74. Two observations arise here. First, we observe a want of due

recognition of the objective and subjective aspects, and their

respective criteria. Secondly, we observe mental facts of irresistible

certainty interpreted by material hypotheses of questionable value;

and not only so, but a higher validity is assigned to the material

hypotheses than to the mental facts they are invented to explain. That

we are conscious, and that our actions are determined by sensations,

emotions, and ideas, are facts which may or may not be explained by

reference to material conditions, but which no material explanation

can render more certain. That animals resemble us in this as in

other respects is an induction of the highest probability. It is

also a fact that many actions take place, as we say, unconsciously

and involuntarily; and that some take place now consciously, now

unconsciously. These facts also we endeavor to explain: and when

we find that some of the unconscious and involuntary actions take

place after the brain has been removed, this is interpreted on the

material hypothesis of the brain being the sole seat of sensation

and consciousness; and is urged in favor of the hypothesis that

consciousness cannot be an agent in the mechanism. Here the confusion

of objective and subjective aspects is patent. Consciousness as a

subjective fact cannot be a material or objective fact. But may it not

be another aspect of that which is objective? So long as we are dealing

with the objective aspect, we have nothing but material processes in a

material mechanism before us. A change within the organism is caused

by a neural stimulation, and the resulting action is a reflex on the

muscles. Here there is simply a transference of motion by a material

mechanism. There is in this no evidence of a subjective agency;

there could be none. But when we come to investigate the process, we

find that it differs from similar processes in anorganisms, by the

necessary co-operation of special conditions, and among these--the

vital conditions--there are those which in their subjective aspect we

express not in terms of Matter and Motion, but in terms of Feeling,

i. e. not in objective but in subjective terms. I see a stone move on

being struck; I also see a man shrink on being struck, and hear a dog

howl on being kicked. I do not infer that the stone feels as the man

and dog feel, because I know the stone and the dog to be differently

constituted, and infer a corresponding difference in their reactions. I

infer that the man and dog feel, because I know they are like myself,

and conclude that what I feel they feel, under like conditions.

75. Descartes says that animals are sensitive automata. They _always_

act as we _sometimes_ act, i. e. when we are not conscious of what we

do, as in singing, walking, playing the piano, etc. We are said to do

these things mechanically, automatically, and hence the conclusion that

these actions are those of a pure mechanism. But it would be truer to

say that we never act mechanically, we always act organically. “When

one who falls from a height throws his hands forwards to save his

head,” says Descartes, “it is in virtue of no ratiocination that he

performs this action” (that depends on the definition: in the Logic

of Feeling there is a process of ratiocination identical with that in

the Logic of Signs). “It does not depend upon his _mind_” (again a

question of definition), “but takes place merely because his senses

being affected by _present danger_” (senses, then, have a perception

of danger?) “some change arises in his brain which determines the

animal spirits to pass thence into the nerves in such a manner as is

required to produce this motion, in the same way as in a machine, and

without his mind being able to hinder it. Now since we observe this in

ourselves, why should we be so much astonished if the light reflected

from the body of a wolf into the eye of a sheep has the same force to

excite in it the motion of flight?”

Here, both in the case of the man and the sheep, there is presupposed

the very mental experience which is denied. The young child will

not throw out its arm to protect itself; but after many experiences

of falling and stumbling, there is an organized perception of the

impending danger, and the means of averting it, and it is this which

determines the throwing out of the arms. If this is not a mental

fact--a process of judgment--then the logical conclusion by which a

financier on hearing a war rumor orders his broker to sell stock, is

not a mental fact. The light reflected from the body of a wolf would

not disturb the sheep unless its own, or its _inherited_ organized

experience were ready there to respond. But this organized experience,

you say, enters into the mechanism? Yes; but it cannot be made to

enter into the mechanism of an automaton, because however complex that

mechanism may be, and however capable of variety of action, it is

constructed solely for definite actions on calculated lines: all its

readjustments must have been foreseen, it is incapable of adjusting

itself to unforeseen circumstances. Hence every interruption in the

prearranged order either throws it out of gear, or brings it to a

standstill. It is regulated, not self-regulating. The organism, on the

contrary--conspicuously so in its more complex forms--is variable,

self-regulating, incalculable. It has _selective adaptation_ (p.

