EDITORIAL. 



CONCERNING THE GENETIC RELATIONS OF TYPES OF ACTION. 



Even a superficial and casual examination suffices to con- 

 vince one that the commonly recognized varieties of activity — 

 reflex, instinctive, voluntary, habitual, etc., — are intergrading 

 types, not sharply separated classes. Concerning the fact of 

 the existence of clearly definable types of action there is no dis- 

 pute ; concerning their genetic relations there is surprising lack 

 of agreement. Some maintain, with Spencer, that activity de- 

 velopes from the simple to the complex, from reflex action, 

 through instinctive, to voluntary action. Others, especially 

 those who have attended more carefully to the development of 

 action in the human subject than in the animal kingdorh gener- 

 ally, with equal assurance insist that the true and primary 

 course of development is from the relatively complex, variable, 

 and apparently voluntary act to the reflex, automatic and hab- 

 itual. It is my purpose in this discussion of the subject to try 

 to show that these two courses of development are supplemen- 

 tary rather than contradictory, that phylogeny presents us with 

 facts which favor the former view, ontogeny with facts which 

 favor the latter. 



For present purposes it will suffice if we select as essen- 

 tially important types of action the reflex, the instinctive, and 

 the voluntary. An examination of typical acts to which we 

 should unhesitatingly apply these terms indicates that the types 

 may be defined in terms of the complexity and variableness of 

 action. The reflex act is simple and uniform ; the instinctive 

 act is more complex as well as more variable ; the voluntary act 

 is either simple or complex and extremely variable — unique. 

 These facts are conveniently expressed in the following simple 

 classification : 



