THE HISTORY OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 129 



We may now briefly compare these three kinds of 

 nervous action. 



Reflex action is involuntary and unconscious. The 

 actor may, and usually does, become conscious of the 

 action after it has been commenced or completed, but 

 this is not at all necessary or universal. 



Instinctive action is to a certain extent voluntary 

 and conscious. The actor is conscious of the stim- 

 ulus, the means and mode, and the end or purpose of 

 the action. Of the exact fitness or adaptation of the 

 means to the end the actor is unconscious. 



Intelligent action is conscious and voluntary. The 

 actor is conscious of the stimulus to act, of the means 

 and mode, and to a certain extent of the adaptation of 

 the means to the end. This last item of knowledge, 

 lacking in instinctive action, is acquired by experience 

 or observation. 



Reflex action may be regarded as a comparatively 

 mechanical, though often very complex, process ; the 

 reflex ganglia appear to be hardly more than switch- 

 boards. There is stimulus of the sense-organs, and 

 thus what Mr. Romanes has called "unfelt sensation," 

 unfelt as far as the completion of the action is con- 

 cerned. But in instinct the sensation no longer re- 

 mains unfelt ; perception is necessary, consciousness 

 plays a part. And this consciousness is a vastly more 

 subtle element, differing as much apparently from the 

 vibration of brain, or nervous, molecules as the Geni 

 from the rubbing of Aladdin's lamp, to borrow an il- 

 lustration. 



But this element of consciousness is one which it is 

 exceedingly difficult to detect in our analysis, and yet 

 upon it our classification and the psychic position of 

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