nature of the stimulus. His state of expectancy is accompanied by a
certain bodily "set" or preparedness for the coming event, although the
precise nature of the event is a matter of uncertainty. His nervous
system is in readiness to respond this way or that, or rather, it has
already started to act in both of the alternative ways. If the subject
is to respond with the right hand to one stimulus and with the left hand
to the other, both hands are in a state of activity before the stimulus
appears. The organization of the temporary reflex through the agency of
the cerebral cortex could not be achieved were it not for the fact that
all the movements entering into the organization are nascently aroused
before the spring is touched which permits the act to unroll itself in
orderly sequence.

The various successive movements, then, which make up our temporary
reflex achieve their relationship to one another from the fact that they
are started simultaneously, and this peculiarity constitutes a
distinctive feature. Apparently this feature is absent from true
reflexes. An act of swallowing, performed unconsciously, may start the
complicated processes of digestion, but it is merely the first act of a
series. There is no evidence that the movements of the stomach and of
the other organs concerned in digestion must be presupposed before the
act of swallowing can take place. The swallowing may start the other
processes, but we cannot say that these other processes react back upon
the first act and make it one of swallowing rather than something else.
Yet this "back stroke" is precisely what is necessary in our
reaction-experiment, for it is by virtue of this fact that the
organization of the temporary reflex becomes a possibility. The first
response cannot take place until the last is provided for. Thus the
immediate act of looking has embodied in it the activity that is to
follow later. The looking is not simply with the eye, but with the hands
that are to complete the response. The optical response is a response
which, in the language of Bergson, prefigures or sketches out the act of
a later moment. The nervous system is enabled to act as a unit, because
the movements that are to occur at a later time are represented in the
first stage of the complete act. The first stage, accordingly, does not
occur independently, but _as_ a preliminary to the second. With an
imperfect organization of the entire response, it may happen that the