Conscious actions depend directly on the will, and they have a close connexion with instinctive actions in as far as these also can be controlled by the will, that is, can be set a-going or inhibited, and also, on the other hand, in as far as purely voluntary actions may become instinctive through frequent repetition. The first case is illustrated, for instance, when the suckling of a child at the mother's breast is continued into the second year of life, as not infrequently happens in the southern countries of Europe. Such a child knows exactly why it wants the breast, and its action is a conscious one, while the newborn child seeks about with the mouth instinctively, and when it has found what it sought performs the somewhat complex sucking movements automatically. The second case is illustrated, when, for instance, we have made a habit of winding up a watch on going to bed, and do it when we happen to change our clothes through the day, although it is then purposeless and would have been omitted if the action had required a conscious effort of will. One can often observe on oneself in how short a time a conscious action may become instinctive. I once sent my keyless watch to a watchmaker for repairs, and received from him for the time an ordinary watch, which had to be wound with a key, which key I kept for safety in my purse. At the end of eight days I got back my own watch, and on undressing the first night I found myself 'instinctively' taking my purse from my pocket in order to get the key, which, as I very well knew, I no longer needed. And that a long series of complex movements, originally performed only consciously, may be gone through instinctively, is shown by the fact that pieces of music which have been learnt by heart can often be played without mistake from beginning to end while the player is thinking of quite other things. The complex instinctive actions of animals are performed in quite a similar manner. There is thus no sharp boundary line between reflex and instinctive actions, nor between instinctive and conscious actions, but one passes over into the other, and the thought suggests itself, that in the phyletic development also transitions from one kind of action to the other must have taken place. As long as one believes the Lamarckian principle to be really operative one can suppose that actions, which were originally dependent on the will, when they were often repeated, became instinctive, or, in other words, that instincts, many of them at least, are inherited habits. I shall endeavour to show later on that this assumption, plausible as it seems at first sight, cannot be correct; but in the meantime I must confine myself to saying that there are a great number of instincts which must be referred to the process of selection, and that the rest can be similarly interpreted in their essentials at least.