A corollary of this law is that 'sensory' cells do not awaken each other connately; that is, that no one sensible property of things has any tendency, in advance of experience, to awaken in us the idea of any other sensible properties which in the nature of things may go with it.There is no a priori calling up of one 'idea' by another;the onlya prioricouplings are of ideas with movements. All suggestions of one sensible fact by anothertake place by secondary paths which experience has formed.
Fig.87.
Fig.87.
The diagram (Fig. 87)[505]shows what happens in a nervous system ideally reduced to the fewest possible terms. A stimulus reaching the sense-organ awakens the sensory cell, S; this by the connate or instinctive path discharges the motor cell, M, which makes the muscle contract; and the contraction arouses the second sensory cell, K, which may be the organ either of a 'resident' or 'kinæsthetic,' or of a 'remote,' sensation. (See above,p. 488.) This cell K again discharges into M. If this were the entire nervous mechanism, the movement, once begun, would be self-maintaining, and would stop only when the parts were exhausted. And this, according to M. Pierre Janet, is what actually happens incatalepsy. A cataleptic patient is anæsthetic, speechless, motionless. Consciousness, so far as we can judge, is abolished. Nevertheless the limbs will retain whatever position is impressed upon them from without, and retain it so long that if it be a strained and unnatural position, the phenomenon is regarded by Charcot as one of the few conclusive tests against hypnotic subjects shamming, since hypnotics can be made cataleptic,and then keep their limbs outstretched for a length of time quite unattainable by the waking will. M. Janet thinks that in all these cases the outlying ideational processes in the brain are temporarily thrown out of gear. The kinæsthetic sensation of the raised arm, for example, is produced in the patient when the operator raises the arm, this sensation discharges into the motor cell, which through the muscle reproduces the sensation, etc., the currents running in this closed circle until they grow so weak, by exhaustion of the parts, that the member slowly drops. We may call this circle from the muscle to K, from K to M, and from M to the muscle again, the 'motor circle.'We should all be cataleptics and never stop a muscular contraction once begun, were it not that other processes simultaneously going on inhibit the contraction. Inhibition is therefore not an occasional accident; it is an essential and unremitting element of our cerebral life.It is interesting to note that Dr. Mercier, by a different path of reasoning, is also led to conclude that we owe to outside inhibitions exclusively our power to arrest a movement once begun.[506]
One great inhibitor of the discharge of K into M seems to be the painful or otherwise displeasing quality of the sensation itself of K; and conversely, when this sensation is distinctly pleasant, that fact tends to further K's discharge into M, and to keep the primordial motor circle agoing. Tremendous as the part is which pleasure and pain play in our psychic life, we must confess that absolutely nothing is known of their cerebral conditions. It is hard to imagine them as having special centres; it is harder still to invent peculiar forms of process in each and every centre, to which these feelings may be due. And let one try as one will to represent the cerebral activity in exclusively mechanical terms, I, for one, find it quite impossible to enumerate what seem to be the facts and yet to make no mention of the psychic side which they possess. However it be with other drainage currents and discharges, the drainage currents and discharges of the brain are not purely physical facts. They arepsycho-physicalfacts, and thespiritual quality of them seems a codeterminant of their mechanical effectiveness. If the mechanical activities in a cell, as they increase, give pleasure, they seem to increase all the more rapidly for that fact; if they give displeasure, the displeasure seems to damp the activities. The psychic side of the phenomenon thus seems, somewhat like the applause or hissing at a spectacle, to be an encouraging or adversecommenton what the machinery brings forth. The soulpresentsnothing herself;createsnothing; is at the mercy of the material forces for allpossibilities; but amongst these possibilities sheselects; and by reinforcing one and checking others, she figures not as an 'epiphenomenon,' but as something from which the play gets moral support. I shall therefore never hesitate to invoke the efficacy of the conscious comment, where no strictly mechanical reason appears why a current escaping from a cell should take one path rather than another.[507]But theexistenceof the current, and itstendencytowards either path, I feel bound to account for by mechanical laws.
Having now considered a nervous system reduced to its lowest possible terms, in which all the paths are connate, and the possibilities of inhibition not extrinsic, but due solely to the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the feeling aroused, let us turn to the conditions under which new paths may be formed. Potentialities of new paths are furnished by the fibres which connect the sensory cells amongst themselves; but these fibres are not originally pervious, and have to be made so by a process which I proceed hypothetically to state as follows:Each discharge from a sensory cell in the forward direction[508]tends to drain the cells lying behind the discharging one of whatever tension they may possess. The drainage from the rearward cells is what for the first time makes the fibres pervious. The result is a new-formed 'path,' running from the cells which were 'rearward' to the cell which was 'forward' on that occasion; which path, if on future occasions the rearward cells are independently excited, will tend to carry off their activity in the same direction so as to excite theforward cell, and will deepen itself more and more every time it is used.
Now the 'rearward cells,' so far, stand for all the sensory cells of the brain other than the one which is discharging; but such an indefinitely broad path would practically be no better than no path, so here I make a third hypothesis, which, taken together with the others, seems to me to cover all the facts. It is thatthe deepest paths are formed from the most drainable to the most draining cells;thatthe most drainable cells are those which have just been discharging,and thatthe most draining cells are those which are now discharging or in which the tension is rising towards the point of discharge.[509]Another diagram, Fig. 88, will make the matter clear.
Fig.88.
Fig.88.
Take the operation represented by the previous diagram at the moment when, the muscular contraction having occurred, the cell K is discharging forward into M. Through the dotted linepit will, according to our third hypothesis, drain S (which, in the supposed case, has just discharged into M by the connate path P, and caused the muscular contraction), and the result is thatpwill now remain as a new path open from S to K. When next S is excited from without it will tend not only to discharge into M, but into K as well. K thus gets excited directly by Sbeforeit gets excited by the incoming current from the muscle; or, translated into psychic terms:when a sensation has once produced a movement in us, the next time we have the sensation, it tends to suggest the idea of the movement, even before the movement occurs.[510]
The same principles also apply to the relations of K and M. M, lying in the forward direction, drains K, and the path KM, even though it be no primary or connate path, becomes a secondary or habitual one. Hereafter K may be aroused in any way whatsoever (not as before from S or from without) and still it will tend to discharge into M; or, to express it again in psychic terms,the idea of the movement M's sensory effects will have become an immediately antecedent condition to the production of the movement itself.
Here, then, we have the answer to our original question of how a sensory process which, the first time it occurred, was the effect of a movement, can later figure as the movement's cause.
