links may be added at will; the reaction is a single conscious event, conditioned as a whole upon the understanding of instruc- tions at a given stage of practice.
A third way of complicating the simple reaction experi- ment is to connect the responsive movement, not directly with the stimulus, but indirectly with some associated idea aroused by the stimulus. Thus, the reactor may be told that he will be shown a printed word, and that he is to re- act by pronouncing the first word suggested to him by the stimulus (free association). Or he may be instructed to reply in a more definite way: by naming a subordinate idea, an instance that would fall under the stimulus-word; or a coordinate idea; or a superordinate idea, a class of 444 Actum 444 Actum which the object denoted by the stimulus-word is a mem- ber; by associating part to whole, attribute to object, effect to cause, and so on (partially constrained associations). Or, finally, he may be instructed to reply still more defi- nitely: to give the Latin equivalents of the English words shown, to name the capital cities of the countries, and so forth (constrained associations). It is clear that any phase of the associative consciousness may, by a fitting arrangement of the experiment, be represented in terms of objective or physical time. The reaction times have proved to be valuable both scientifically, as indi- cating the strength of associative tendencies, and also practically, as indicating the existence of associative con- nections which the reactor desires to conceal. Observation of the reaction consciousness has also thrown welcome light on the process of thought.
It would seem that here, if anywhere, the subtractive procedure is allowable; that we might, with a high degree of probability, de- termine the time required for association by subtracting the simple sensory from the associative reaction time. The facts are other- wise. The instruction to associate dominates the whole course of consciousness, and the two reactions are therefore incomparable.
The fore-period of the associative reaction shows the characters with which we are already familiar: attentive fixation cf the stimulator, a high degree of expectation (strain sensations about the eyes and forehead and in the upper part of the body, together with holding of the breath, compression of the lips, etc.), and a representation of the instructions, usually in verbal form. The reactors also report a variety of emotive attitudes — curiosity, difficulty, impatience, coolness in the emergency — which we may ascribe to the meaningful nature of the stimuli. The mid- period of the reaction shows the characters that we have enumer- ated in §iii, though it shows them with differences. Here, e.g., the observer stands under the pressure of the coming reaction, so that the course of consciousness is hurried and its processes are crowded together. From one point of view, this disposition of consciousness is a disadvantage; there is too much material and there is too little time for adequate introspection; the re- actor falls into the way of indicating or naming large complexes that he is unable to describe. From another point of view, how- ever, it is a distinct advantage. The observer who works under the conditions of § 1 1 1 has plenty of time for analysis, and reports his consciousness in analytical terms; there is a chance that he fail to see the wood for the trees. The observer in the associa- tive reaction, since he has no time to describe the trees, must be content to indicate clumps and coppices; but by this very limita- tion he calls our attention to the fact that there are clumps and coppices, unitary complexes of manifold degrees and patterns; and these, once indicated, can be taken up for analysis under more favourable conditions.
The most important facts revealed by the associative reaction are, perhaps, those that bear upon the reactor's attitude to in- struction. In the first place, the instruction, clearly conscious at the outset, presently drops out of consciousness altogether, and thenceforward directs the course of mental processes as an uncon- scious nervous disposition. This is, in fact, the fate of all instruc- tions — of all suggestions, commands, cues, directions, prescriptions — to which we make habitual response (pp. 274 f.). Secondly, the instruction, if given vaguely and in general terms, is specialised, narrowed by the reactor. Though he is told to reply by the first word that crops up in his mind, he will draw his associates from those that make sense with the stimulus-word; if a meaningless associate appears, he will reject it in favour of a word whose meaning connects it with the stimulus; he has interpreted ' first word ' as ' first sensible word.' Though, again, he is told that sub- stantives will be shown, and that he is to reply by the first adjec- tive that occurs to him, he will reply only by suitable adjectives; ' first adjective ' becomes ' first fitting adjective.' It is as if we were set, or adjusted, for a world of sense, just as we are set or adjusted for a world of objective reality; to talk and think 446 Action nonsense is far less easy than we are apt to imagine. And, thirdly, — a point of great methodological interest, — the instruction to observe, to attend and report (§ 6), is eminently favourable to the review of consciousness in the after-period. If the old objection held, that introspection necessarily interferes with the very pro- cess that we are trying to observe, the observer who lay under the double instruction to associate and to introspect would be divided against himself; he would associate hesitatingly, and he would observe interruptedly. As a matter of fact, the two instructions run together, and the observer sets himself to associate as atten- tively and single-mind edly as he can, with the result that the course of events is clearly apprehended, and finds ready expres- sion in words.
