Boris Sidis

“ In other words, we may say that a being with such a type of moment-consciousness does not profit by individual experience; it does not, and cannot get any acquired characters during its individual life existence. It lives only by what has been obtained by the process of natural selection, during the life history of the species. ”

“ The soft-bodied hermit crab as soon as he hatches out from the egg looks for a shell to fit his body in, to protect it from danger, and does the fitting and measuring of the shell with as delicate a nicety and circumspection as his seemingly more experienced older relatives. ”

“ The sensory nerve cell, the recipient of the stimulation, like the muscle cell, the reagent to stimuli, has evolved from the primitive cell by greater and greater differentiation, both of structure and function. In the crustaceans, invertebrates, and lower vertebrates where motor reactions to stimuli are more or less complex and varied, the sensory aspect of the moment is probably correspondingly complicated,―organic connections are present giving rise to secondary sensory elements, constituting the material of perceptual life. ”

“ The mechanism is ready and perfect as soon as it comes into life, and enters into relation with the condition of the external environment with such a type of organization is perfect from the start and has reached its maturity at birth. The contents of the moment cannot be enriched, the internal relations cannot be improved,―no modifications can be brought about in its sensory response and motor reactions. External stimuli set the organization into activity with an unvaried psychic content, with an unalterable psycho-physiological structure and motor manifestations. ”

“ In the lower vertebrates such as fishes, acquired characters, modifications formed during the life time of the individual begin to appear, but this is only in its germ; here too inherited organization is everything. ”