of concern drifts elsewhere we again hear only a confused babel of sounds. Attention, however, is not a thing but a process-the process whereby experiences become ordered about one or another phase of our affective life. (5) Desire. Every reflex arc under stimulation is the carrier of its own particular impulse. It possesses, that is to say, a drive or momentum of its own while it is being stimulated, and the energy thus released can leave the arc only by activating muscles or glands or by entering other arcs. Thus there is established a never ending cycle of sensori-motor activity which draws the whole organism into its orbit and binds it intimately to the surrounding environment. The natural outcome of stimulation, therefore, on the one side is action and on the other is the production of the whole gamut of organic changes, that is to say, every reflex in operation leads both to internal and to external changesto changes in the organism and to changes in the world. The internal changes come about largely through the stimulation of the visceral segments of reflex arcs, the external changes through the activation of the skeletal musculature. Impulse in the beginning is a mere "Let this be done" affair, having no object and no end in view, and possibly even no identifiable feeling quality of its own. But every impulse nevertheless does push in a certain direction, and does to a certain extent stir up other organic activities. If the fuss created by any impulse be great enough, the whole organism will be thrown into acute disequilibrium; and if the overt actions accompanying such a stirred-up state for any reason fail to restore the organism to order and quiet, new adjustments will be made. Among the more important of these adjustments are the phenomena called desire, purpose, thought, and will. Desire arises in the first instance when impulses of sufficient organic importance are prohibited from functioning. Every impulse pushes on towards its satisfaction, for human beings are always moving, as Hobbes once said, towards or fromwards. These movements in the beginning are probably purely objective occurrences, and many of them remain just that and nothing more all through our lives. If the proc esses of digestion work perfectly we need never know, from our own experience, that we have stomachs. But the man who does not know from bitter experience that he has a stomach is a rarity, and no man is so fortunately placed as never to have been hindered in any of his movements. In the face of hindrances feeling surges up, and in the heat of frustration desire is born, for it is then for the first time that something is wanted. Desire is our name for this feeling of lack. Needs exist before desires are born, since the organism is not self-sufficient in its activity at any time and requires materials from the outside to keep it functioning. Nor do we desire whenever there is a lack, but only when this lack actually becomes conscious-the consciousness of the lack being itself the desire. Desire therefore is rather the result than the initiator of movement. As Spiller has put it, 19 Normally an act is just an act and no more. It requires no footmen to usher it in, and no host to utter words of welcome. Being an expression of a need, it is its own explanation and justification. The time may come, of course, when men will be able to explain their actions, but that explanation will probably be couched in the terms of physiological chemistry or of biology rather than of psychology. (6) Volition. When impulses are frustrated, we commonly do something about it, and this action against resistance is called willing or volition. No will is involved in the simple eliciting of a reflex response, such as raising the arm to ward off a blow, but will makes its appearance when such actions are hindered. Since hindrances to the functioning of impulses may be either external or internal, will is exercised. both against other persons or things and against ourselves. The issue is usually made a personal one, even when mere things do the hindering, and the battle rages between me and you, or me and that thing, or between two claimants for selfhood within me. Every self is a compound of habits and volitions, the habits looking backwards to the past and what was, the volitions looking forwards to the future and what will be. The "I" of every one of us is largely a volition -it always includes much that we really are not, but would like to be. A refined and developed will is always largely a social product. 