THE FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN. 13 



These three responses to a sensational stimulus differ, 

 however, in many respects. The closure of the eye and the 

 lachrymation are quite involuntary^ and so is the disturbance " 

 of the heart. Such involuntary responses we know as 

 ' reflex ' acts. The motion of the arms to break the shock 

 of falling may also be called reflex, since it occurs too 

 quickly to be deliberately intended. Whether it be instinc- 

 tive or whether it result from the pedestrian education of 

 childhood may be doubtful ; it is, at any rate, less automatic 

 than the previous acts, for a man might by conscious effort 

 learn to perform it more skilfully, or even to suppress it alto- 

 gether. Actions of this kind, into which instinct and volition 

 enter upon equal terms, have been called ' semi-reflex.' The 

 act of running towards the train, on the other hand, has no 

 instinctive element about it. It is purely the result of edu- 

 cation, and is preceded by a consciousness of the purpose to 

 be attained and a distinct mandate of the will. It is a * vol- 

 untary act.' Thus the animal's reflex and voluntary per- 

 formances shade into each other gradually, being connected 

 by acts which may often occur automatically, but may also 

 be modified by conscious intelligence. 



An outside observer, unable to perceive the accompany- 

 ing consciousness, might be wholly at a loss to discriminate 

 between the automatic acts and those which volition es- 

 corted. But if the criterion of mind's existence be the 

 choice of the proper means for the attainment of a supposed 

 end, all the acts seem to be inspired by intelligence, for 

 appropriateness characterizes them all alike. This fact, now, 

 has led to two quite opposite theories about the relation to 

 consciousness of the nervous functions. Some authors, 

 finding that the higher voluntary ones seem to require the 

 guidance of feeling, conclude that over the lowest reflexes 

 some such feeling also presides, though it may be a feeling 

 of which loe remain unconscious. Others, finding that reflex 

 and semi-automatic acts may, notwithstanding their appro- 

 priateness, take place with an unconsciousness apparently 

 complete, fly to the opposite extreme and maintain that the 

 appropriateness even of voluntary actions owes nothing to 

 the fact that consciousness attends them. They are, accord- 

 ing to these writers, results of ph^-siological mechanism pure 



