50 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



smallpox patient has to be forcibly prevented from scratch- 

 ing himself. The reflex in short is not like a purposive 

 act directly adapted to the circumstances in which it is 

 performed in such wise as to secure a specific end. It is 

 the result of a preformed structure adapted in general to 

 secure a result of a certain kind in response to a stimulus 

 of a certain kind. The result is normally beneficial, but 

 not necessarily so, and no provision is made within the 

 limits of the reflex structure for deviations from the 

 ordinary type. If we ask how the structure has arisen 

 the answer on the well-known biological lines is the same 

 as that proposed for inherent structural activity. It was 

 through small variations, each of which was upon the whole 

 beneficial to its possessor. The general suitability of the 

 reflex response to the needs of the species is thus the 

 condition of its existence, but its actual suitability in any 

 particular case where it is performed has nothing to do 

 with its performance. It is adapted to needs though not 

 at any time determined purposively by the needs which it 

 subserves. We may express the distinction by calling it 

 Adaptive and not purposive, and we observe that in such 

 adaptive responses, while there is a certain correlation 

 between response and requirement, (i) this correlation is 

 general, assigning a definite type of action to a definite 

 type of stimulus without provision for variation of cir- 

 cumstances, (2) it is sensory, affecting only responses to a 

 definite present sense-stimulus, (3) it is effected entirely 

 outside the sphere of conscious operation, and (4) it comes 

 about slowly and indirectly through the massive operation 

 of generations of ancestral experience. Such, in fact, is 

 the general character of action which is not purposive but 

 adaptive, and is determined not by the relation of the 

 present to the future but entirely by the cumulative and 

 indirect effects of the past. For, mutatis mutandis, what 

 has been said is probably applicable in equal measure to 

 structural activity. It is the character of type-reaction in 

 general, i.e. of all correlation so far as fixed by structure 

 under the conditions of heredity. 



