This
is a truism.
Now reflex action takes place independently of consciousness or
will. Instinctive action may be voluntary, but it is, after all, not
so much the result of individual purpose as of hereditary tendency.
Is there then no will in the animal until it has become intelligent?
I think there has been a sort of voluntary action all the time. Even
the amoeba selects or chooses, if I may use the word, its food
among the sand grains. And the will is stimulated to act by the
appetite. Hunger is the first teacher. And how did appetite develop?
Why does the animal hunger for just the food suited to its digestion
and needs? We do not know. And the reproductive appetite soon
follows. One of these results from the condition of the digestive,
the other from that of the reproductive, cells or protoplasm. These
appetites are due to some condition in a part of the organism and
can be _felt_. They are in a sense not of the mind but of the body.
And the response to them on the part of the mind is in some respects
almost comparable to reflex action. But the mode of the response is,
to a certain extent at least, within the control of consciousness.
They train and spur the will as pure reflex action never could. But
the will is as yet hardly more than the expression of these
appetites. It expresses not so much its own decision as that of the
stomach.
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