uccessively, it requires that each act be balanced with those
which precede and come after, so that order of activity is achieved.
Focusing and ordering are thus the two aspects of direction, one
spatial, the other temporal. The first insures hitting the mark; the
second keeps the balance required for further action. Obviously, it is
not possible to separate them in practice as we have distinguished them
in idea. Activity must be centered at a given time in such a way as to
prepare for what comes next. The problem of the immediate response is
complicated by one's having to be on the lookout for future occurrences.

Two conclusions emerge from these general statements. On the one hand,
purely external direction is impossible. The environment can at most
only supply stimuli to call out responses. These responses proceed from
tendencies already possessed by the individual. Even when a person
is frightened by threats into doing something, the threats work only
because the person has an instinct of fear. If he has not, or if, though
having it, it is under his own control, the threat has no more influence
upon him than light has in causing a person to see who has no eyes.
While the customs and rules of adults furnish stimuli which direct
as well as evoke the activities of the young, the young, after all,
participate in the direction which their actions finally take. In the
strict sense, nothing can be forced upon them or into them. To overlook
this fact means to distort and pervert human nature. To take into
account the contribution made by the existing instincts and habits
of those directed is to direct them economically and wisely. Speaking
accurately, all direction is but re-direction; it shifts the activities
already going on into another channel. Unless one is cognizant of the
energies which are already in operation, one's attempts at direction
will almost surely go amiss.

On the other hand, the control afforded by the customs and regulations
of others may be short-sighted. It may accomplish its immediate effect,
but at the expense of throwing the subsequent action of the person
out of balance. A threat may, for example, prevent a person from
doing something to which he is naturally inclined by arousing fear of
disagreeable consequences if he persists. But he may be left in the
position which exposes him later on to influences which will lead him
to do even worse things. His instincts of cunning and slyness may be
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