„Lloyd Morgan's contribution was indeed so outstanding as to warrant our considering him as one of the founding fathers of both comparative psychology and ethology. He wrote fourteen substantial books and we can do little more here than indicate very briefly the variety of topics which he illuminated and advanced by his studies. First, he had valuable points to make on the relations between the subjective and the objective approach. In short, he indicates that both are essential to the scientific method (Introd. Comp. Psychol., 1894). Then he investigated the nature versus nurture problem, concluding (in opposition to Wundt) that from a biological point of view one should restrict the term ‚instinctive‘ to what is, to a greater or lesser degree, congenitally determined.
In this he strongly supported the view that instinct is fundamentally species-specific behaviour (Habit and Instinct, 1896). As to the evolution of behaviour, his advice was 'stick to Observation and leave theorizing about the process of evolution to "armchair philosophers" ' (Life, Mind and Spirit, 1925). This was remarkable when we consider that his basic approach was that of a philosopher.
He stressed the need for operational definitions, that is, he emphasized the importance of stating definitions specifically, and if possible operationally, since lack of such care can lead to misinterpretation and misconception (Habit and Instinct, 1896).
He invented the term 'trial and error' as applied to learning, although for a while he spoke of `trial and failure' and ‚trial and practice'; he also made original observations on the behaviour of dogs and it was upon these that his conclusions, set out in Animal Behaviour (1900) and The Animal Mind (1930), were based.
From: Thorpe, W. H. (1979) „The origins and rise of ethology.“
C. Lloyd Morgan, born in London on February 6, 1852; died on March 6, 1936 in Hastings, was a British zoologist and psychologist and is considered the founder of experimental animal psychology and ethology.
Authors who, from today's perspective and in the face of current research, were far ahead of their time were often misunderstood or simply ignored by their contemporaries.
And even if an excerpt from an extensive work is always subjective, it still offers a middle ground between subsuming under a catchphrase on the one hand, and intensive preoccupation with the author and his work on the other. If you want to deal intensively with the work, please refer to a reprint.
First of all, I accept a monistic theory of knowledge. The dualist starts with the conception of a subject introduced into the midst of a separately and independently existent objective world. For him the problem of knowledge is how these independent existences, subject and object, can be brought into relation. In the monistic theory of knowledge it is maintained that to start with the conception of subject and object as independent existences is false method, and that the assumed independence and separateness is nowise axiomatic.
Starting then from the common ground of naive experience, it contends that, prior to philosophizing, there is neither subject nor object, but just a bit of common practical experience.
It is only when we seek to explain the experience that we polarize it in our thought into subject and object.
But what logical right have we to say that the subject and object, which we can thus distinguish in thought, are separate in existence? No doubt it is a not uncommon, and a not unnatural, fallacy to endow with independent existence the distinguishable products of our abstract and analytic thought.
The distinguishable redness and scent of a rose may thus come to be regarded as not only distinguishable in thought, but also separable in existence. But, until it shall be shown that “distinguishable in thought” and "separate in existence" are interchangeable expressions, or that whatever is distinguishable is also independent the conclusion is obviously fallacious.
And it is this fallacy which the monist regards as the fundamental error of the dualistic theory of knowledge. While dualism, then, starts with what I deem the illegitimate assumption of the independence of subject and object, the monist, starting from the common ground of experience, looks upon subject and object as the distinguishable aspects of that which in experience is one and indivisible. They are distinct from each other, and the distinction is fundamental; but they are nowise independent and separate in existence.
I accept a monistic interpretation of nature. What do I mean by a monistic interpretation ? Well, the essence of this view comes out when we consider the position of man in nature. According to this hypothesis, man, as an organism, is one and indivisible (though variously maimable), no matter how many aspects he may present subjectively or objectively.
That the inorganic and organic world have reached their present condition through process of evolution, is now widely accepted. But the dualist contends that mind is a separable existence, sui generis, forming no part of the natural world into which it is temporarily introduced.
Here the monist joins issue, and contends that, alike in its biological and its psychological aspect, the organism is the product of evolution; that mind is not extra-natural nor supra-natural, but one of the aspects of natural existence.
Note then the complexity of the wave of consciousness. We are too apt in psychology to pay attention solely to focal consciousness, omitting all reference to the great body of marginal subconsciousness. But this is a great mistake.
The focal consciousness very often is what it is in virtue of the subconscious margin in which it is set. The dawning elements of the psychical wave, the waning elements, and all the marginal elements, form parts of any present state of consciousness, and are more or less instrumental in determining its nature.
I believe that, if we fail to recognise that there is such a curve of consciousness, that there is a margin to consciousness as well as the focus, we shall find that the solution of some of the problems of psychology presents difficulties which are almost if not quite insuperable.
When the body dies nothing material is taken from it, but the orderly sequence of transformations of energy ceases. The co-ordinated chemical and physical changes which are characteristic of life stop; the movements are no longer the conditions of vitality no longer obtain. For a while the substance seems to undergo no obvious change, but then decay sets in; the elaborate chemical materials undergo decomposition, and the body moulders away.
The products of this decomposition are still material; and the mouldering of the body neither adds anything to, nor takes anything from, the world’s store of matter. And though the orderly sequence of transformations of energy ceases at death, and gives place ere long to new series of changes which accompany decay, nothing is abstracted from the world’s store of energy, nothing annihilated.
The death of the body is a change of state or condition of its substance, and its decay is a further change of state or condition of its constituent molecules. Thus the living body, so far as its matter and its energy is concerned, belongs to the physical world.
According to the view which is most commonly held, and which is taught to most of us in childhood, before we are at all capable of understanding the nature of the problem, the mind and the body are quite different and eventually separable existences. The body is the mere machine in and by means of which the mind The mind, therefore, animates the body, and plays the part of engineer to the organic engine. But during life the nature of the connection is such that the mind, though it uses and must use the body as its instrument, is constantly hampered by its association with gross matter; and death at last sets free the mind or soul from the restrictions of the flesh.
But it is exceedingly probable that there are disturbances in the cerebral hemispheres which, though they are of the same order as those which are conscious or subconscious, are of intensity too low to enable them to enter consciousness at all. These we may term infra-dominant. They lie in the region below the threshold of consciousness.