It is obvious on this scheme that the cell which we have marked K may stand for the seat of either a resident or a remote sensation occasioned by the motor discharge. It may indifferently be a tactile, a visual, or an auditory cell. The idea of how the armfeelswhen raised may cause it to rise; but no less may the idea of somesoundwhich it makes in rising, or of someopticalimpression which it produces. Thus we see that the 'mental cue' may belong to either of various senses; and that what our diagrams lead us to infer is what really happens; namely, that in our movements, such as that of speech, for example, in some of us it is the tactile, in others the acoustic,Effectsbild, or memory-image, which seems most concerned in starting the articulation (Vol. I. pp. 54-5). Theprimitive'starters,' however, of all our movements are notEffectsbilderat all, but sensations and objects, and subsequently ideas derived therefrom.
Let us now turn to the more complex and serially concatenated movements which oftenest meet us in real life. The object of our will is seldom a single muscular contraction; it is almost always an orderly sequence of contractions, ending with a sensation which tells us that the goal is reached. But the several contractions of the sequence are not each distinctly willed; each earlier one seems rather, by the sensation it produces, to call its follower up, after the fashion described in Chapter VI, where we spoke ofhabitual concatenated movements being due to a series of secondarily organized reflex arcs (Vol. I. p. 116). The first contraction is the one distinctly willed, and after willing it we let the rest of the chain rattle off of its own accord. How now is such an orderly concatenation of movements originally learned? or in other words, how are paths formed for the first time between one motor centre and another, so that the discharge of the first centre makes the others discharge in due order all along the line?
The phenomenon involves a rapid alternation of motor discharges and resultant afferent impressions, for as long a time as it lasts. They must be associated in one definite order; and the order must once have beenlearned, i.e., it must have been picked out and held to more and more exclusively out of the many other random orders which first presented themselves. The random afferent impressions fell out, those that felt right were selected and grew together in the chain. A chain which we actively teach ourselves by stringing a lot of right-feeling impressions together differs in no essential respect from a chain which we passively learn from someone else who gives us impressions in a certain order. So to make our ideas more precise, let us take a particular concatenated movement for an example, and let it be the recitation of the alphabet, which someone in our childhood taught us to say by heart.
What we have seen so far is how the idea of the sound or articulatory feeling of A may make us say 'A,' that of B, 'B,' and so on. But what we now want to see iswhy the sensation that A is uttered should make us say 'B,' why the sensation that B is uttered should make us say 'C,' and so on.
Fig.89.
Fig.89.
To understand this we must recall what happened when we first learned the letters in their order. Someone repeated A, B, C, D to us over and over again, and we imitated the sounds. Sensory cells corresponding to each letter were awakened in succession in such wise that each one of them (by virtue of our second law) must have 'drained' the cell just previously excited and left a path by which that cell tended ever afterwards to discharge into the cell that drained it. Let Sa, Sb, Scin figure 89 stand for three of these cells. Each later one of them, as it dischargesmotorwards, draws a current from the previous one, Sbfrom Sa, and Scfrom Sb. Cell Sbhaving thus drained Sa, if Saever gets excited again, it tends to discharge into Sb; whilst Schaving drained Sb, Sblater discharges into Sc, etc., etc.—all through the dotted lines. Let now the idea of the letter A arise in the mind, or, in other words, let Sabe aroused: what happens? A current runs from Sanot only into the motor cell Mafor pronouncing that letter, but also into the cell Sb. When, a moment later, the effect of Ma's discharge comes back by the afferent nerve and re-excites Sa, this latter cell is inhibited from discharging again into Maand reproducing the 'primordial motor circle' (which in this case would be the continued utterance of the letter A), by the fact that the process in Sb, already under headway and tending to discharge into its own motor associate Mb, is,under the existing conditions, the stronger drainage-channel for Sa's excitement. The result is that Mbdischarges and the letter B is pronounced; whilst at the sametime Screceives some of Sb's overflow; and, a moment later when the sound of B enters the ear, discharges into the motor cell for pronouncing C, by a repetition of the same mechanism as before; and so onad libitum. Figure 90 represents the entire set of processes involved.
Fig.90.
Fig.90.
The only thing that one does not immediately see is the reason why 'under the existing conditions' the path from Sato Sbshould be the stronger drainage-channel for Sa's excitement. If the cells and fibres in the figure constituted the entire brain we might suppose either a mechanical or a psychical reason. The mechanical reason might lie in a general law that cells like Sband Mb, whose excitement is in a rising phase, are stronger drainers than cells like Ma, which have just discharged; or it might lie in the fact that an irradiation of the current beyond Sbinto Scand Mchas already begun also; and in a still farther law that drainage tends in the direction of the widest irradiations. Either of these suppositions would be a sufficient mechanical reason why, having once said A, we should not say it again. But we must not forget that the process has a psychical side, nor close our eyes to the possibility that thesort of feelingaroused by incipient currents may be the reason why certain of them are instantly inhibited and others helped to flow. There is no doubt that before we have uttered a single letter, the general intention to recite the alphabet is already there; nor is there any doubt that to that intention corresponds a widespread premonitory rising of tensions along the entire system of cells and fibres which are later to be aroused. So long as this rise of tensionsfeels good, so long every current which increases it is furthered, and every current which diminishes it is checked; and this may be the chief one of the 'existing conditions' which make the drainage-channel from Sato Sbtemporarily so strong.[511]
The new paths between the sensory cells of which we have studied the formation are paths of 'association,' and we now see why associations run always in the forwarddirection; why, for example, we cannot say the alphabet backward, and why, although Sbdischarges into Sc, there is no tendency for Scto discharge into Sb, or at least no more than for it to discharge into Sa.[512]The first-formed paths had, according to the principles which we invoked, to run from cells that had just discharged to those that were discharging; and now, to get currents to run the other way, we must go through a new learning of our letters with their order reversed. There willthenbe two sets of association-pathways, either of them possible, between the sensible cells. I represent them in Fig. 91, leaving out the motor features for simplicity's sake. The dotted lines are the paths in the backward direction, newly organized from the reception by the ear of the letters in the order C B A.
Fig.91.
Fig.91.
