66 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



reactions are more readily quelled till a point comes at which 

 they wholly surcease. In fact the whole process may, 

 especially among ourselves, be achieved by a single sharp 

 experience. The psycho-physical tissue is so modified by 

 the wave of inhibition once set up that the original reactive 

 tendency is altogether held in check. It is not however the 

 original inhibition which persists. That is a temporary 

 state, which having once occurred is past, like any other 

 event. Nor is it true to say that it is 'revived,' for by 

 degrees, if not at once, the necessity for inhibition dis- 

 appears, and a new response arises, which avoids the un- 

 pleasant object. What comes about then is a permanent 

 modification of the psycho-physical structure, which gives 

 directly the response 1 at first reached only through the 

 reaction of feeling. 



Thus the sense-stimulus comes to act as though it were 

 infected or charged with the feeling that is at first a mere 

 consequence of the reaction. And this infection corre- 

 sponds to something which we actually find in conscious- 

 ness. The eatable that has a nauseous taste, unless there 

 is a counteracting factor of considerable strength, will come 

 to look nauseous. Its appearance to the eye is c compli- 

 cated' with an element of unpleasantness, charged with 

 disagreeable character. When the ground of this un- 

 pleasantness is set out it becomes the taste of the thing, 

 which for me, as I merely look at it, is an idea, and an idea 

 distinct from my present perception, but this separation is 

 effected at a higher grade of consciousness. Before any 

 idea distinct from sense perception is formed, the sensori- 

 motor excitement is qualified by feelings which do not 

 originally form part of it, but which come to do so as the 

 result of the antecedent experience of similar sensations 

 and of the attendant response and feeling. Thus on 

 the psychical side the excitement A takes on itself in our 



1 If the object is simply ignored it may be said that there is no 

 response at all. There must, however, have been a psycho-physical 

 change perfectly comparable to that which brings about a definite 

 movement of avoidance, and the negative result (e.g. that the orange 

 peel is not eaten) corresponds to that which is 'at first reached only 

 through the reaction of feeling.' 



