BOOK EEVIEWS 451 



modes of response (habit)." Emotion and instinct each receives one 

 chapter and the remaining four chapters are devoted to various phases 

 of habit. 



"An emotion is an hereditary 'pattern-reaction' involving profound 

 changes of the bodily mechanism as a whole, but particularly of the 

 visceral and glandular systems" (p. 195). Instinct is defined "as an 

 hereditary pattern reaction, the separate elements of which are move- 

 ments principally of the striped muscles" (p. 231). 



The chapter on instinct is an important original contribution, con- 

 taining a wealth of new observations and laboratory studies on new- 

 born and other very young children. Few aspects of the study of 

 man have been more neglected than this, and none will yield more 

 immediate rewards of patient and skilful inquiry, as Doctor Watson's 

 valuable results illustrate. 



Habit, as indicated above, includes the rest of psychology. "Any 

 definite mode of acting, either explicit or implicit in character, not 

 belonging to man's hereditary equipment, must be looked upon as a 

 habit" (p. 270). Chapter viii includes an analysis of the explicit 

 bodily habits with new observations on habit formation in children and 

 a summary of this process in adults. 



Implicit habit systems can be observed only with the aid of instru- 

 ments. "When we study implicit bodily processes we are studying 

 thought" (p. 326). The language habits dominate this field and to 

 these most of Chapter ix is devoted. In the long discussion of the 

 anatomical basis of language much is said about the larynx, muscles 

 and other motor apparatus, but not a word about brain and nerve. 



In thus leaving the impressin here, as elsewhere, that "implicit" 

 processes are necessarily peripherally expressed in some fashion the 

 author would appear to exclude one of his most helpful sources of 

 support. I refer to the possibility of cerebral activities which are real 

 motor processes as far as they go, but which may never come to any 

 peripheral expression. While he admits (p. 326) that his view of laryn- 

 geal organization "is largely an assumption" and "the experimental 

 evidence for this view is slight," he ignores cortical organization, about 

 which certainly as much is known. This is not merely because cortical 

 processes cannot readily be demonstrated by instrumentation, for he 

 uses freely the supposed functions of ductless glands which are quite 

 as inaccessible. We can account for this neglect only as an expression 

 of a general neurophobia which permeates the work. 



