270 JOHN D. DODSON 



(3) Readiness. By original nature a certain situation starts a be- 

 havior series: this involves not only actual conduction along certain 

 neurones and across certain synapses, but also the readiness of others 

 to conduct. 



Watson criticizes the conception that pleasure tends to stamp- 

 in desirable acts and pain to stamp-out the undesirable acts, 

 and offers two principles, " recency" and " frequency" as possible 

 explanation for the mechanical process in learning. He says (10) , 



It is our aim to combat the idea that pleasure or pain has anything- to 

 do with habit formation or that harmfulness or harmlessness has any 

 thing more to do with the situation. 



Again, 



We may confess at once that we have no new principles to offer in 

 solving the problems involved in learning, but we hope that by stating 

 our problem carefully and by clearing away the misconceptions referred 

 to, we shall be able to show in a convincing way that the mechanical 

 principles with which we are already familiar and which can experi- 

 mentally be shown to act in the way we maintain are sufficient to yield 

 the solution of those problems. We shall call these principles (1) fre- 

 quency and (2) recency. 



Holmes says (5) : 



Profiting by experience in an animal of primitive type of intelligence 

 we conceive, then", to take place as follows : The creature is endowed with 

 the capacity for responding to beneficial stimuli by aggressive, out- 

 stretching movements, and to injurious stimuli by movements of with- 

 drawal, retreat and avoidance. All these are matters of pure instinct. 

 Given the power of forming associations between responses, the animal 

 acquires new habits of /action by repeating those responses which arouse 

 instinctive acts of a congruous, and discontinuing those responses which 

 arouse instinctive acts of an incongruous kind. 



Peterson has recently suggested " completeness of response" 

 as a fundamental principle in the explanation of the learning 

 process. He says (7). 



