On the other hand, Watson, in his Introduction to Comparative Psychology, defines the reflex as "a unit of analysis of instinct," and this means that instinctive actions in man and in animals may be regarded as combinations of simple reflex actions, that is to say of "fairly definite and generally predictable but unlearned responses of lower and higher organisms to stimuli." Many of these reflex responses are not fixed, as they were formerly supposed to be, but "highly unstable and indefinite." This fact makes possible the formation of habits, by combination and fixation of these inherited responses.
These views in the radical form in which they are expressed by Loeb and Watson have naturally enough been the subject of considerable controversy, both on scientific and sentimental grounds. They seem to reduce human behavior to a system of chemical and physical reactions, and rob life of all its spiritual values. On the other hand, it must be remembered that human beings, like other forms of nature, have this mechanical aspect and it is precisely the business of natural science to discover and lay them bare. It is only thus that we are able to gain control over ourselves and of others. It is a matter of common experience that we do form habits and that education and social control are largely dependent upon our ability to establish habits in ourselves and in others. Habit is, in fact, a characteristic example of just what is meant by "mechanism," in the sense in which it is here used. It is through the fixation of habit that we gain that control over our "original nature," which lifts us above the brutes and gives human nature its distinctive character as human. Character is nothing more than the sum and co-ordination of those mechanisms which we call habit and which are formed on the basis of the inherited and instinctive tendencies and dispositions which we share in so large a measure with the lower animals.
4. The Natural Man[61]
"Its first act is a cry, not of wrath, as Kant said, nor a shout of joy, as Schwartz thought, but a snuffling, and then a long, thin, tearless á-á, with the timbre of a Scotch bagpipe, purely automatic, but of discomfort. With this monotonous and dismal cry, with its red, shriveled, parboiled skin (for the child commonly loses weight the first few days), squinting, cross-eyed, pot-bellied, and bow-legged, it is not strange that, if the mother has not followed Froebel's exhortations and come to love her child before birth, there is a brief interval occasionally dangerous to the child before the maternal instinct is fully aroused."
The most curious of all the monkey traits shown by the new-born baby is the one investigated by Dr. Louis Robinson. It was suggested by The Luck of Roaring Camp. The question was raised in conversation whether a limp and molluscous baby, unable so much as to hold up its head on its helpless little neck, could do anything so positive as to "rastle with" Kentuck's finger; and the more knowing persons present insisted that a young baby does, as a matter of fact, have a good firm hand-clasp. It occurred to Dr. Robinson that if this was true it was a beautiful Darwinian point, for clinging and swinging by the arms would naturally have been a specialty with our ancestors if they ever lived a monkey-like life in the trees. The baby that could cling best to its mother as she used hands, feet, and tail to flee in the best time over the trees, or to get at the more inaccessible fruits and eggs in time of scarcity, would be the baby that lived to bequeath his traits to his descendants; so that to this day our housed and cradled human babies would keep in their clinging powers a reminiscence of our wild treetop days.
There is another class of movements, often confused with the reflex—that is, instinctive movements. Real grasping (as distinguished from reflex grasping), biting, standing, walking, are examples of this class. They are race movements, the habits of the species to which the animal belongs, and every normal member of the species is bound to come to them; yet they are not so fixed in the bodily mechanism as the reflex movements.
The one instinct the human baby always brings into the world already developed is half a mere reflex act—that of sucking. It is started as a reflex would be, by the touch of some object—pencil, finger, or nipple, it may be—between the lips; but it does not act like a reflex after that. It continues and ceases without reference to this external stimulus, and a little later often begins without it, or fails to begin when the stimulus is given. If it has originally a reflex character, that character fades out and leaves it a pure instinct.
My little niece evidently felt a difference between light and darkness from the first hour, for she stopped crying when her face was exposed to gentle light. Two or three report also a turning of the head toward the light within the first week. The nurse, who was intelligent and exact, thought she saw this in the case of my niece. I did not, but I saw instead a constant turning of the eyes toward a person coming near her—that is, toward a large dark mass that interrupted the light. No other sign of vision appeared in the little one during the first fortnight. The eyes were directed to nothing, fixed on nothing. They did not wink if one made a pass at them. There was no change of focus for near or distant seeing.
The baby showed no sign of hearing anything until the third day, when she started violently at the sound of tearing paper, some eight feet from her. After that, occasional harsh or sudden sounds—oftener the rustling of paper than anything else—could make her start or cry. It is well established by the careful tests of several physiologists that babies are deaf for a period lasting from several hours to several days after birth.