In this connection it is interesting to remark that not a few modern writers. hold the view that every accommodation by an organism to a novel situation requires and involves conscious ness. Such a view rests on the conviction that consciousness is not only of service from time to time in assisting organic adaptation to envi ronment, but also that it is the absolute pre condition of accommodation to situations which are new.
This broad biological ideal of functional psychology may be considered as issuing in the attempt to discover the fundamental utilities of consciousness. The problem from this point of view has not as yet been satisfactorily solved.. It is possible to regard the three great familiar divisions of mental life, i.e., knowing, feeling, and willing, as constituting these basal utilities. There are, however, many subordinate catego ries which are equally significant; e.g., attend ing and judging. Moreover, from the strictly utilitarian standpoint it may be urged as practi cable to reduce all these manifestations of utility to the basal one, selective accommoda tion; that is to say, it is because consciousness by its selective action leads to movements which result in the attaining of certain ends, that mind possesses value.
Third: It is sometimes asserted that func tional psychology is in reality a form of psy chophysics. This means that it finds its major interest in determining the relations to one an other of the physical, and mental portions of the organism. To be sure all psychology must necessarily entertain some doctrine regarding these relations, but functional psychology is oc casionally identified with a peculiar attitude to ward this problem which may be described as follows : The distinction between the mind and the body is not regarded as founded primarily on a difference between two kinds of existence, one physical and the other mental. The two are rather thought of as different modes .in which organic life expresses itself,. now the one and now the other being more in evidence. Con scious processes are thought of as present whenever novel situations are to be dealt with and the fundamental business of consciousness is conceived to be that of building up efficient habits, or co-ordinations, to meet the necessities of these situations. The purely physical or physiological processes are on the other hand regarded as finding their peculiar sphere of ac tion wherever old and well-formed habits are capable of meeting the requirements of the tem porary environment. From this point of view mind and body are not so much two distinct entities as they are stages or aspects of the gen eral process of vital accommodation to environ ment.
These three conceptions of functional psy chology which have been described are obvi ously supplementary to one • another. It is
clearly impracticable to carry out a functional psychology which should deal with the problem of mind conceived as engaged in mediating be tween the environment and the needs of the organism without haring some doctrine to offer concerning the connection of the mind and the body, for by common agreement consciousness makes itself effective through the muscular movements to which it leads. Some notion, therefore, of this connection must be involved. Moreover, it is equally certain that no effort to handle either of, these problems can go far with. out some theory as to the basal character of the various mental operations themselves. The three positions must accordingly be regarded as complementary to one another. Their apparent. divergence arises chiefly from emphasizing dif ferent aspects of a common problem.
The term functionalism, as has been already intimated, is less frequent in philosophy than in psychology. When used, however, it is gener ally employed as substantially identical with such terms as pragmatism and humanism. It does not represent a definite group of opinions. and beliefs, but rather a certain attitude toward philosophical problems. This attitude may be illustrated by the comments in an earlier para graph upon functional psychology conceived as concerned with the mind-body problem. In general, philosophical functionalism undertakes to discern the exact circumstances out of which the various problems of philosophy have grown, not only in the historical sense in which these problems are connected with the systems of particular movements or philosophers, but in the much more genetic sense in which they may be shown to come to light in the reflective processes of any human being. In a way, there fore, it might be designated a genetic philos ophy.
In its purposes at least a philosophy of this kind is peculiarly vital, for it attempts to see the practical living significance of philosophical problems and it finds its solutions iti*the actual outcome in human life of the multifold factors with which metaphysical speculation finds itself confronted.
(The Province of Functional Psychology' (Psychological Review, 1907, p. 61) •, (The Relation of Structural and Functional Psychology to Philosophy' (Philo sophical Review, 1903, p. 203) ; Titchener, (The Postulates of a Structural Psychology' (Phil osophical Review, 1898, p. 449) ; Warren, Fundamental Functions of Consciousness' (Psy chological Bulletin, 1906, p. 217) ; Bawden, (Functional View of the Relation between the Psychical and the Physical' (Philosophical Re view, 1902, p. 474) ; James, (Does Conscious ness Exist?' (Journal of Philosophy, Psy chology, and Methods, 1904, p. 477).