The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Summary: Morgan - The Law of Psychogenesis
It is common to assume that in social, as in organic, evolution natural selection is the all-important factor; but the elimination of failures, which is the method of natural selection, is just what is prevented in civilized society. Natural selection has guided the mental symbolism to certain developments by eliminating those in whom the developments were absent. Selective mating is a product of the mental symbolism so developed. It is itself a product of psychogenesis. What is the law of psychogenesis? Since the present investigation is psychological, not metaphysical, we must keep strictly to the psychic plane, and leave out of account the question whether, and if so how, our experience stands related to a noumenal existence. It will also be well to start with the abstract region of concepts, and work down to the more practical level of percepts. What is "the law of truth"? I accept as true only what is in accordance with my own views and theories. This seems arbitrary, but observe that my views can and do change. They develop by the selection of the congruous, the rejection of the incongruous. In æsthetic and ethical matters the same general law holds; things are for me beautiful or ugly, good or bad, according as they are congruous or incongrous to my present aesthetic or moral nature. It is a mistake to hold that there is only one self-consistent ethical system. There are several such. But the ideal system must be not only congruous within itself, but in touch with the actualities of life and conduct. The ultimate appeal is to perceptual experience. From percepts have concepts arisen by analysis and abstract thought; to percepts must they conform in order to satisfy the final test of congruity. The constant demand of science for practical perceptual verification is justified by the essential unity of consciousness, the solidarity of mental symbolism, and the continuity of its development. On the perceptual plane the congruity, not of percept with object (in the sense of "occasion"), but of percept with percept is the rule. Here, and through the whole range of mental development, the guidance of pleasure and pain is of great importance. Our nature is sensitive as well as intellectual, aesthetic, and moral. The painful is avoided as incongruous to our nature as sensitive. Only in this sense can it be said that all our actions are determined by pleasure and pain. While the law of psychogenesis is thus held to be a law of development by elimination of the incongruous, no attempt is made to account for the origin of the congruous. It is a theory of survival, not of origin.