in the book. In other words, they are reflex acts.

'The reflex actions proper to the spinal cord itself are NATURAL,
and are involved in the structure of the cord and the properties of
its constituents. By the help of the brain we may acquire an
affinity of ARTIFICIAL reflex actions. That is to say, an action may
require all our attention and all our volition for its first, or
second, or third performance, but by frequent repetition it becomes,
in a manner, part our organisation, and is performed without
volition, or even consciousness.

'As everyone knows, it takes a soldier a very long time to learn his
drill--to put himself, for instance, into the attitude of
'attention' at the instant the word of command is heard. But, after
a time, the sound of the word gives rise to the act, whether the
soldier be thinking of it or not. There is a story, which is
credible enough, though it may not be true, of a practical joker,
who, seeing a discharged veteran carrying home his dinner, suddenly
called out 'Attention!' whereupon the man instantly brought his
hands down, and lost his mutton and potatoes in the gutter. The
drill had been gone through, and its effects had become embodied in
the man's nervous structure.

'The possibility of all education (of which military drill is only
one particular form) is based upon, the existence of this power
which the nervous system possesses, of organising conscious actions
into more or less unconscious, or reflex, operations. It may be laid
down as a rule, that if any two mental states be called up together,
or in succession, with due frequency and vividness, the subsequent
production of the one of them will suffice to call up the other, and