of inner growth and independent of individual learning, there can be no
doubt. This of course means that in the early days of a child's life,
and later in so far as he is governed by these inborn tendencies, his
conduct is machine-like and blind--with no purpose and no consciousness
controlling or initiating the responses. Only after experience and
learning have had an opportunity to influence these responses can the
child be held responsible for his conduct, for only then does his
conduct become conscious instead of merely physiological.

There are many facts concerning the psychology of these inborn
tendencies that are interesting and important from a purely theoretical
point of view, but only those which are of primary importance in
teaching will be considered here. A fact that is often overlooked by
teachers is that these inborn tendencies to connections of various kinds
exist in the intellectual and emotional fields just as truly as in the
field of action or motor response. The capacity to think in terms of
words and of generals; to understand relationships; to remember; to
imagine; to be satisfied with thinking,--all these, as well as such
special abilities as skill in music, in managing people or affairs, in
tact, or in sympathy, are due to just the same factors as produce fear
or curiosity. These former types of tendencies differ from the latter in
complexity of situation and response, in definiteness of response, in
variability amongst individuals of the same family, and in
modifiability; but in the essential element they do not differ from the
more evident inborn tendencies.

Just what these original tendencies are and just what the situations are
to which they come as responses are both unknown except in a very few
instances. The psychology of original nature has enumerated the
so-called instincts and discussed a few of their characteristics, but