221) responding readily and efficiently to novel and unforeseen

circumstances; _acquiring_ new modes of combination and reaction. An

automaton that will learn by experience, and adapt itself to conditions

not calculated for in its construction, has yet to be made; till it

is made, we must deny that organisms are machines. Automatism in the

organism implies Memory and Perception. A sudden contact--a sudden

noise--a vague form seen in the twilight will excite the mechanism

according to its organized experiences. We start automatically, before

we automatically interpret the cause; we start first, and then ask,

What is that? But we do not always start at sounds or sights which have

no association with previous experiences. The child and the man both

see the falling glass, but the child does not automatically stretch out

a hand to save the glass. Having once learned the action of swimming or

billiard-playing, we automatically execute these; without consciously

remembering the rules, we unconsciously obey them; each feeling as it

rises is linked on to another, each muscle is combined with others in a

remembered synthesis.

76. Kempelen’s chess-player surprised the public, but every instructed

physiologist present knew that in some way or other its movements were

directed by a human mind; simply because no machine could possibly have

responded to the unforeseen fluctuations of the human mind opposed to

it. Even the mind of a dog or a savage would be incompetent to pass

beyond the range of its previous experiences, incompetent to seize the

significance of an adversary’s moves on the chessboard. Now just as

we conclude that mental agency is essential to a game of chess, so we

conclude that Sensibility is essential to the fluctuating responses

of an organism under unforeseen circumstances. We can conceive an

automaton dog that would bark at the presence of a beggar; but not of

an automaton dog that would bark one day at the beggar and the next

day wag his tail, remembering the food and patting that beggar had

bestowed. Since all we know of machines forbids the idea of their

being capable of adjusting their actions to new circumstances, or of

evoking through experience new powers of combination, we conclude that

wherever this capability of adaptation is present there is an agency in

operation which does not belong to the class of mechanical agencies.

Goltz has shown that a frog deprived of its brain manifests so much of

vision as enables it to avoid obstacles--leaping to the right or to

the left of a book placed in its path. This Professor Huxley regards

as purely mechanical:--“Although the frog appears to have no sensation

of light, visible objects act upon the motor mechanism of its body.”

Should we not rather conclude that if the frog had no sensation,

no such effect would follow? because although a machine _might_ be

constructed to respond to variations of light and shadows, none could

be constructed (without Sensibility) to respond to the fluctuating

conditions as an organism responds.[221] Were the reflex actions

of the organism purely mechanical--i. e. involving none of those

fluctuating adjustments which characterize Sensibility--the effect

would be uniform, and proportional to the impact; but it is variable,

and proportional to the static condition of the nervous centres at the

moment. Exaggerate this--by strychnine, for instance--and the slightest

touch on the skin will produce general convulsions. Lower it--by an

anæsthetic--and no reflex at all will follow a stimulus. In anæsthesia

of the mucous membrane, no reflex of the eyelid, no secretion of

tears, follows on the irritation of the membrane; no sneezing follows

irritation of the inside of the nose; no vomiting follows irritation of

the fauces.

77. The question has long ceased to be whether the organism is a

mechanism. To the physiologist it is this before all things. To the

psychologist also it has of late years more and more assumed this

character; because even when he postulates the existence of a spiritual

entity _in_ the organism but not _of_ it, he still recognizes the

necessity of a mechanism for the execution of the acts determined by

the spirit; and when the psychologist adopts the theory of spiritual

phenomena as the subjective aspect of what objectively are material

phenomena, he of course regards the bodily mechanism and the mental

mechanism as one and the same real.

This settled, the problem of Automatism may be thus stated: Granting

the animal organism to be a material mechanism, and all its actions

due to the operation of that mechanism, are we to conclude that it is

an automaton essentially resembling the automata we construct, the

movements of which may, or may not, be _accompanied_ by Feeling, but

are in no case _determined_ by Feeling?

