efforts quite as much as that brought about when others take the lead.

In general, every stimulus directs activity. It does not simply excite
it or stir it up, but directs it toward an object. Put the other way
around, a response is not just a re-action, a protest, as it were,
against being disturbed; it is, as the word indicates, an answer. It
meets the stimulus, and corresponds with it. There is an adaptation of
the stimulus and response to each other. A light is the stimulus to the
eye to see something, and the business of the eye is to see. If the
eyes are open and there is light, seeing occurs; the stimulus is but a
condition of the fulfillment of the proper function of the organ, not an
outside interruption. To some extent, then, all direction or control is
a guiding of activity to its own end; it is an assistance in doing fully
what some organ is already tending to do.

This general statement needs, however, to be qualified in two respects.
In the first place, except in the case of a small number of instincts,
the stimuli to which an immature human being is subject are not
sufficiently definite to call out, in the beginning, specific responses.
There is always a great deal of superfluous energy aroused. This energy
may be wasted, going aside from the point; it may also go against the
successful performance of an act. It does harm by getting in the way.
Compare the behavior of a beginner in riding a bicycle with that of the
expert. There is little axis of direction in the energies put forth;
they are largely dispersive and centrifugal. Direction involves
a focusing and fixating of action in order that it may be truly a
response, and this requires an elimination of unnecessary and confusing
movements. In the second place, although no activity can be produced in
which the person does not cooperate to some extent, yet a response may
be of a kind which does not fit into the sequence and continuity of
action. A person boxing may dodge a particular blow successfully, but in
such a way as to expose himself the next instant to a still harder
blow. Adequate control means that the successive acts are brought into
a continuous order; each act not only meets its immediate stimulus but
helps the acts which follow.

In short, direction is both simultaneous and successive. At a given
time, it requires that, from all the tendencies that are partially
called out, those be selected which center energy upon the point of
need. S