iv REFLEX ACTION 51 



higher cases, depend in some measure on the state of the 

 organism as a whole, and this not merely in the negative 

 sense that it is liable to inhibition, but in the sense that a 

 certain state of the organism is a positive condition of its 

 exercise. Such an adaptation though more complex is 

 still a response of preformed structure to present stimuli, 

 and is as such unintelligent. But in proportion as it thus 

 becomes adaptable to the whole state of the organism, the 

 reflex has in reality become a constituent element in 

 action of a higher type. In this capacity we shall meet it 

 again in subsequent chapters as the servant of Instinct 

 and Intelligence. 



9. Reflex action in development. 



Reflex actions are not always perfect from birth. There 

 is in this respect a remarkable difference between one action 

 and another, and also between one animal and another. 

 Even the young chick, whose pecking was taken by 

 earlier observers to be almost perfect from the first, has 

 been shown by later very careful records to require 

 practice, and to take some days to reach perfection. 1 The 

 human infant has but few established reflexes in the first 

 week of its existence. Darwin 2 found sneezing, hiccough- 

 ing, yawning, stretching, sucking, and screaming to be "well 

 performed " during the first seven days. On the other 

 hand, the blinking reflex, which is so markedly mechanical 

 later on, does not appear on the first day, and the ability 

 to direct the eyes to an object to "fixate"- is utterly 

 lacking. 3 Even breathing in which reflex as well as 

 automatic movements are concerned is less regular with 

 babies than in later life, and of the more complicated re- 

 flexes involved in walking and grasping, it is needless to 

 speak. 4 The rapidity and uniformity with which many 

 reflexes are learnt suggests that the mechanism is almost 

 but not quite perfected by heredity. At the best it is 



1 Shepherd and Braid, The Development oj an Instinct, J. A. B., 1913, 

 pp. 278 ff. 



2 Mind, Vol. II. p. 285. 3 Preyer, op. cit. pp. 25 and 41. 



4 The grasping of an object placed within the fingers appears from the 

 first ; but grasping at a thing, or even looking at it in the hand, is 

 delayed for some weeks. See Darwin, op. tit. p. 286, and Preyer, I. 

 P- 47, &c. 



E 2 



