the same of all the habits
and aptitude