Action with a purpose is deliberate; it involves a consciously
foreseen end and a mental weighing of considerations pro and
con. It also involves a conscious state of longing or desire
for the end. The deliberate choice of an aim and of a settled
disposition of desire takes time. During this time complete
overt action is suspended. A person who does not have his
mind made up, does not know what to do. Consequently he
postpones definite action so far as possible. His position
may be compared to that of man considering jumping across
a ditch. If he were sure he could or could not make it, definite
activity in some direction would occur. But if he considers,
he is in doubt; he hesitates. During the time in which a
single overt line of action is in suspense, his activities are con-
fined to such redistributions of energy within the organism
as will prepare a determinate course of action. He measures
the ditch with his eyes; he brings himself taut to get a feel of
the energy at his disposal; he looks about for other ways across,
he reflects upon the importance of getting across. All this
means an accentuation of consciousness; it means a turning
in upon the individual's own attitudes, powers, wishes, etc.

Obviously, however, this surging up of personal factors into
conscious recognition is a part of the whole activity in its
temporal development. There is not first a purely psychical
process, followed abruptly by a radically different physical one.
There is one continuous behavior, proceeding from a more
uncertain, divided, hesitating state to a more overt, deter-
minate, or complete state. The activity at first consists mainly
of certain tensions and adjustments within the organism;
as these are coördinated into a unified attitude, the organism
as a whole acts -- some definite act is undertaken. We
may distinguish, of course, the more explicitly conscious phase
of the continuous activity as mental or psychical. But that
only identifies the mental or psychical to mean the indeter-
minate, formative state of an activity which in its fullness in-
volves putting forth of overt energy to modify the environment

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