C. Lloyd Morgan, F.R.S., (1852-1936) Habit and Instinct (1896)
Chapter XII. The relation of organic to mental evolution.
...Experience brings the animal into more extended touch with its surroundings than is possible in the merely organic phase of life-progress. And if the expression of emotions has suggestive value, experience also brings the animal into wider touch with other animals.
...Just as there is an organization of the material body into a unity of interdependent parts, so too there is an organization of states of consciousness into a body of experience. And just as the adjustment of the parts to the whole in the material body is essential to the continued existence of both, so too is the adjustment of the parts to the whole in the body of experience essential to that progressive unification without which mental development would be impossible. Conscious adjustment involves choice; and this implies the selection of that which is acceptable or pleasing, or in other words (and more generally), in harmonious adjustment to the conscious system; and the rejection, so far as possible, of that which is distasteful, discordant, or incongruous. Just as every organ, every tissue, every cell within the animal body, has to make good its claim to continued existence at the bar of the incorporated society of its biological peers; so does every bit of experience stand its trial at the bar of consciousness ; it has to make good its claim for repetition in virtue of its being in harmonious accord with the mental system of the animal possessed of the power of conscious choice.
...What I desire to make clear is that, with the advent of effective consciousness, not only a new factor, but a new method of evolutionary progress is introduced. If, for example, sexual selection by preferential mating be a factor in evolution, its method is that of conscious choice, and not of the progressive elimination of the unfit, even if the products be similar to those which a process of elimination would also give. And all conscious acquisition, based as it is on intelligent choice, is reached by a method different from that of natural selection.
...The direction in which the likes and dislikes tend to set in the course of mental evolution is thus determined by the necessities of organic existence. A rigorous process of elimination, under natural selection, decides which shall survive. It is just because experience is a guide to practical life that it has been fostered and developed. But experience is a mental product. Only in so far as the events of practical life are symbolized in consciousness can they be effective for guidance and control. And here it is absolutely essential to grasp this truth; that throughout its whole range, from the earliest glimmerings of sentience to the highest products of human idealism, the environment in mental development is itself of the psychical order. If this truth be not grasped, all attempts at solving the problems of mental evolution are inevitably foredoomed to failure.
...If experience is itself a mental product, it is in terms of mental products and in these alone that it must be explained. Suppose, to illustrate the matter by a concrete example, a young bird seizes a bee and proceeds to swallow it, but is stung in the process; he thus practically learns the nature of a bit of the objective world in which he lives. But every step of the process is taken in the field of his conscious experience; and the whole drama of his life-experience is a drama in and for consciousness. For experience is, it must be repeated, a conscious process. And every bit of experience, no matter how trivial, no matter bow elaborate and far-reaching, exists as such for consciousness. It must be of the conscious order or it is not experience at all. And it is out of conscious experience that individual consciousness as a complete whole of related elements is developed. The related elements themselves therefore must be conscious elements, and can be nothing else. And if this truth be not grasped, I repeat, all attempts at solving the problems of mental evolution are inevitably foredoomed to failure.