PHYSIOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS 77 



has been adapted by biological factors to modify the response to the stimuH in 

 accordance with a purpose, which from the standpoint of an outside observer is 

 teleological, i.e., adapted to conserve the welfare of the species." 



This apparent teleology is commented upon in chapter viii. Since 

 the passage just quoted was written, control of gunfire by radar has 

 been perfected, thus reinforcing our analogy at one weak spot. In 

 the reflex the "aim" does not precede the stimulus that pulls the 

 trigger; it is automatically adjusted to the stimulus as in radar. But 

 this automatism in both cases is dependent upon the presence of a 

 preformed structure adapted to provide it. 



Our analysis of the adult structure of the brain of Amblystoma 

 confirms and supplements the conclusions reached by Coghill from 

 his study of the development of the same species. His major con- 

 tribution, as I see it, was the demonstration of the primacy of the 

 integrative factors in the development of behavior patterns and of 

 some of the features of structural growth during the individuation of 

 local partial patterns within the larger total pattern. The adult 

 structure of the brain of Amblystoma is in perfect conformity with 

 the conclusions to which he was led. One of these conclusions should 

 receive special emphasis here, for it clarifies our conception of what 

 the reflex is in general, and in particular it helps us over some hard 

 places in our attempt to discover the actual mechanisms involved in 

 the individuation of local reflex patterns within the frame of the 

 total pattern. 



In the central resolution of forces which eventuates in some par- 

 ticular pattern of overt movement there is always an inhibitory fac- 

 tor (Coghill, '36, '43). In discussing the individuation of partial pat- 

 terns (local reflexes) from the total pattern, he wrote ('40, p. 45): 



"Individuation is obviously the result of organized inhibition 



The major division of the total pattern must be under inhibition 

 when a part acquires independence of action, and the same part can 

 be inhibited while the major segment of the total pattern acts. So 

 that the whole individual probably acts in every response, either in 

 an excitatory or inhibitor}^ way," This he generalized in the following 

 statement ('30, p. 639): 



"For an appreciable period before a particular receptor field acquires specificity 

 in relation to an appropriate local reflex its stimulation inhibits the total reaction. 

 Inhibition, accordingly, through stimulation of the exteroceptive field, begins as a 

 total pattern. It is then in a field of total inhibition that the local reflex emerges. 

 The reflex may, therefore, be regarded as a total behavior pattern which consists of 