It has been found, in work with nonsense syllables, that those pairs have the quicker association times whose associative tenden- cies are the stronger and more durable, — whence it follows that, other things equal, the length of the associative reaction is an in- verse measure of the strength of associative tendency. There is one case, where other things are decidedly not equal, in which this rule shows a very conspicuous breach. It has been found in work with ordinary verbal associations that, if the stimulus-word touch off what is technically called a < complex,' either that particu- lar reaction or the next following will show a decided lengthening. A ' complex,' in this special meaning, is the impression left upon the organism by some strongly emotive experience; it is a group of impressional and associative tendencies, which may or may not find present representation (general or partial) in consciousness, but is readily actualisable if it is not at the moment consciously actual, and whose correlated ideas tend on arousal to become focal, and to reinstate the emotion of the original experience. If, e.g., I have done something of which I am ashamed, and if the stimulus-word touches off the complex of this ' deed of which I am ashamed,' then my reaction time is lengthened. This discovery is evidently of practical value, though a complete statement of the facts would require a great deal of conditioning and qualifying for which we here have no space.
In experiments of still greater complexity, the responsive move- ment may follow, not upon an associated idea, but upon a judg- ment of comparison, a literary appreciation, etc. Here, however, the times become extremely variable, and have little significance; the reaction experiment loses its distinctive character, and is merely a convenient setting for certain exercises in introspection.
§124. Action. — In the early days of the reaction experi- ment, there was little said of its psychological status, of its place in a system of psychology. The experiment was useful as measuring the objective duration of certain men- tal processes; but it thus appeared as a means, not as an end. Since it plainly involved a sequence of perceptions or ideas, — since the perception of one's own movement followed on that of the stimulus, or followed on an idea associated to the perception of stimulus, — it might be treated in the same chapter with association, and might be considered as a form of successive association. That settled, the writer's attention was directed to the, times;, not to the 43xe43j,ration and content of the reaction con- sciousness. Hence we have historical precedent for intro- ducing the reaction, without psychological preface, simply as one of the classical experiments of experimental psy- chology. But we have not discussed reaction times; we have discussed the reaction. And now the question arises: What, psychologically, is this reaction?
The answer, obvious as it is, was given only in the early nineties of the last century, and still has a good deal of prejudice to overcome. The reaction is_ an action; it be- longs to the same group of facts as^ reflex action, voluntary action, in^tincliyja^ction. It is an action reduced, in the simple reaction experiment, to skeleton form; and it is an artificial action, made up for study under experimental con- 448 Action ditions. But it is still an action, and the consciousness which we have found to characterise it is an action con- sciousness.
In its most general meaning, an action is an organised movement; less generally, it is a movement of a locomotor organism; for psydiological.purposes (p. 16), it is prima- rily a human movement with soin£_j5ort and degree of representation in consciousness. The qualifying words ' some sort and degree ' are used advisedly; for the action consciousness is one of the most changeable and variable that we know: nowhere, perhaps, is psychology more pl^njyjjpppnrjpnt- npnn physiology for the coherence and c or itimoitv_of_Jts ^descriptions (p. 40). If, however, on the ground of the foregoing analyses, we try to construct a typical action consciousness, we get something like this: a preliminary phase, in which the prominent things are kinaesthesis and thrjijpn nf end or mult; a central phase, in which some object is apprehended in relation to. in the sense of. the idea of end; and a final phase, in which the perception of result is set on a background of kinapsfhpsk of the sensations aroused by the actual movement. Each one of these phases may be coloured by feeling, which may itself be of either quality, pleasant or unpleasant, and of any degree of sensory or imaginal complexity.
The first phase corresponds to the fore-period of the reaction experiment. The kinaesthetic contents are, in the main, the sen- sations of intended movement; there may also be kinaesthetic sensations from actual, anticipatory movements, and there may possibly be kinaesthetic memories. The idea of end, or idea of resujt, takes the place of the conscious representation of instrnr- tion in thejegaction..consciousness: it may be carried in visual images, in internal speech, etc. The second phase corresponds to the mid-period, in which movementJs released, in the sense of the instruction, on the perception of the stimulus (perception of object). The third phase differs from the introspective after- • period; the perception of result, with its kinaesthetichalo. is at once the terminus of the action consciousness and the starting- point of some new consciousness, emotive or other.