Descartes says that animals are sensitive automata. Professor Huxley

says that both animals and men are sensitive and conscious automata;

so that misleading as the language of Descartes and Professor Huxley

often is in what its terms connote, we do them great injustice if

we suppose them to have overlooked the points of difference between

organisms and machines which have been set forth with so much emphasis

in a preceding chapter; and the reader is requested to understand that

without pretending to say how much the inevitable connotation of their

language expresses their opinions, and how much it may have only led

to their being misunderstood, my criticisms are directed against this

connotation and this interpretation.

CHAPTER VII.

IS FEELING AN AGENT?

78. Descartes having attributed all animal actions to a sensitive

mechanism, and indeed all human actions to a similar mechanism,

endeavored to reconcile this hypothesis with the irresistible facts

of Consciousness--which assured us that _our_ actions, at least, were

determined by Feeling. To this end he assumed that man had a spiritual

principle over and above the sentient principle. The operation of this

principle was, however, limited to Thought; the actions themselves were

all performed by the automatic mechanism; so that, in strict logic, the

conclusion from his premises was the same for man as for animals.

This conclusion Professor Huxley announced in his Address before the

British Association, 1874[222]--to the great scandal of the general

public, which did not understand him aright; and to the scandal also of

a physiological public, which, strangely enough, failed to see that it

was the legitimate expression of one of their favorite theories--the

celebrated Reflex Theory. Now although it is quite open to any one to

reject the premises which lead to such a conclusion, if he sees greater

evidence against the conclusion than for the premises, it is surely

irrational to accept the premises as those of scientific induction,

and yet reject the conclusion because it endangers the stability of

other opinions? For my own part, I do not accept the premises, and my

polemic will have reference to them.

79. Professor Huxley adopts certain Theses which represent the views

generally adopted by physiologists; to which he adds a Thesis which is

adopted by few, and which he only puts forward hypothetically. Against

these positions I place Antitheses, less generally adopted, but which

in my belief approximate more nearly to the inductions of experience.

_Theses._ _Antitheses._

I. There can be no sensation I. There is sensation without

without consciousness. consciousness, if consciousness

means a special mode of Sentience.

II. There can be no II. The co-operation of the brain

consciousness without the is only necessary for a special

co-operation of the brain. mode of Sentience; other modes are

active when the brain is inactive.

III. Sensation and Consciousness III. Unless the molecular changes

are in some inexplicable way be limited to the brain as the

caused by molecular changes in _occasional_ cause, there is

the brain, following upon these no _following_ of sensation or

as one event follows another, motion, no causal link between the

the causal link between motion two; but the neural process _is_

and sensation being a mystery. the sensation, viewed objectively,

the sensation is the neural

process, viewed subjectively. In

this antithesis, Neural Process

is not limited to the brain, but

comprises the whole sensitive

organism as the _efficient_ cause.

IV. All actions which take place IV. All actions are the actions of

unconsciously are reflex, and a reflex mechanism, and all are

reflex actions are the operation sentient, even when unconscious;

of an insentient mechanism; they are therefore never purely

they are therefore as purely mechanical, but always organical.

mechanical as those of automata.

V. The animal body is a reflex V. Sentience being necessary to

mechanism; even when the reflex action, it is necessarily

brain co-operates with the an agent.

other centres, and produces

consciousness, this product is

not an agent in determining

action, it is a collateral

result of the operation.

80. The first four Theses are those current in our textbooks, so

that it is only the fifth which will have the air of a paradox. Nor,

as a paradox, is it without advocates. Schiff long ago suggested it

hypothetically. Hermann mentions it as entertained by physiologists,

whom he does not name.[223] Laycock, and, if I remember rightly, Dr.

Drysdale, have insisted on it; and Mr. Spalding has proclaimed it with

iterated emphasis. Of the Antitheses nothing need be said here, since

the whole of this volume is meant to furnish their evidence.

I have already stated that my polemic is against the views that

Professor Huxley is _supposed_ to hold by those whom his expressions

mislead, rather than against the views I imagine him really to hold.

I have little doubt that he would disavow much that I am forced to

combat, although his language is naturally interpreted in that sense.

