562 WILL AND 



creatures have to 'learn 'how to perform these Movements — which, 

 if true, would make it necessary to classify them as 'secondary* 

 rather than 'primary' Automatic Movements. 



The valuable experiments of Spalding with young Swallows and 

 other birds that emerge from the egg in an immature condition 

 have, however, shown that in them the manifestation of * primary* 

 Automatic Movements, dependent upon inherited Nervous Mecha- 

 nisms, is merely deferred till the time when such developments 

 have been achieved — and that then, without any process of ' learn- 

 ing,' the Movements are readily capable of being evoked (p. 230). 



The helpless condition of the infant Monkey and of the Human 

 Infant at birth are similarly to be ascribed, in great part, to the 

 immature condition of their great Nervous Centres at this period. 

 Many of the Movements which they slowly ' learn ' to perform are 

 doubtless rendered possible by, and acquired coincidently with, the 

 actual development of those nerve cells and fibres in the Spinal 

 Cord and Medulla which are instrumental in the execution of such 

 Movements. Thus, when we say that the young child ' learns ' to 

 perform these movements, it should be understood that this word 

 is here applicable only in a very qualified sense. Its vague efforts 

 serve, perhaps, merely as incitations tending to arouse or perfect 

 the already existing (because inherited) tendencies to development 

 of certain Motor and other Nerve Centres— of mechanisms, that 

 is, which in many other creatures have reached their full term of 

 development by or almost immediately after birth. 



But for the existence of this organic nisus (in the form of an 

 inherited tendency to develop in certain modes and directions) the 

 Human Infant coald never so readily as it does acquire the power 

 of executin^r the excessively complex Movements which are con- 

 cerned in Standing, in Walking, or in Articulate Speech (see p. 607). 



Relations of Voluntary and Automatic Movements. 



The complex movements last referred to being some of the most 

 typical of the 'secondary' Automatic Movements of Hartley, the 

 above considerations will suffice to show that many of those 

 hitherto placed in this category, are but ' primary ' Automatic 

 Movements, the power of executing which has been somewhat 

 deferred. Previously, the guiding influence of Volition has been 

 supposed by many to be principally instrumental in enabling the 

 child to execute them, whilst here it is contended that their acquisi- 

 tion by the individual is much more largely dependent upon the 



