280 NATURE AND MAN. 



experience also tells us that we can execute the same act by 

 simply willing to do so ; as, for instance, when we wish to give 

 a signal, to clear our throat, or to cough-down a troublesome 

 speaker. Ajid if I assert, on the basis of every-day experience, 

 that my conscious Ego can direct my automaton to execute this 

 movement, it is surely no answer to say that because my auto 

 maton was competent to do it for itself, therefore my conscious 

 Ego really had nothing to do with it. For supposing my air- 

 passages to be free from any irritation, I do not cough unless I 

 will to cough ; and my will simply takes the place of the stimulus 

 which the passage of a crumb of bread into my larynx would 

 give. So Goltz s frog and Flourens s pigeon, though capable of 

 performing the ordinary movements of locomotion when excited 

 to do so, remain quiescent in the absence of such excitement, 

 for want of a cerebrum to supply the place of the external 

 stimulus by one proceeding from the conscious Ego. And 

 although my bete may have come to be quite as capable as 

 Goltz s frog or Flourens s pigeon, of continuing to walk by itself 

 when my ame is asleep or engaged elsewhere, it is none the less 

 under subjection to my ame when the latter asserts its preroga 

 tive ; the automatic movements of my bete being then governed 

 by the consciously formed determinations of my Ego. 



The higher we ascend in the vertebrate series towards man, 

 the more evident does it become that the ordinary course of 

 action is determined rather by the intentional direction given 

 through the cerebrum to the working of the automatic mechanism, 

 than by its own unconscious operation ; in other words, by reason 

 rather than by instinct. And in man we find that everything is 

 left to be learned by experience, save what is imperatively required 

 for the maintenance of life such as the rhythmical contractions 

 of the heart, the peristaltic movements of the alimentary canal, 

 the acts of swallowing and respiration, their combination in the 

 act of sucking, and the like. Even the tendency to that sudden 

 closure of the lids when danger is threatened to the eyes, which is 

 among the most purely automatic of our protective actions, seems 

 to be an acquired rather than a congenital instinct. 



It is the very condition of such acquirement, however, that 

 the human Ego is thus enabled to exercise a rational control over 