But I do not know in how far he would agree with me, and in the

following remarks I shall confine myself to what seems to be the plain

interpretation of his words, since _that_ is the interpretation which

has been generally adopted, and which I most earnestly desire to refute.

81. To begin with this passage. After stating the views of Descartes,

he says: “As actions of a certain degree of complexity are brought

about by mere mechanism, why may not actions of still greater

complexity be the result of a more refined mechanism? What proof is

there that brutes are other than a superior race of marionnettes, which

eat without pleasure, cry without pain, desire nothing, know nothing,

and only simulate intelligence as a bee simulates a mathematician?”

What proof? Why, in the first place, the proof which is implied in

the “more refined mechanism” required for the greater complexity of

actions. In the next place, the proof that the organism of the brute is

very different from the mechanism of a marionnette, and is so much more

like the organism of man, that since we know man to eat with pleasure

and cry with pain, there is a strong presumption that the brute eats

and cries with somewhat similar feelings.

82. Having stated the hypothesis, Professor Huxley says he is not

disposed to accept it, though he thinks it cannot be refuted. His chief

reason for not accepting it is that the law of continuity forbids

the supposition of any complex phenomenon suddenly appearing; the

community between animals and men is too close for us to admit that

Consciousness could appear in man without having its beginnings in

animals. Finding that animals have brains, he justly concludes that

they also must have brain functions; and they also therefore must

be credited with Consciousness. This argument seems to me to have

irresistible cogency; and to be destructive not only of the automaton

hypothesis, but equally of the hypothesis on which the Reflex Theory

is founded. If the law of continuity forbids the sudden appearance of

Consciousness, the law of similarity of property with similarity of

structure forbids the supposition that central nerve-tissue in one

part of the system can suddenly assume a totally different property

in another part. If the brain of an animal, a bird, a reptile, or a

fish--and _a fortiori_ if the œsophageal ganglia of an insect or a

mollusc--may be credited with Sensibility, because of the fundamental

similarity of these structures with the structures of the human brain,

then surely the spinal cord must be credited with Sensibility; for the

tissue of the spinal cord is more like that of the brain, than the

brain of a reptile is like the brain of a man. The sudden disappearance

of all Sensibility, on the removal of one portion of the central

nervous system, would be a violation of the law of continuity. And if

it be said that Consciousness is not the same as Sensibility, but is a

specially evolved function of a specially developed organ, the answer

will be that this is only a difference of mode, and that the existence

of Sensibility is that which renders the automaton and reflex theories

untenable.

83. Professor Huxley would probably admit this; for however his

language may at times seem to point to another conclusion, and is so

far ambiguous, he has expressed the view here maintained with tolerable

distinctness in the following passage, to which particular attention is

called:--

“But though we may see reason to disagree with Descartes’ hypothesis,

that brutes are unconscious machines, it does not follow that he

was wrong in regarding them as automata. _They may be more or less

conscious sensitive automata_; and the view that they are such

conscious machines is that which is implicitly or explicitly adopted

by most persons. When we speak of the actions of the lower animals

being guided by instinct and not by reason, what we really mean is that

though they feel as we do, yet their actions are the results of their

physical organization. We believe, in short, that they are machines,

one part of which (the nervous system) not only sets the rest in motion

and co-ordinates its movements in relation with changes in surrounding

bodies, but is provided with a special apparatus the function of which

is the calling into existence of those states of consciousness which

are termed sensations, emotions, and ideas.”

84. To say that they are “conscious automata” seems granting all that

I demand; but there are two objectionable positions which the phrase

conceals: first, that Consciousness is not a coefficient; and secondly,

that Reflex Action is purely mechanical.

Professor Huxley nowhere, I think, establishes the distinction

between Consciousness as a term for a special mode of Feeling, and

Consciousness as the all-embracing term for sentient phenomena. His

language always implies that an action performed unconsciously is

performed mechanically; which may be acceptable if by unconsciously be

meant insentiently. I hold that whether consciously or unconsciously

performed, the action is equally vital and sentient. In the case he has

cited of a soldier now living who is subject to periodic alternations

of normal and abnormal states, in the latter states all the actions

being said to be “unconscious,” we have only to read the account to

recognize ample evidence of Sentience. Here is a descriptive passage:--

85. “His [the soldier’s in the abnormal state] movements remain free,

and his expression calm, except for a contraction of the brow, an

incessant movement of the eyeballs, and a chewing motion of the jaws.

