TEE EARLIEST ORGANIC MOVEMENTS. 467 



We find a little — as niiieli, perhaps, as we have a right to expect. 

 There is a class of movements, familiar to every one who has read 

 Darwin's 'Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals/ which 

 are known in psychology as 'expressive' movements. Such are the open- 

 ing of mouth and eyes in surprise, the frown and clenched fist of anger, 

 the play of the facial muscles in joy and sorrow. These movements 

 belong to various psychological classes, volitional, selective, impulsive, 

 reflex. But there are among them certain reflexes — primary reflexes, 

 not automatic actions or 'secondary' reflexes of the kind just described 

 — that can only be explained as the unconscious descendants of earlier 

 impulsive actions. The face of proud contempt reflexly 'curves a con- 

 tumelious lip.' What does the movement mean? Wh}^, it lays bare 

 the canine teeth; it is the human counterpart of the snarl of dog or 

 wolf; it is the last reflex or unconscious remnant of a coordinated or 

 impulsive action which, somewhere or other in our not remote ancestry, 

 preceded the movements of actual attack. The deer bounds away when 

 it hears the hounds, and we 'jump' when we are startled; the sitting 

 bird crouches on its nest when danger approaches, and we wince or 

 shrink when we are frightened or censured. The connection is obvious ; 

 the activities are related; but the action which formerly was conscious 

 has become, in us, a mere 'automatism.' Instances of this sort might 

 easily be multiplied.* The facts are admitted, and their explanation 

 accepted, by psychologists of all schools. But here is evidence of the 

 derivation of unconscious from conscious movement, not in the life his- 

 tory of the individual, but in that of the race. 



In both of the cases which we have discussed, consciousness has 

 shown itself to be chronologically prior to unconsciousness. Are there 

 any known cases to the contrary? Have we any instance of an action 

 which, unconscious in the lower animals or early in our own lives, later 

 becomes conscious ? Have we any hint of a tendency in this direction ? 

 On the former count, as regards the animals, the appeal must lie to the 

 'objective criterion' of mind, and therefore to biology as well as to 

 psychology. I can only say that the psychological evidence is negative, 

 and that I have not myself — speaking, however, as a layman in biology 

 — come across any positive indications in- biological literature. On the 

 latter, as regards ourselves, I find no evidence either in psychological 



• It would be especially interesting to examine from this point of view the 

 movements of the new-born infant. The position taken in the text is, I think, 

 supported by, e. g., the mimetic facial reflexes, and by the various atavistic re- 

 flexes (hanging from stick or finger, swimming movements, etc.)- But a full 

 consideration of all these movements would require a separate paper. On the 

 other hand, the fact that in the higher animals the reflexes are imperfect at 

 birth, and take a little time to 'harden' — a fact which has been rightly em- 

 phasized in several recent studies of animal behavior — does not seem to touch 

 the present argument one way or the other. 



