Intelligence, then, in the perceptual sphere, embodying the coalescent re-presention of concrete situations, exercises a guiding influence over the automatic responses of instinctive origin; and this undergoes evolution to higher and higher levels in perceptual process without overstepping its limits. But in ideational process there is superimposed a further and more subtle guidance, under the influence of which intelligent procedure, based on practical experience, is itself controlled. This higher guidance involves the presence of systems of knowledge, ideals of conduct, and artistic conceptions. Just as intelligence, fulfilling its function, plays down upon instinctive procedure, shaping it to more perfect adjustment to the circumstances of perceptual life, so does reason play down upon intelligent behaviour, moulding it to more perfect adjustment to the varied conditions of rational and moral life.

According to this interpretation, there are superimposed upon the satisfaction-values associated with the procedure of the passing moment yet higher worth-values in reference to a more remote intellectual, aesthetic, or ethical end. In addition to the coarser emotions of animal life, there are the subtler sentiments which characterise the human being. Behaviour founded on the impulse to act arising out of the immediate situation rises to conduct dictated by motives connected with the ideals of right, seemly or prudential action in a scheme of social and it may be, spiritual existence. And if we attempt to translate all this into physiological terms, not only is there a differentiation of a control system from the nerve-centres for automatic response, but there should also be a further differentiation within the control system itself; yet higher intellectual centres being differentiated from, while preserving their integration with, those which are concerned in perceptual process. This view is substantially in accordance with the physiological conceptions of one of our highest authorities, Dr. Hughlings Jackson.

One of the most important features of ideational and conceptual process is that it not only involves new relations with the environment, but creates a new environment in which these relationships obtain. Perceptual intelligence is, in the main, receptive and representative of a natural environment which takes form independently of the exercise of its influence. Only in a limited degree are its products in behaviour so applied as to modify and enrich that natural environment. The beaver indeed constructs its dams, the bird builds its nest, the spider spins its web, and so forth. Some amount of choice of environment, through what Dr. Ward has termed subjective selection, is also possible. But it is a characteristic feature of ideational process that it is constantly, to a much larger degree, embodying the products of its rational thought in concrete form so as to constitute part of the physical surroundings. Our books, our art galleries, our museums; our railways, steamships, and electric appliances; all the multifarious products of what we call civilisation—what are they but an environment in which the results of ages of human thought are embodied? And men are to a large extent free to choose their own environment. Subjective selection is a most potent factor in human life. One of the most helpful definitions of education is that it is that form of social ministry which brings, or should bring, the developing individual into the closest and most vital relations with his environment. To an extent only foreshadowed in the animal world does man both create and select his own milieu. And this is the key-note of the higher human evolution as contrasted with that which obtains among the lower animals. It involves a transference of evolution from the organism to the social environment. It is questionable whether the average child is better equipped by natural endowment of mother wit and intellectual ability than his forefathers of Tudor or Plantage-net times. But it is unquestionable that he has opportunities to-day of exercising his powers to better advantage, since he is more fully brought into relation with a more highly evolved social system. To illustrate by an analogy, we may say that even if the mental lungs are not more highly evolved than they were a dozen generations ago, they breathe today a richer intellectual atmosphere. This progressive improvement of man's social heritage is one of the salient results of ideational process.

We must now revert to the question which was asked near the beginning of this section: In what way can we describe on naturalistic grounds, in accordance with scientific modes of interpretation, the genesis of ideal constructions ethical and intellectual? I have endeavoured to show the manner in which naive experience arises and influences behaviour. Assuming the, existence of certain protoplasmic responses to surrounding conditions, those which have survival value are perpetuated through organic heredity. For their grouping and integration a nervous system is differentiated, and its functioning may be accompanied by sentience. Within this nervous system a further differentiation occurs, certain centres being set apart to exercise a controlling influence over the automatic responses co-ordinated by the more primitive centres. The primary centres are those concerned in instinctive procedure; the secondary centres are those of intelligent control. In them sentience is raised to a higher level and the concomitant conscious experience is the subject-matter of mental science. The conditions of effective experience are that the conscious situation due to instinctive happenings may be revived or re-presented when its initial phases are again presented; and that there is a difference in functional action, permissive on the one hand, repressive on the other hand, according as the previous situation was pleasant or the reverse. That which is again presented is said to have meaning in terms of that which is revised or re-presented; and this cognitive meaning has the effective tone of what were termed satisfaction values. Satisfaction values for conscious experience and survival values for biological race-preservation are, however, in the animal kingdom, nearly always consonant.