The same principles will explain the formation of new paths successively concatenated to no matter how great an extent, but it would obviously be folly to pretend to illustrate by more intricate examples. I will therefore only bring back the case of the child and flame (Vol. I. p. 25), to show how easily it admits of explanation as a 'purely cortical transaction' (ibid.p. 80). The sight of the flame stimulates the cortical centre S1which discharges by an instinctivereflex path into the centre M1for the grasping-movement. This movement produces the feeling of burn, as its effects come back to the centre S2; and this centre by a second connate path discharges into M2, the centre for withdrawing the hand. The movement of withdrawal stimulates the centre S3, and this, as far as we are concerned, is the last thing that happens. Now the next time the child sees the candle, the cortex is in possession of the secondary paths which the first experience left behind. S2, having been stimulated immediately after S1, drained the latter, and now S1discharges into S2before the discharge of M1has had time to occur; in other words, the sight of the flame suggests the idea of the burn before it produces its own natural reflex effects. The result is an inhibition of M1, or an overtaking of it before it is completed, by M2.—The characteristic physiological feature in all these acquired systems of paths lies in the fact that the new-formed sensory irradiations keepdraining things forward, and so breaking up the 'motor circles' which would otherwise accrue. But, even apart from catalepsy, we see the 'motor circle' every now and then come back. An infant learning to execute a simple movement at will, without regard to other movements beyond it, keeps repeating it till tired. How reiteratively they babble each new-learned word! And we adults often catch ourselves reiterating some meaningless word over and over again, if by chance we once begin to utter it 'absent-mindedly,' that is, without thinking of any ulterior train of words to which it may belong.
Fig.92.
Fig.92.
One more observation before closing these already too protracted physiological speculations. Already (Vol. I. p. 71) I have tried to shadow forth a reason why collateral innervationshould establish itself after loss of brain-tissue, and why incoming stimuli should find their way out again, after an interval, by their former paths. I can now explain this a little better. Let S1be the dog's hearing-centre when he receives the command 'Give your paw.' Thisusedto discharge into the motor centre M1, of whose discharge S2represents the kinæsthetic effect; but now M1has been destroyed by an operation, so that S1discharges as it can, into other movements of the body, whimpering, raising the wrong paw, etc. The kinæsthetic centre S2meanwhile has been awakened by the order S1, and the poor animal's mind tingles with expectation and desire of certain incoming sensations which are entirely at variance with those which the really executed movements give. None of the latter sensations arouse a 'motor circle,' for they are displeasing and inhibitory. But when, by random accident, S1and S2dodischarge into a path leading through M2, by which thepaw is again given, and S2is excited at last from without as well as from within, there are no inhibitions and the 'motor circle' is formed: S1discharges into M2over and over again, and the path from the one spot to the other is so much deepened that at last it becomes organized as the regular channel of efflux when S1is aroused. No other path has a chance of being organized in like degree.
Fig.93.
Fig.93.
[430]Parts of this chapter have appeared in an essay called "The Feeling of Effort," published in the Anniversary Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, 1880; and parts in Scribner's Magazine for Feb. 1888.
[430]Parts of this chapter have appeared in an essay called "The Feeling of Effort," published in the Anniversary Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, 1880; and parts in Scribner's Magazine for Feb. 1888.
[431]I am abstracting at present for simplicity's sake, and so as to keep to the elements of the matter, from the learning of acts by seeing others do them.
[431]I am abstracting at present for simplicity's sake, and so as to keep to the elements of the matter, from the learning of acts by seeing others do them.
[432]Deutsches Archiv f. Klin. Medicin, xxii. 321.
[432]Deutsches Archiv f. Klin. Medicin, xxii. 321.
[433]Landry: Mémoire sur la Paralysie du Sens Musculaire, Gazette des Hôpitaux, 1855, p. 270.
[433]Landry: Mémoire sur la Paralysie du Sens Musculaire, Gazette des Hôpitaux, 1855, p. 270.
[434]Tàkacs: Ueber die Verspätung der Empfindungsleitung, Archiv für Psychiatrie, Bd. x. Heft 3, p. 533. Concerning all such cases see the remarks made above onpp. 205-6.
[434]Tàkacs: Ueber die Verspätung der Empfindungsleitung, Archiv für Psychiatrie, Bd. x. Heft 3, p. 533. Concerning all such cases see the remarks made above onpp. 205-6.
[435]Proceedings of American Soc. for Psychical Research, p. 95.
[435]Proceedings of American Soc. for Psychical Research, p. 95.
[436]In reality the movement cannot even bestartedcorrectly in some cases without the kinæsthetic impression. Thus Dr. Strümpell relates how turning over the boy's hand made him bend the little finger instead of the forefinger, when his eye was closed. "Ordered to point, e.g., towards the left with his left arm, the arm was usually raised straight forward, and then wandered about in groping uncertainty, sometimes getting the right position and then leaving it again. Similarly with the lower limbs. If the patient, lying in bed, had, immediately after the tying of his eyes, to lay the left leg over the right, it often happened that he moved it farther over towards the left, and that it lay over the side of the bed in apparently the most intolerably-uncomfortable position. The turning of the head, too, from right to left, or towards certain objects known to the patient, only ensued correctly when the patient, immediately before his eye was bandaged, specially refreshed his perception as to what the required movement was to be." In another anæsthetic of Dr. Strümpell's (described in the same essay) the arm could not be movedat allunless the eyes were opened, however energetic the volition. The variations in these hysteric cases are great. Some patients cannot move the anæsthetic partat allwhen the eyes are closed. Others move it perfectly well, and can even write continuous sentences with the anæsthetic hand. The causes of such differences are as yet incompletely unexplored. M. Binet suggests (Revue Philosophique, xxv. 478) that in those who cannot move the hand at all the sensation of light is required as a 'dynamogenic' agent (see above,p. 377); and that in those who can move it skilfully the anæsthesia is only a pseudo-insensibility and that the limb is in reality governed by a dissociated or secondary consciousness. This latter explanation is certainly correct. Professor G. E. Müller (Pflüger's Archiv, xlv. 90) invokes the fact of individual differences of imagination to account for the cases who cannot write at all. Their kinæsthetic images properly so called may be weak, he says, and their optical images insufficiently powerful to supplement them without a 'fillip' from sensation. Janet's observation that hysteric anæsthesias may carry amnesias with them would perfectly legitimate Müller's supposition. What we now want is a minute examination of the individual cases. Meanwhile Binet's article above referred to, and Bastian's paper in Brain for April 1887, contain important discussions of the question. In a later note I shall return to the subject again (seep. 520).
