and determines action
on the basis of the relative satisfactions it can prophesy after
careful inquiry into the situation. To reflect is primarily to
query a stimulus, to find out what it means in terms of its
consequences. The more alert, persistent, and careful this
inquiry, the more will instinctive tendencies be checked and
modified and adjusted to new situations.

In the discussion of the acquisition of habits, it was pointed
out that useful habits may be acquired most rapidly by an
analysis of them into their significant features. The speed
with which random instinctive actions are modified into a
series of useful habitual ones depends intimately upon how
clear and detailed is the individual's appreciation of the
results to be achieved by one action rather than another. A
large part of learning even among humans is doubtless trial
and error, random hit-or-miss attempts, until after successive
repetitions, a successful response is made and retained. But
human learning and habit-formation are so much more various
and fruitful than those of animals precisely because human
beings can check and modify instinctive responses in the
light of consequences which they can foresee. These foreseen
consequences are, of course, derived from previous experience;
that is, they are "remembered." But reflection short-circuits
the process. The more deliberate and reflective the process
of learning, the more the individual notes the connections
between the things he does and the results he gets, the fewer
repetitions will he need in order effectively to modify his
instinctive behavior into useful habits. He will anticipate
results; he will experience them in imagination. He will not
need to make every wrong move in paddling a canoe until he
finally hits upon the right one. He will not need to alienate
all his clients before learning to deal with them successfully.
In any given set of circumstances he will form the effective
habits rapidly. He will calculate, "figure out," find out in
advance. To keep one's temper under provocation, to refrain
from eating delicious and indigestible foods, to keep at
work when one would like to play, and sometimes to play
when one is engrossed in work, are familiar instances of how
our first impulses become checked, restrained, or modified in
the light of the results we have discovered to be associated
with them.

REFLECTIVE BEHAVIOR MODIFIES HABIT. The same conscious
breaking-up of a new type o