AUTOMATIC ACTION 259 



walking, however, we are apt to stop if our attention be 

 strongly arrested, as by a loud and sudden noise. On the 

 other hand, the process of peeling potatoes never becomes so 

 automatic in a cook as walking. Peeling is less habitually 

 practised, and potatoes are of irregular shapes, to which the 

 movements of the knife must be adapted. No cook, there- 

 fore, can peel potatoes uninterruptedly while engaged in an 

 animated conversation. 



422. The fundamental error underlying Dr. Carpenter's 

 reasoning is the assumption that we can attend to and will 

 only one thing at a time. It is certain that we are able to 

 attend to and will many things at one time. Were it other- 

 wise our complex life would be as impossible as the complex 

 image which falls on the retina would be useless were we 

 able to attend to only that part which impinges on thefovea 

 centralis. Automatic actions, therefore, are performed, not 

 in the complete absence of will, nor in response to an 

 infinitesimal amount of will, nor because the will oscillates 

 to and from them, but always under the influence of a small 

 but sufficient amount of will. They differ from non-auto- 

 matic voluntary actions only because the attention, and 

 therefore the will, is less concentrated on them. They are, 

 therefore, distinctly voluntary, and, therefore, in a category 

 altogether apart from that occupied by reflex actions. As 

 we see, however, they are almost perfect substitutes for 

 reflexes. 1 



423. A principal function, then, of our faculty of making 

 mental acquirements, of our conscious and unconscious 

 memories, is to supply us with substitutes for instincts and 

 reflexes. Our conscious memories supply us with our stereo- 

 typed mental attitudes desires, beliefs, ways of thinking, 

 and so forth. Our unconscious memories supply us with our 

 stereotyped ways of acting the automatic ways of acting 

 we have just considered. As we grow older these imitation 

 instincts and reflexes increase in number and importance ; 

 they form a larger and a larger portion of our total reaction 

 to the environment. Beyond the verge of them spreads a 

 domain, very wide in the infant but narrowing as we pass 



1 Instincts also may be substitutes for reflex actions. When an 

 irritant is applied to a man's side he removes it by a " rational " action. 

 When it is applied to a frog's side it is removed by an action which is 

 probably instinctive. When, however, the frog is pithed and can feel 

 nothing, and when, therefore, the action cannot be instinctive, he still 

 removes the irritant. Probably in the comparatively rudimentary 

 nervous system of the frog, instinct is replacing, but as yet has only 

 partially replaced, certain reflexes. 



