ABSTRACT
We have seen in earlier chapters how greatly the behaviour of animals is dependent upon internal physiological states; for the hungry animal, a piece of food has the character of a goal, and is striven after with every available means; after hunger is satisfied, food has lost its actuality and remains unnoticed. The same is true for all other things in the animal’s world; hence we are justified in saying that one and the same individual lives in a completely different world according to its physiological state. This rule may be immediately transferred to mankind. We must further add to this that the animal’s world may change not only from within the individual; by the addition or removal of a single thing, it may be completely altered at a stroke. For the individual grasps its outside world, not additively, but as a whole, so that every single thing in it interacts intensively with every other. The appearance of an enemy, for example, fundamentally transforms the surrounding world. Suddenly, some things lose their actuality, whereas others become of importance for avoiding or fighting the opponent. The same is true of the disappearance of food or of the sexual partner; hitherto indifferent things are made part of the external world, if they are able to serve the restoration of the original state of affairs. A peculiar type of surrounding world is that in which the goal striven for is for the moment absent. For example, the bee, acting upon its primary knowledge, seeks flowers; and if, when it is away from the hive, we remove the latter some distance away, it seeks it on its return in the old position.
