Chapter XXII 



PSYCHIC INTEGRATION 



Preliminary Remarks 



(a) Absolute Discrimination Between Reflex and Psychical 

 Phenomena Not Necessary 



I T will be recalled that in our discussion of neural inte- 

 * gration we limited ourselves strictly to those manifesta- 

 tions and activities of organisms which are, so far as ob- 

 servation can determine, strictly reflex, that is, show no 

 evidence of intelligence and volition, or even necessarily of 

 instinct. What we have to do next is to consider the unity, 

 the integratedness of the animal organism as manifested in 

 the vast array of its activities which by universal consent 

 are designated by such terms as instinctive, emotional, vo- 

 litional, conscious and intelligent. 



Be it noted that this aim will not exact of us, any more 

 than did the last, a sharp delimitation between reflex or 

 purely mechanical acts and psychical or conscious acts. 

 Just as in the former discussion we were concerned with the 

 integrative character of those acts which are indubitably 

 reflex, so here our object is to study the integrative or syn- 

 thetic character of those acts which are indubitably psychi- 

 cal. We shall now be dealing with acts which have unques- 

 tionable psychical attributes, that is, show something of 

 individual plasticity and something of correspondence to 

 individual needs; which are, in other words, to some degree 

 individually determined to meet individual requirements 

 either of external or internal imposition and intention. 



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