[436]In reality the movement cannot even bestartedcorrectly in some cases without the kinæsthetic impression. Thus Dr. Strümpell relates how turning over the boy's hand made him bend the little finger instead of the forefinger, when his eye was closed. "Ordered to point, e.g., towards the left with his left arm, the arm was usually raised straight forward, and then wandered about in groping uncertainty, sometimes getting the right position and then leaving it again. Similarly with the lower limbs. If the patient, lying in bed, had, immediately after the tying of his eyes, to lay the left leg over the right, it often happened that he moved it farther over towards the left, and that it lay over the side of the bed in apparently the most intolerably-uncomfortable position. The turning of the head, too, from right to left, or towards certain objects known to the patient, only ensued correctly when the patient, immediately before his eye was bandaged, specially refreshed his perception as to what the required movement was to be." In another anæsthetic of Dr. Strümpell's (described in the same essay) the arm could not be movedat allunless the eyes were opened, however energetic the volition. The variations in these hysteric cases are great. Some patients cannot move the anæsthetic partat allwhen the eyes are closed. Others move it perfectly well, and can even write continuous sentences with the anæsthetic hand. The causes of such differences are as yet incompletely unexplored. M. Binet suggests (Revue Philosophique, xxv. 478) that in those who cannot move the hand at all the sensation of light is required as a 'dynamogenic' agent (see above,p. 377); and that in those who can move it skilfully the anæsthesia is only a pseudo-insensibility and that the limb is in reality governed by a dissociated or secondary consciousness. This latter explanation is certainly correct. Professor G. E. Müller (Pflüger's Archiv, xlv. 90) invokes the fact of individual differences of imagination to account for the cases who cannot write at all. Their kinæsthetic images properly so called may be weak, he says, and their optical images insufficiently powerful to supplement them without a 'fillip' from sensation. Janet's observation that hysteric anæsthesias may carry amnesias with them would perfectly legitimate Müller's supposition. What we now want is a minute examination of the individual cases. Meanwhile Binet's article above referred to, and Bastian's paper in Brain for April 1887, contain important discussions of the question. In a later note I shall return to the subject again (seep. 520).
[437]Professor Beaunis found that the accuracy with which a certain tenor sang was not lost when his vocal cords were made anæsthetic by cocain. He concludes that the guiding sensations here are resident in the laryngeal muscles themselves. They are much more probably in the ear. (Beaunis, Les Sensations Internes (1889), p. 253).
[437]Professor Beaunis found that the accuracy with which a certain tenor sang was not lost when his vocal cords were made anæsthetic by cocain. He concludes that the guiding sensations here are resident in the laryngeal muscles themselves. They are much more probably in the ear. (Beaunis, Les Sensations Internes (1889), p. 253).
[438]As the feeling of heat, for example, is the last psychic antecedent of sweating, as the feeling of bright light is that of the pupil's contraction, as the sight or smell of carrion is that of the movements of disgust, as the remembrance of a blunder may be that of a blush, so the idea of a movement's sensible effects might be that of the movement itself. It is true that the idea of sweating will not commonly make us sweat, nor that of blushing make us blush. But in certain nauseated states the idea of vomiting will make us vomit; and a kind of sequence which is in this case realized only exceptionally might be the rule with the so-called voluntary muscles. It all depends on the nervous connections between the centres of ideation and the discharging paths. These may differ from one sort of centre to another. They do differ somewhat from one individual to another. Many persons never blush at the idea of their blunders, but only when the actual blunder is committed; others blush at the idea; and some do not blush at all. According to Lotze, with some persons "It is possible to weep at will by trying to recall that peculiar feeling in the trigeminal nerve which habitually precedes tears. Some can even succeed in sweating voluntarily, by the lively recollection of the characteristic skin-sensations, and the voluntary reproduction of an indescribable sort of feeling of relaxation, which ordinarily precedes the flow of perspiration." (Med. Psych., p. 303.) The commoner type of exceptional case is that in which the idea of thestimulus, not that of the effects, provokes the effects. Thus we read of persons who contract their pupils at will by strongly imagining a brilliant light. A gentleman once informed me (strangely enough I cannot recall who he was, but I have an impression of his being a medical man) that he could sweat at will by imagining himself on the brink of a precipice. The sweating palms of fear are sometimes producible by imagining a terrible object (cf. Manouvrier in Rev. Phil., xxii. 203). One of my students, whose eyes were made to water by sitting in the dentist's chair before a bright window, can now shed tears by imagining that situation again. One might doubtless collect a large number of idiosyncratic cases of this sort. They teach us how greatly the centres vary in their power to discharge through certain channels. All that we need, now, to account for the differences observed between the psychic antecedents of the voluntary and involuntary movements is that centres producing ideas of the movement's sensible effects should be able to instigate the former, but be out of gear with the latter, unless in exceptional individuals. The famous case of Col. Townsend, who could stop his heart at will, is well known. See, on this whole matter, D. H. Tuke: Illustrations of the Influence of the Mind on the Body, chap. xiv. § 3; also J. Braid: Observations on Trance or Human Hybernation (1850). The latest reported case of voluntary control of the heart is by Dr. S. A. Pease, in Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, May 30, 1889.
[438]As the feeling of heat, for example, is the last psychic antecedent of sweating, as the feeling of bright light is that of the pupil's contraction, as the sight or smell of carrion is that of the movements of disgust, as the remembrance of a blunder may be that of a blush, so the idea of a movement's sensible effects might be that of the movement itself. It is true that the idea of sweating will not commonly make us sweat, nor that of blushing make us blush. But in certain nauseated states the idea of vomiting will make us vomit; and a kind of sequence which is in this case realized only exceptionally might be the rule with the so-called voluntary muscles. It all depends on the nervous connections between the centres of ideation and the discharging paths. These may differ from one sort of centre to another. They do differ somewhat from one individual to another. Many persons never blush at the idea of their blunders, but only when the actual blunder is committed; others blush at the idea; and some do not blush at all. According to Lotze, with some persons "It is possible to weep at will by trying to recall that peculiar feeling in the trigeminal nerve which habitually precedes tears. Some can even succeed in sweating voluntarily, by the lively recollection of the characteristic skin-sensations, and the voluntary reproduction of an indescribable sort of feeling of relaxation, which ordinarily precedes the flow of perspiration." (Med. Psych., p. 303.) The commoner type of exceptional case is that in which the idea of thestimulus, not that of the effects, provokes the effects. Thus we read of persons who contract their pupils at will by strongly imagining a brilliant light. A gentleman once informed me (strangely enough I cannot recall who he was, but I have an impression of his being a medical man) that he could sweat at will by imagining himself on the brink of a precipice. The sweating palms of fear are sometimes producible by imagining a terrible object (cf. Manouvrier in Rev. Phil., xxii. 203). One of my students, whose eyes were made to water by sitting in the dentist's chair before a bright window, can now shed tears by imagining that situation again. One might doubtless collect a large number of idiosyncratic cases of this sort. They teach us how greatly the centres vary in their power to discharge through certain channels. All that we need, now, to account for the differences observed between the psychic antecedents of the voluntary and involuntary movements is that centres producing ideas of the movement's sensible effects should be able to instigate the former, but be out of gear with the latter, unless in exceptional individuals. The famous case of Col. Townsend, who could stop his heart at will, is well known. See, on this whole matter, D. H. Tuke: Illustrations of the Influence of the Mind on the Body, chap. xiv. § 3; also J. Braid: Observations on Trance or Human Hybernation (1850). The latest reported case of voluntary control of the heart is by Dr. S. A. Pease, in Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, May 30, 1889.