The characteristic feature of the action consciousness, as distinguished from the consciousnesses so far considered, is its predetermination in the sense of the idea of end. The presentation of the object arouses associative tendencies in the usual way; but only those tendencies are realised which lie in the line of suggestion, of the meaning of the idea of end. We translate this fact into physiology by saying that the excitatory processes underlying the idea of end set up determining tendencies; they open certain nervous chan- nels, as it were, and close others; so that the consequent excitations find their path laid out for them. Determin- ing tendencies thus take their place^jjongside of impres- sion and of associative tendencies as nervous correlates of consciousness. We know nothing of their intimate nature; but we have ample evidence of their existence, and we name them as best we may. They are nervous coordinations and integrations, in part common to the race and transmitted from one generation to another, in part acquired in the in- dividual lifetime, either by way of habit or under stress of some salient experience. Their influence is by no means confined to the determination of action, though here, where they find direct physiological expression in a bodily move- ment, it is most easily observed and traced.
We are now able to give a definition of the term ' suggestion.' It is not difficult to find a paraphrase: a suggestion is an instruction, something that comes to us with the force of a command. But Q> 2G 450 Action psychologists have always found it difficult to frame a definition, because there seemed to be no difference, psychologically, between the suggestive idea and any other idea. And, indeed, there is no difference; suggestion is, for us, not a descriptive, but an explana- tory term; its definition is to be sought, not in psychology, but in physiology. A suggestion is any stimulus, external or internal (p. 56), accompanied or unaccompanied ^by^onsciousness^'hich touches off a determining tendency. 1 he instruction to react, in the reaction experiment, sets up the determining tendency which, carrying over into the mid-period, releases the reaction movement. What sets up the readiness to accept instruction? A foregone sug- gestion: the observer comes into the laboratory in order to be in- structed, prepared to take orders. What brings him into the laboratory? Another foregone suggestion: the desire to learn psy- chology, the fact that some of his friends have decided to come in. What led him to choose the particular course that includes psy- chology at the university? What led him to choose this particular university? What led him to enter any university? All these results are due to suggestion, to some stimulus or situation that starts up determining tendencies. The nervous system, plastic as it is, can take a set; indeed, the taking of a set is as natural to it as its general plasticity. Dr. Johnson is said to have met the argu- ments for idealism by kicking a stone. His action expressed a nervous set which seems to be native to the brain, a part of our endowment as human beings: the set which determines us to take the world of perception as a world <>f <-\tcrn;-il objects, of real things. Between such tendencies as this and the passing tendency set up by the instruction of the reaction experiment there are all degrees of persistence and of specialisation.
§ 125. The Genesis of Action. — We have just offered a rough analysis of a typical action. Perhaps we should rather have called it a schematic action. For the typical action must be a sort of norm or standard, to which all actions approach and from which they fall away; and, in order to describe it, we must have arranged, in the order of § 125- The Genesis of Action 451 their relationship, the various actions that we discover in experience. Now any attempt to classify actions leads us from analysis to genesis. The action which, by its conscious representation, forms part of the subject-matter of psychol- ogy is simply a phase in a course of conscious transforma- tion; all actions change, as conscious events, with repetition. Moreover, since the mechanism of bodily movement is in part inherited and only in part acquired, the classification of actions, if it is to be complete, takes us beyond individ- ual development to racial evolution. We are here on very slippery ground; but it is ground which, in the present state of psychology, we are bound to traverse.
What, then, was the character of the earliest organic movements? There are two answers in current psychology and biology. The first is that consciousness is q« nlrLac animal life (p. 27), and that the first movements of the first organisms were conscious movements. This is the answer which the author accepts. The other is that consciousness appeared later than life, and that the earliest movements were accordingly unconscious movements, of the nature of the physiological reflex.
It is very important that the issue here involved be correctly understood. The alternatives are: movement with consciousness, movement without consciousness. They are not — as they are often stated to be — conscious action, mechanical reflex. All actions, biologically regarded, are ' mechanical '; all, that is, may by hypothesis be explained (and in all probability will, some day, be explained) in physico-chemical terms. The antithesis of the conscious is not the mechanical, but the unconscious action; the antithesis of the reflex is not the conscious or voluntary action, but the complex, coordinated action. A great deal of controversy would have been avoided if this elementary point had been kept clear.
452 Action 452 Action The author, then, believes, with Wundt 1 and Ward 2 and Cope,3 that the earliest movements were conscious movements, and that all the unconscious movements of the human organism, even the automatic movements of heart and intestines, are the descendants of past conscious movements. What is the evidence?