20 We are taught what parts of our activities to call really ourselves, and we are encouraged to develop these impulses at the expense of others. In this manner all the members of a group will tend to develop personalities which display the same general contours. The conditions of modern civilization require from us rather unusual degrees of regularity and permanence in many activities which seem better adapted to intermittent use. This is the case, for example, with work, and especially with mental work. The human system seems capable either of intense exertion over a short period of time or of a rather low degree of exertion over long periods of time. But under social pressures, a high degree of exertion may be exacted over long periods of time, and habits of restlessness and constant activity may even be developed, in opposition to basic human needs. In such circumstances our desires become unhealthy, and the development of a sound self is difficult and sometimes impossible. And it is just at such a time, also, that self-will becomes especially prominent. Well-rounded selfhood disappears, and its place is taken by the cult of the self. (7) Thought. The life of thought will be considered at some length in a later chapter, when an attempt will be made to state in detail what goes on when men think. Here, therefore, it need only be remarked that both the subjectmatter of thought and the occasion or need for thinking nearly always arise outside the thought process itself. Thinking is called upon to play a part in a game which it did not devise, with implements not of its own construction, and for reasons which it must in the end take for granted. It is in the life of the feelings that one must search for an explanation of thinking. REFERENCES 1 George H. Green, The Daydream, A Study in development (Univ. of London Press, 1923). 2 Green, 79. For a bibliography of gangs, see R. E. Park and E. W. Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology (2 ed., Univ. of Chicago Press, 1924), 657. 4 For fuller details, see J. B. Watson, Behaviorism (N. Y., People's Institute Publ. Co., 1925), 90–99. J. B. Watson, Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist (2 ed., Phila., Lippincott, 1924), 219–221. Cf. Watson, Psychology, etc., 265–266, 296–302; William Stern, The Psychology of Early Childhood up to the Sixth Year of Age (3 ed., N. Y., Holt, 1924), 81; Kurt Koffka, The Growth of the Mind, An introduction to child psychology (N. Y., Harcourt, Brace, 1924), 74. 7 Stern, 142. 8 Stern, 376. The grammar of this citation has been slightly clarified. 'Knight Dunlap, The Elements of Scientific Psychology (St. Louis, Mosby, 1922), 358. 10 Stern, 377f (the story about the little boy and his fingers is on p. 382); Koffka 334-335. 11 Stern, 353. 12 William James, The psychology of belief, Mind, Vol. 14 (1889), 334-335 18 Charles Waldstein, The Balance of Emotion and Intellect (London, 1878), 7. 14 Anatole France, Penguin Island (London, Lane, 1909), 204-205. 15 See reference 5 above; also Mary Cover Jones, The elimination of children's fears, Journ. of Exper. Psych., Vol. 7 (1924), 382–390. 16 See A. F. Shand, The Foundations of Character, Being a study of the tendencies of the emotions and sentiments (2 ed., London, Macmillan, 1920). 17 R. W. Livingstone, The Greek Genius and Its Meaning to Us (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1912), 78. 18 H. C. Warren, Human Psychology (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1919), 303-304. 19 Gustav Spiller, The Mind of Man, A textbook of psychology (London, Sonnenschien, 1902), 302. 20 Graham Wallas, Our Social Heritage (New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1921), 25. Chapter VI ADOLESCENCE AND MATURITY The importance of sex Our culture offers no paradox more puzzling than its attitude towards sex. Here is a tremendous human force, the direct or indirect theme of most of the world's greatest literature, the subject matter of a large proportion of the daily thoughts and feelings of the average man, the strongest urge to human activity, a scorching flame which is capable of revealing a man's nature from top to bottom, the very wellspring of life-and over this great focus of human energies is spread an almost impenetrable blanket of silence, innuendo, and ignorance. With all the talk and thought that hovers about sex, little of really primary significance has as yet been uttered and mankind seems determined, if possible, always to flirt with this most interesting and dangerous of all subjects. This fact alone is responsible for most of the problems raised by sex in our lives. Suppose that eating and drinking was never spoken of openly, save in veiled or poetic language, and that no one ever ate food publicly, because it was considered immoral and immodest to reveal the mysteries of this natural function. We know what would occur. A considerable proportion of the community, more especially the more youthful members, possessed by an instinctive and legitimate curiosity, would concentrate their thoughts on the subject. They would have so many problems to puzzle over: How often ought I to eat? What ought I to eat? Is it wrong to eat fruit, which I like? Ought I to eat grass, which I don't like? Instinct notwithstanding, we may be quite sure that only a small minority would succeed in eating reasonably and wholesomely. The sexual secrecy of life is even more disastrous than such a nutritive secrecy would be; partly because we expend such a wealth of moral energy in directing or misdirecting it, partly because |