[439]Prof. Harless, in an article which in many respects forestalls what I have to say (Der Apparat des Willens, in Fichte's Zeitschrift f. Philos., Bd. 38, 1861), uses the convenient wordEffectsbildto designate these images.
[439]Prof. Harless, in an article which in many respects forestalls what I have to say (Der Apparat des Willens, in Fichte's Zeitschrift f. Philos., Bd. 38, 1861), uses the convenient wordEffectsbildto designate these images.
[440]The best modern statement I know is by Jaccoud: Des Paraplégies et de l'Ataxie du Mouvement (Paris, 1864), p. 591.
[440]The best modern statement I know is by Jaccoud: Des Paraplégies et de l'Ataxie du Mouvement (Paris, 1864), p. 591.
[441]Leidesdorf u. Meynert's Vierteljsch. f. Psychiatrie, Bd. i. Heft i. S. 36-7 (1867). Physiologische Psychologie, 1st ed. S. 316.
[441]Leidesdorf u. Meynert's Vierteljsch. f. Psychiatrie, Bd. i. Heft i. S. 36-7 (1867). Physiologische Psychologie, 1st ed. S. 316.
[442]Professor Fouillée, who defends them in the Revue Philosophique, xxviii, 561 ff., also admits (p. 574) that they are the same whatever be the movement, and that all our discrimination ofwhichmovement we are innervating is afferent, consisting of sensations after, and of sensory images before, the act.
[442]Professor Fouillée, who defends them in the Revue Philosophique, xxviii, 561 ff., also admits (p. 574) that they are the same whatever be the movement, and that all our discrimination ofwhichmovement we are innervating is afferent, consisting of sensations after, and of sensory images before, the act.
[443]Cf. Souriau in Rev. Philosophique, xxii. 454.—Professor G. E. Müller thus describes some of his experiments with weights: If, after lifting a weight of 8000 grams a number of times we suddenly get a weight of only 500 grams to lift, "this latter weight is then lifted with a velocity which strikes every onlooker, so that the receptacle for the weight with all its contents often flies high up as if it carried the arm along with it, and the energy with which it is raised is sometimes so entirely out of proportion to the weight itself, that the contents of the receptacle are slung out upon the table in spite of the mechanical obstacles which such a result has to overcome. A more palpable proof that the trouble here is a wrong adaptation of the motor impulse could not be given." Pflüger's Archiv, xlv. 47. Compare also p. 57, and the quotation from Hering on the same page.
[443]Cf. Souriau in Rev. Philosophique, xxii. 454.—Professor G. E. Müller thus describes some of his experiments with weights: If, after lifting a weight of 8000 grams a number of times we suddenly get a weight of only 500 grams to lift, "this latter weight is then lifted with a velocity which strikes every onlooker, so that the receptacle for the weight with all its contents often flies high up as if it carried the arm along with it, and the energy with which it is raised is sometimes so entirely out of proportion to the weight itself, that the contents of the receptacle are slung out upon the table in spite of the mechanical obstacles which such a result has to overcome. A more palpable proof that the trouble here is a wrong adaptation of the motor impulse could not be given." Pflüger's Archiv, xlv. 47. Compare also p. 57, and the quotation from Hering on the same page.
[444]Archiv für Psychiatrie, iii. 618-635. Bernhardt strangely enough seems to think that what his experiments disprove is the existence of afferent muscular feelings, not those of efferent innervation—apparently because he deems that the peculiar thrill of the electricity ought to overpower all other afferent feelings from the part. But it is far more natural to interpret his results the other way, even aside from the certainty yielded by other evidence that passive muscular feelings exist. This other evidence, after being compendiously summed up by Sachs in Reichert und Du Bois' Archiv (1874), pp. 174-188, is, as far as the anatomical and physiological grounds go, again thrown into doubt by Mays, Zeitschrift f. Biologie, Bd. xx.
[444]Archiv für Psychiatrie, iii. 618-635. Bernhardt strangely enough seems to think that what his experiments disprove is the existence of afferent muscular feelings, not those of efferent innervation—apparently because he deems that the peculiar thrill of the electricity ought to overpower all other afferent feelings from the part. But it is far more natural to interpret his results the other way, even aside from the certainty yielded by other evidence that passive muscular feelings exist. This other evidence, after being compendiously summed up by Sachs in Reichert und Du Bois' Archiv (1874), pp. 174-188, is, as far as the anatomical and physiological grounds go, again thrown into doubt by Mays, Zeitschrift f. Biologie, Bd. xx.
[445]Functions of the Brain, p. 228.
[445]Functions of the Brain, p. 228.
[446]Vorlesungen über Menschen und Thierseele, i. 222.
[446]Vorlesungen über Menschen und Thierseele, i. 222.
[447]In some instances we get an opposite result. Dr. H. Charlton Bastian (British Medical Journal (1869), p. 461, note), says:"Ask a man whose lower extremities are completely paralyzed, whether, when he ineffectually wills to move either of these limbs, he is conscious of an expenditure of energy in any degree proportionate to that which he would have experienced if his muscles had naturally responded to his volition. He will tell us rather that he has a sense only of his utter powerlessness, and that his volition is a mere mental act, carrying with it no feelings of expended energy such as he is accustomed to experience when his muscles are in powerful action, and from which action and its consequences alone, as I think, he can derive any adequate notion of resistance."
[447]In some instances we get an opposite result. Dr. H. Charlton Bastian (British Medical Journal (1869), p. 461, note), says:
"Ask a man whose lower extremities are completely paralyzed, whether, when he ineffectually wills to move either of these limbs, he is conscious of an expenditure of energy in any degree proportionate to that which he would have experienced if his muscles had naturally responded to his volition. He will tell us rather that he has a sense only of his utter powerlessness, and that his volition is a mere mental act, carrying with it no feelings of expended energy such as he is accustomed to experience when his muscles are in powerful action, and from which action and its consequences alone, as I think, he can derive any adequate notion of resistance."
