THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 17 



Reflexes of the kind just mentioned are al- 

 most invariably congenital. The animal is born 

 into the world with the particular reflex mech- 

 anism fully formed and awaiting merely the 

 appropriate sensory stimulation that the new 

 mechanism may come into full operation. The 

 new-born babe sucks, coughs, and sneezes 

 without lessons or advice. Bees artificially 

 reared, and without the example of the work- 

 ing hive, make perfect comb. Many female 

 insects, mostly in response to odors, lay their 

 eggs upon materials which are appropriate 

 food for their young. Thus a great variety 

 of animal responses have the qualifications of 

 simple reflexes, and the daily life of many of 

 the simpler forms, like the worms, crabs, in- 

 sects, and so forth, are probably made up al- 

 most exclusively of this kind of activity. That 

 these responses in the lower animals are always 

 associated with conscious states even of a sim- 

 ple kind cannot be maintained with certainty, 

 but the evidence, on the whole, indicates that 

 most of them are like our coughing, or the 

 flow of tears from the irritated eye, involun- 

 tary operations, but with the stirrings of con- 

 sciousness on the sensory side. 



The interrelations of these reflexes in ani- 



