In the delayed reaction, the inner orientation does little during the interval before the final reaction, except to maintain a readiness for making that reaction; but often "preparatory reactions" occur before the final reaction can take place. Suppose you whistle for your dog when he is some distance off and out of sight. You give one loud whistle and wait. Presently the dog swings around the corner and dashes up to you. Now, what kept the dog running towards you after your whistle had ceased and before he caught sight of you? Evidently he was directed towards the end-result of reaching you, and this directing tendency governed his movements during the process. He made many preparatory reactions on the way to his final reaction of jumping up on you; and these preparatory reactions were, of course, responses to the particular trees he had to dodge, and the ditches he had to jump; but they were at the same time governed by the inner state set up in him by your {78 } whistle. This inner state favored certain reactions and excluded others that would have occurred if the dog had not been in a hurry. He passed another dog on the way without so much as saying, "How d'ye do?" And he responded to a fence by leaping over it, instead of trotting around through the gate. That is to say, the inner state set up in him by your whistle facilitated reactions that were preparatory to the final reaction, and inhibited reactions that were not in that line.

A hunting dog following the trail furnishes another good example of a directive tendency. Give a bloodhound the scent of a particular man and he will follow that scent persistently, not turning aside to respond to stimuli that would otherwise influence him, nor even to follow the scent of another man. Evidently an inner neural adjustment has been set up in him predisposing him to respond to a certain stimulus and not to others.

The homing of the carrier pigeon is a good instance of activity directed in part by an inner adjustment, since, when released at a distance from home, he is evidently "set" to get back home, and often persists and reaches home after a very long flight. Or, take the parallel case of the terns, birds which nest on a little island not far from Key West. Of ten birds taken from their nests and transported on shipboard out into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico and released 500 miles from home, eight reappeared at their nests after intervals varying from four to eight days. How they found their way over the open sea remains a mystery, but one thing is clear: they persisted in a certain line of activity until a certain end-result was reached, on which this line of activity ceased.

One characteristic of tendencies that has not previously been mentioned comes out in this example. When a tendency has been aroused, the animal (or man) is tense and {79} restless till the goal has been reached, and then quiets down. The animal may or may not be clearly conscious of the goal, but he is restless till the goal has been attained, and his restlessness then ceases. In terms of behavior, what we see is a series of actions which continues till a certain result has been reached and then gives way to rest. Introspectively, what we feel (apart from any clear mental picture of the goal) is a restlessness and tenseness during a series of acts, giving way to relief and satisfaction when a certain result has been reached.

A hungry or thirsty animal is restless; he seeks food or drink, which means that he is making a series of preparatory reactions, which continues till food or drink has been found, and terminates in the end-reaction of eating or drinking.