[448]Münsterberg's words may be added: "In lifting an object in the hand I can discover no sensation of volitional energy. I perceive in the first place a slight tension about the head, but that this results from a contraction in the head muscles, and not from a feeling of the brain-discharge, is shown by the simple fact that I get the tension on the right side of the head when I move the right arm, whereas the motor discharge takes place in the opposite side of the brain.... In maximal contractions of body- and limb-muscles there occur, as if it were to reinforce them, those special contractions of the muscles of the face [especially frowning and clinching teeth] and those tensions of the skin of the head. These sympathetic movements, felt particularly on the side which makes the effort, are perhaps the immediate ground why we ascribe our awareness of maximal contraction to the region of the head, and call it a consciousness of force, instead of a peripheral sensation." (Die Willenshandlung (1888), pp. 73, 82.) Herr Münsterberg's work is a little masterpiece, which appeared after my text was written. I shall have repeatedly to refer to it again, and cordially recommend to the reader its most thorough refutation of the Innervationsgefühl-theory.
[448]Münsterberg's words may be added: "In lifting an object in the hand I can discover no sensation of volitional energy. I perceive in the first place a slight tension about the head, but that this results from a contraction in the head muscles, and not from a feeling of the brain-discharge, is shown by the simple fact that I get the tension on the right side of the head when I move the right arm, whereas the motor discharge takes place in the opposite side of the brain.... In maximal contractions of body- and limb-muscles there occur, as if it were to reinforce them, those special contractions of the muscles of the face [especially frowning and clinching teeth] and those tensions of the skin of the head. These sympathetic movements, felt particularly on the side which makes the effort, are perhaps the immediate ground why we ascribe our awareness of maximal contraction to the region of the head, and call it a consciousness of force, instead of a peripheral sensation." (Die Willenshandlung (1888), pp. 73, 82.) Herr Münsterberg's work is a little masterpiece, which appeared after my text was written. I shall have repeatedly to refer to it again, and cordially recommend to the reader its most thorough refutation of the Innervationsgefühl-theory.
[449]Physiologische Optik, p. 600.
[449]Physiologische Optik, p. 600.
[450][The left and sound eye is here supposed covered. If both eyes look at the same field there are double images which still more perplex the judgment. The patient, however, learns to see correctly before many days or weeks are over.—W. J.]
[450][The left and sound eye is here supposed covered. If both eyes look at the same field there are double images which still more perplex the judgment. The patient, however, learns to see correctly before many days or weeks are over.—W. J.]
[451]Alfred Graefe, in Handbuch der gesammten Augenheilkunde, Bd. vi. pp. 18-21.
[451]Alfred Graefe, in Handbuch der gesammten Augenheilkunde, Bd. vi. pp. 18-21.
[452]Professor G. E. Müller (Zur Grundlegung der Psychophysik (1878), p. 318,) was the first to explain the phenomenon after the manner advocated in the text. Still unacquainted with his book, I published my own similar explanation two years later.Professor Mach in his wonderfully original little work 'Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen,' p. 57, describes an artificial way of getting translocation, and explains the effect likewise by the feeling of innervation. "Turn your eyes," he says, "as far as possible towards the left and press against the right sides of the orbits two large lumps of putty. If you then try to look as quickly as possible towards the right, this succeeds, on account of the incompletely spherical form of the eyes, only imperfectly, and the objects consequently appear translocated very considerably towards the right. Thebare willto look rightwards gives to all images on the retina a greaterrightwards value, to express it shortly. The experiment is at first surprising."—I regret to say that I cannot myself make it succeed—I know not for what reason. But even where it does succeed it seems to me that the conditions are much too complicated for Professor Mach's theoretic conclusions to be safely drawn. The putty squeezed into the orbit, and the pressure of the eyeball against it must give rise to peripheral sensationsstrongenough, at any rate (if only of the right kind), to justify any amount of false perception of our eyeball's position, quite apart from the innervation feelings which Professor Mach supposes to coexist.
[452]Professor G. E. Müller (Zur Grundlegung der Psychophysik (1878), p. 318,) was the first to explain the phenomenon after the manner advocated in the text. Still unacquainted with his book, I published my own similar explanation two years later.
Professor Mach in his wonderfully original little work 'Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen,' p. 57, describes an artificial way of getting translocation, and explains the effect likewise by the feeling of innervation. "Turn your eyes," he says, "as far as possible towards the left and press against the right sides of the orbits two large lumps of putty. If you then try to look as quickly as possible towards the right, this succeeds, on account of the incompletely spherical form of the eyes, only imperfectly, and the objects consequently appear translocated very considerably towards the right. Thebare willto look rightwards gives to all images on the retina a greaterrightwards value, to express it shortly. The experiment is at first surprising."—I regret to say that I cannot myself make it succeed—I know not for what reason. But even where it does succeed it seems to me that the conditions are much too complicated for Professor Mach's theoretic conclusions to be safely drawn. The putty squeezed into the orbit, and the pressure of the eyeball against it must give rise to peripheral sensationsstrongenough, at any rate (if only of the right kind), to justify any amount of false perception of our eyeball's position, quite apart from the innervation feelings which Professor Mach supposes to coexist.
[453]An illusion in principle exactly analogous to that of the patient under discussion can be produced experimentally in anyone in a way which Hering has described in his Lehre von Binocularen Sehen, pp. 13-14. I will quote Helmholtz's account of it, which is especially valuable as coming from a believer in theInnervationsgefühl: "Let the two eyes first look parallel, then let the right eye be closed whilst the left still looks at the infinitely distant objecta. The directions of both eyes will thus remain unaltered, andawill be seen in its right place. Now accommodate the left eye for a pointf[a needle in Hering's experiment] lying on the optical axis between it anda, only very near. The position of the left eye and its optical axis, as well as the place of the retinal image upon it... are wholly unaltered by this movement. But the consequence is that an apparent movement of the object occurs—a movement towards the left. As soon as we accommodate again for distance the object returns to its old place. Now what alters itself in this experiment is only the position of the closed right eye: its optical axis, when the effort is made to accommodate for the pointf, also converges towards this point.... Conversely it is possible for me to make my optical axes diverge, even with closed eyes, so that in the above experiment the right eye should turn far to the right ofa. This divergence is but slowly reached, and gives me therefore no illusory movement. But when I suddenly relax my effort to make it, and the right optical axis springs back to the parallel position, I immediately see the object which the left eye fixates shift its position towards the left. Thus not only the position of the seeing eyea, but also that of the closed eyeb, influences our judgment of the direction in which the seen object lies. The open eye remaining fixed, and the closed eye moving towards the right or left, the object seen by the open eye appears also to move towards the right or left" (Physiol. Optik, pp. 607-8.)