There is, first of all, the argument from the analogy of the in- dividual lifetime. We learn to swim, to bicycle, to typewrite, to play a musical instrument, with conscious intent and with a constant accompaniment of consciousness; later on, if we practise enough, we do these things unconsciously. If, however, what are called 'voluntary actions ' may degenerate into ' secondary reflexes ' in the course of a few weeks or months or years, it is at least possible that the ingrained physiological reflexes may have a conscious ancestry in the history of the race. Secondly, there seem to be no reflexes, secondary or primary, that may not, under certain favour- able conditions, be brought under cortical control and thus con- nected with conscious intent and accompaniment; we can all arrest our breathing, but some of us can do much more, — can modify heart-beat, expand or contract the pupil, quicken or slow the peristaltic movements. This state of things is intelligible if we interpret it as a return to a previous state, akin to the conscious direction of a bicycle, or the conscious control of movement in swimming; it is not easy to explain, if we regard the reflexes as prior to consciousness. Thirdly, there are certain reflex movements, movements that express emotion, which would be altogether unintelligible unless we could posit for them a remote conscious ancestry. The face of proud contempt reflexly ' curves a contume- lious lip.' Why? " Our semi-human progenitors uncovered their canine teeth when prepared for battle, as we still do when feeling ferocious, or when merely sneering at or defying someone, without 1 W. Wundt, Physiol. Psychol, iii., 1903, 279; Outlines, tr. 1907, 213 ff. Cf. Die Entwichlung des W'iilens, in Essays, 1906, 318 ff.
2 J. Ward, art. " Psychology," in Encycl. Brit., xx., 1886, 43.
8 E. D. Cope, The Origin of the Fittest, 1887, 395. 413, 447- Cope's essays are the more interesting, as he seems to have worked out his ideas strictly fr..m the biological standpoint, without reference to contemporary psychology. Their biological derivation does not here concern us.
§ 125. The Genesis of Action 453 any intention of making a real attack with our teeth"; the sneer is the late and weakened form of the snarl, which meant a ripping bite at an opponent.1 The thrusting forward of the head and body is a common gesture of the enraged, and appears paradoxical — since it exposes the head to a blow — unless we accept Darwin's suggestion that this, too, is a remnant of attack with the teeth. Instances of the sort might easily be multiplied. Fourthly, we may note that the primary resemble the secondary reflexes in their character as movements; they are definite, clean-cut, precise. But if this character comes in the one case with lapse of conscious- ness, it may have come by the same road in the other.
Here, then, is evidence from various sources: evidence that may, no doubt, be differently appreciated, but that, taken all together, makes out a fair case. On the opposite side there has been little attempt to gather special arguments. It seems natural and obvious that the simplest form of movement — the physiological reflex — should also be the earliest; it seems natural that mind, the crown and flower of life, should appear later in the history of the world than life itself; and this seeming naturalness has passed into theory as matter of fact. The view that life and mind are coeval arose, indeed, as a protest against the unproved but dominant view of the priority of unconscious movement, and the represent- atives of this latter standpoint have not even yet taken the challenge very seriously. If they do offer evidence for their conviction, they are likely to say that mind appeared at some time of stress, when neural tension was at its highest and neural processes were hesitant. Aside, however, from the objection that the phrases ' neural ten- sion' and 'neural hesitation' are metaphorical only; and aside from the fact that mental processes may be exceedingly intensive on occasions when the organism is in no sort of perplexity (think of the plunge into cool water on a hot day; of the enjoyment of music after long aesthetic starvation; of our grief at the loss of a dear friend), — aside from these considerations, the question at once comes up: Whence does the organism get its capacity for 1 C. Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, ch. x. (1890, 264). The reader may be reminded of the footnote, p. 408.
454 Action changing, under stress, from a physiological to a psychophysical organism? The organic machine has run, for a certain time, without consciousness; it is now in difficulties; it surmounts them by a neural readjustment, which is paralleled by consciousness. Must not consciousness have been present, potentially or germi- nally, before the difficulties appeared?
We may, of course, carry our appeal to the child and the primi- tive organism, and try to interpret their movements in the light of our own; this direct appeal is, indeed, imperative. But we must not expect a speedy verdict. The human infant, in particular, as the incomplete form of a very highly developed organism, em- bodies two courses of development, a phylogenetic and an onto- genetic, in their most complex modes. The new-born child hangs to your finger, supporting its full weight upon its arms; the boy, a few years later, will hang in like manner from the horizontal bar. Is the conscious gymnastic exercise genetically related to ■■ the first reflex grip? Yes, in some measure; both the baby and the boy are, by descentr little monkeys. But the boy does not keep the baby's reflex, and import consciousness into it; the reflex lapses, giving way to other forms of movement, — an older baby, if you give him your finger, puts it in his mouth; the boy's action is due to suggestion. So, while both performances are conditioned on racial inheritance, the later is not the direct out- growth of the earlier, and we should go widely astray if. we argued frnj-p lil-pnp^ nf form tr» rnntjrmity in. Ontogenesis.