We may turn now to the study of the moment's functions. This can be best investigated in following up its history, in watching the growth and development of the most elementary moment-consciousness. In its perceptual stage the moment-consciousness may become modified in its subordinate psychic elements only, indirectly reacting on the nuclear sensory elements, giving a further determination of the total moment without changing its fundamental character. The moment may express then only more distinctly the final aim to which it is striving. The changes brought about in the moment are of such a nature that the latter in its whole tendency becomes adapted for reaction to the external environment, a reaction for which it primarily maintains itself in being.
The moment as percept may have at first an inadequate content which brings about a reaction inadequate for the purpose of the given psychic moment. The reaction brings more content, both primary and secondary. The new content enriches the moment and gives rise to a modification resulting in a reaction which in its turn further enriches the content, until a reaction results fully adequate to the purpose of the moment. The moment reaches for the time being its full maturity. To give a concrete example. A small puff-fish is thrown into a tank containing a hungry tautog. The tautog perceives the puff-fish and comes up to seize it; the puff-fish begins to swell. The sudden swelling of the little fish frightens the tautog away. The tautog's reaction has proved unsuccessful. Some modification is being produced in the tautog's state relating to the puff-fish yonder. Another reaction may then follow, a sudden pounce and bite, the puff-fish swelling in the tautog's mouth. The tautog's reaction is once more a failure, the puff fish is dropped, but considerably hurt. A series of similar reactions with a series of similar modifications finally result in a totally different reaction. The fish by a series of sudden pounces and bites succeeds in debilitating the puff-fish, paralyzing its power of swelling and finally devouring it. A series of such repetitions of experiences determine the general procedure of the tautog to the puff-fish. The tendency to a series of sensori-motor reactions may thus become organized.
The chick emerging from the egg sees an object, say a caterpillar, and attacking the caterpillar misses it at first. This procedure enriches the chick's psycho-motor life and modifies its next reactions in relation to the caterpillar, until the whole moment of pecking at edible objects when presented to the eye consists of successful reactions, as the result of their repetition, finally ending in perfect organization. The infant in seeing an object makes at first fruitless attempts at seizing it. These futile attempts further determine his activity and finally he reaches a state when the adaptation is complete. The psycho-motor reaction becomes adequate to the stimulus.
In all these cases there is no need that the growth and improvement of adaptation should be brought by explicit processes of judgments and associations of free ideas. The fish, the chick, the infant have no distinct consciousness of what sort of psychic process is going on, nor do they deliberately after weighing the pros and cons of their actions, finally decide on one which is consciously to be rejected on trial and to on, at length hitting on the right solution of the problem. Such is not the state of their mind. To ascribe to them conscious thought, cunning, knowledge, is to ascribe modes and forms of adult human consciousness to a lower stage where all this is absent. Their psychic processes are far simpler. The growth of the moment-consciousness in the stage under consideration is altogether different in nature from that of the adult stage.
In the moment-consciousness under consideration each sensory response to a given stimulus along with its resulting motor reaction brings about a modification of the total moment. Each new modification brings the moment nearer in its sensory and motor elements, to a more perfect adaptation to the specific conditions of the external environment; this modification is reproduced on the recurrence of the moment.