[453]An illusion in principle exactly analogous to that of the patient under discussion can be produced experimentally in anyone in a way which Hering has described in his Lehre von Binocularen Sehen, pp. 13-14. I will quote Helmholtz's account of it, which is especially valuable as coming from a believer in theInnervationsgefühl: "Let the two eyes first look parallel, then let the right eye be closed whilst the left still looks at the infinitely distant objecta. The directions of both eyes will thus remain unaltered, andawill be seen in its right place. Now accommodate the left eye for a pointf[a needle in Hering's experiment] lying on the optical axis between it anda, only very near. The position of the left eye and its optical axis, as well as the place of the retinal image upon it... are wholly unaltered by this movement. But the consequence is that an apparent movement of the object occurs—a movement towards the left. As soon as we accommodate again for distance the object returns to its old place. Now what alters itself in this experiment is only the position of the closed right eye: its optical axis, when the effort is made to accommodate for the pointf, also converges towards this point.... Conversely it is possible for me to make my optical axes diverge, even with closed eyes, so that in the above experiment the right eye should turn far to the right ofa. This divergence is but slowly reached, and gives me therefore no illusory movement. But when I suddenly relax my effort to make it, and the right optical axis springs back to the parallel position, I immediately see the object which the left eye fixates shift its position towards the left. Thus not only the position of the seeing eyea, but also that of the closed eyeb, influences our judgment of the direction in which the seen object lies. The open eye remaining fixed, and the closed eye moving towards the right or left, the object seen by the open eye appears also to move towards the right or left" (Physiol. Optik, pp. 607-8.)
[454]Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen, p. 65.
[454]Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen, p. 65.
[455]P. 68.
[455]P. 68.
[456]I owe the interpretation in the text to my friend and former student, Mr. E. S. Drown, whom I set to observe the phenomenon before I had observed it myself. Concerning the vacillations in our interpretation of relative motion over retina and skin, see above,p. 173.Herr Münsterberg gives additional reasons against the feeling of innervation, of which I will quote a couple. First, our ideas of movement are allfaintideas, resembling in this the copies of sensations in memory. Were they feelings of the outgoing discharge, they would be original states of consciousness, not copies; and ought by analogy to bevividlike other original states.—Second, our unstriped muscles yield no feelings in contracting, nor can they be contracted at will, differing thus intwopeculiarities from the voluntary muscles. What more natural than to suppose that the two peculiarities hang together, and that the reason why we cannot contract our intestines, for example, at will, is, that we have no memory-images of how their contraction feels? Were the supposed innervation-feeling always the 'mental cue,' one doesn't see why we might not have it even where, as here, the contractions themselves are unfelt, and why it might not bring the contractions about. (Die Willenshandlung, pp 87-8.)
[456]I owe the interpretation in the text to my friend and former student, Mr. E. S. Drown, whom I set to observe the phenomenon before I had observed it myself. Concerning the vacillations in our interpretation of relative motion over retina and skin, see above,p. 173.
Herr Münsterberg gives additional reasons against the feeling of innervation, of which I will quote a couple. First, our ideas of movement are allfaintideas, resembling in this the copies of sensations in memory. Were they feelings of the outgoing discharge, they would be original states of consciousness, not copies; and ought by analogy to bevividlike other original states.—Second, our unstriped muscles yield no feelings in contracting, nor can they be contracted at will, differing thus intwopeculiarities from the voluntary muscles. What more natural than to suppose that the two peculiarities hang together, and that the reason why we cannot contract our intestines, for example, at will, is, that we have no memory-images of how their contraction feels? Were the supposed innervation-feeling always the 'mental cue,' one doesn't see why we might not have it even where, as here, the contractions themselves are unfelt, and why it might not bring the contractions about. (Die Willenshandlung, pp 87-8.)
[457]Revue Philosophique, xxiii. 442.
[457]Revue Philosophique, xxiii. 442.
[458]Ibid.xx. 604.
[458]Ibid.xx. 604.
[459]Herr Sternberg (Pflüger's Archiv, xxxvii. p. 1) thinks that he proves the feeling of innervation by the fact that when we have willed to make a movement we generally think that it is made. We have already seen some of the facts onpp. 105-6, above. S. cites from Exner the fact that if we put a piece of hard rubber between our back teeth and bite, our front teeth seem actually to approach each other, although it is physically impossible for them to do so. He proposes the following experiment: Lay the palm of the hand on a table with the forefinger overlapping its edge and flexed back as far as possible, whilst the table keeps the other fingers extended; then try to flex the terminal joint of the forefinger without looking. You do not do it, and yet you think that you do. Here again the innervation, according to the author, is felt as an executed movement. It seems to me, as I said in the previous place, that the illusion is in all these cases due to the inveterate association of ideas. Normally our will to move has always been followed by the sensation that wehavemoved, except when the simultaneous sensation of an external resistance was there. The result is that where we feel no external resistance, and the muscles and tendons tighten, the invariably associated idea is intense enough to be hallucinatory. In the experiment with the teeth, the resistance customarily met with when our masseters contract is a soft one. We do not close our teeth on a thing like hard rubber once in a million times; so when we do so, we imagine the habitual result.—Persons withamputated limbsmore often than not continue to feel them as if they were still there, and can, moreover, give themselves the feeling of moving them at will. The life-long sensorial associate of the idea of 'working one's toes,' e.g. (uncorrected by any opposite sensation, since no real sensation of non-movement can come from non-existing toes), follows the idea and swallows it up. The man thinks that his toes are 'working' (cf. Proceedings of American Soc. for Psych. Research, p. 249).Herr Loeb also comes to the rescue of the feeling of innervation with observations of his own made after my text was written, but they convince me no more than the arguments of others. Loeb's facts are these (Pflüger's Archiv, xliv. p. 1): If we stand before a vertical surface, and if, with our handsat different heights, wesimultaneouslymake with them what seem to us equally extensive movements, that movement always turns out really shorter which is made with the arm whose muscles (in virtue of the arm's position) are already the more contracted. The same result ensues when the arms are laterally unsymmetrical. Loeb assumes that both arms contract by virtue of a common innervation, but that although this innervation is relatively less effective upon the more contracted arm, ourfeelingof its equal strength overpowers the disparity of the incoming sensations of movement which the two limbs send back, and makes us think that the spaces they traverse are the same. "The sensation of the extent and direction of our voluntary movements depends accordingly upon the impulse of our will to move, and not upon the feelings set up by the motion in the active organ." Now if this is the elementary law which Loeb calls it, why does it only manifest its effect when both hands are moving simultaneously? Why not when thesamehand makessuccessivemovements? and especially why not when both hands move symmetrically or at the same level, butone of themisweighted? A weighted hand surely requires a stronger innervation than an unweighted one to move an equal distance upwards; and yet, as Loeb confesses, we do not tend to overestimate the path which it traverses under these circumstances. The fact is that the illusion which Loeb has studied is a complex resultant of many factors. One of them, it seems to me, is an instinctive tendency torevert to the type of the bilateral movements of childhood. In adult life we move our arms for the most part in alternation; but in infancy the free movements of the arms are almost always similar on both sides, symmetrical when the direction of motion is horizontal, and with the hands on the same level when it is vertical. The most natural innervation, when the movements are rapidly performed, is one which takes the movement hack to this form. Ourestimationmeanwhile of the lengths severally traversed by the two hands is mainly based, as such estimations with closed eyes usually are (see Loeb's own earlier paper,Untersuchungen über den Fühlraum der Hand, in Pflüger's Archiv, xli. 107), upon the apparent velocity and duration of the movement. The duration is the same for both hands, since the movements begin and end simultaneously. The velocities of the two hands are under the experimental conditions almost impossible of comparison. It is well known how imperfect a discrimination ofweightswe have when we 'heft' them simultaneously, one in either hand; and G. E. Müller has well shown (Pflüger's Archiv, xlv. 57) that the velocity of the lift is the main factor in determining our judgment of weight. It is hardly possible to conceive of more unfavorable conditions for making an accurate comparison of the length of two movements than those which govern the experiments which are under discussion. The only prominent sign is the duration, which would lead us to infer the equality of the two movements. We consequently deem them equal, though a native tendency in our motor centres keeps them from being so.
[459]Herr Sternberg (Pflüger's Archiv, xxxvii. p. 1) thinks that he proves the feeling of innervation by the fact that when we have willed to make a movement we generally think that it is made. We have already seen some of the facts onpp. 105-6, above. S. cites from Exner the fact that if we put a piece of hard rubber between our back teeth and bite, our front teeth seem actually to approach each other, although it is physically impossible for them to do so. He proposes the following experiment: Lay the palm of the hand on a table with the forefinger overlapping its edge and flexed back as far as possible, whilst the table keeps the other fingers extended; then try to flex the terminal joint of the forefinger without looking. You do not do it, and yet you think that you do. Here again the innervation, according to the author, is felt as an executed movement. It seems to me, as I said in the previous place, that the illusion is in all these cases due to the inveterate association of ideas. Normally our will to move has always been followed by the sensation that wehavemoved, except when the simultaneous sensation of an external resistance was there. The result is that where we feel no external resistance, and the muscles and tendons tighten, the invariably associated idea is intense enough to be hallucinatory. In the experiment with the teeth, the resistance customarily met with when our masseters contract is a soft one. We do not close our teeth on a thing like hard rubber once in a million times; so when we do so, we imagine the habitual result.—Persons withamputated limbsmore often than not continue to feel them as if they were still there, and can, moreover, give themselves the feeling of moving them at will. The life-long sensorial associate of the idea of 'working one's toes,' e.g. (uncorrected by any opposite sensation, since no real sensation of non-movement can come from non-existing toes), follows the idea and swallows it up. The man thinks that his toes are 'working' (cf. Proceedings of American Soc. for Psych. Research, p. 249).
Herr Loeb also comes to the rescue of the feeling of innervation with observations of his own made after my text was written, but they convince me no more than the arguments of others. Loeb's facts are these (Pflüger's Archiv, xliv. p. 1): If we stand before a vertical surface, and if, with our handsat different heights, wesimultaneouslymake with them what seem to us equally extensive movements, that movement always turns out really shorter which is made with the arm whose muscles (in virtue of the arm's position) are already the more contracted. The same result ensues when the arms are laterally unsymmetrical. Loeb assumes that both arms contract by virtue of a common innervation, but that although this innervation is relatively less effective upon the more contracted arm, ourfeelingof its equal strength overpowers the disparity of the incoming sensations of movement which the two limbs send back, and makes us think that the spaces they traverse are the same. "The sensation of the extent and direction of our voluntary movements depends accordingly upon the impulse of our will to move, and not upon the feelings set up by the motion in the active organ." Now if this is the elementary law which Loeb calls it, why does it only manifest its effect when both hands are moving simultaneously? Why not when thesamehand makessuccessivemovements? and especially why not when both hands move symmetrically or at the same level, butone of themisweighted? A weighted hand surely requires a stronger innervation than an unweighted one to move an equal distance upwards; and yet, as Loeb confesses, we do not tend to overestimate the path which it traverses under these circumstances. The fact is that the illusion which Loeb has studied is a complex resultant of many factors. One of them, it seems to me, is an instinctive tendency torevert to the type of the bilateral movements of childhood. In adult life we move our arms for the most part in alternation; but in infancy the free movements of the arms are almost always similar on both sides, symmetrical when the direction of motion is horizontal, and with the hands on the same level when it is vertical. The most natural innervation, when the movements are rapidly performed, is one which takes the movement hack to this form. Ourestimationmeanwhile of the lengths severally traversed by the two hands is mainly based, as such estimations with closed eyes usually are (see Loeb's own earlier paper,Untersuchungen über den Fühlraum der Hand, in Pflüger's Archiv, xli. 107), upon the apparent velocity and duration of the movement. The duration is the same for both hands, since the movements begin and end simultaneously. The velocities of the two hands are under the experimental conditions almost impossible of comparison. It is well known how imperfect a discrimination ofweightswe have when we 'heft' them simultaneously, one in either hand; and G. E. Müller has well shown (Pflüger's Archiv, xlv. 57) that the velocity of the lift is the main factor in determining our judgment of weight. It is hardly possible to conceive of more unfavorable conditions for making an accurate comparison of the length of two movements than those which govern the experiments which are under discussion. The only prominent sign is the duration, which would lead us to infer the equality of the two movements. We consequently deem them equal, though a native tendency in our motor centres keeps them from being so.