The eyes are wide open, and their pupils dilated. If the man happens

to be in a place to which he is accustomed he walks about as usual;

but if he is in a new place, or if obstacles are intentionally placed

in his way, he stumbles against them, _stops, and then feeling over

the objects with his hands, passes on one side of them_. He offers

no resistance to any change of direction which may be impressed upon

him, or to the forcible acceleration or retardation of his movements.

He eats, drinks, smokes, walks about, dresses and undresses himself,

rises and goes to bed at the accustomed hours. Nevertheless pins may be

run into his body, or strong electric shocks sent through it, without

causing the least indication of pain; no odorous substance, pleasant or

unpleasant, makes the least impression; he eats and drinks with avidity

whatever is offered, and takes asafœtida or vinegar of quinine as

readily as water; no noise affects him; and light influences him only

under certain conditions.”

There is no one of these phenomena that is unfamiliar to students of

mental disease. The case is chiefly remarkable from the periodicity of

the recurrence of the abnormal state. I have collected other cases of

the kind, and may hereafter find a fitting occasion to quote them.[224]

The anæsthesia and “unconsciousness” noted, no more prove the actions

performed by this soldier to have been purely mechanical, i. e.

undetermined by sensation, than anæsthesia and unconsciousness prove

somnambulists and madmen to be machines. In the pathological state

called “ecstasy” there is a considerable diminution of sensibility to

external stimuli; with a concentration on certain feelings, images,

trains of thought, exhibiting itself in expressions of emotion.

“Les malades,” says a master, “paraissent entièrement absorbés par

leurs mouvements intérieurs, ils refusent généralement de manger, et

spécialement la volonté de l’âme semble complètement enchainée.”[225]

86. Observe that while this soldier exhibits such insensibility to

certain stimuli, he unequivocally exhibits sensibility to other

stimuli. All his acts show sense-guidance. Sight and Touch obviously

regulate his movements. And when he feels objects placed in his way,

and then passes beside them, wherein does this differ from the normal

procedure of sensitive organisms? wherein does it resemble automata?

Dr. Mesmet--from whose narrative the case is cited--remarks that the

sense of Touch seems to persist “and indeed to be more acute and

delicate than in the normal state”; upon which Professor Huxley has

this comment:--“Here a difficulty arises. It is clear from the facts

detailed that the nervous apparatus by which in the normal state

sensations of touch are excited is that by which external influences

determine the movements of the body in the abnormal state. But does the

state of consciousness, which we term a tactile sensation, accompany

the operation of this nervous apparatus in the abnormal state? or

is consciousness utterly absent, the man being reduced to a pure

mechanism? It is impossible to obtain direct evidence in favor of the

one conclusion or the other; all that can be said is that the case of

the frog shows that the man may be devoid of any kind of consciousness.”

87. It is here we are made vividly aware of the absolute need there is

to disengage the terms employed from their common ambiguities. All the

evidence of a tactile sensation which can possibly be furnished, on the

objective side, is furnished by the actions of this soldier; to doubt

it would be to throw a doubt on the sensibility of any animal unable

to _tell_ us what it felt; nay, even a man if he were dumb, or spoke

a language we could not understand, could give us no other proof. We

conclude that the soldier had tactile sensations, because we see him

guided by them as we ourselves are guided by tactile sensations; we

know that he is an organism, not a machine, and therefore reject the

inference that he has become reduced to a “pure mechanism” because

it is inferred that his consciousness is absent. And on what is this

inference grounded? 1°, The belief that the brain is the sole organ

of consciousness (Sentience)--a belief flatly disproved by the facts,

which show Sentience when the brain has been removed; and 2°, the

belief that the decapitated frog, because it avoids obstacles and

redirects its leaps to avoid them, does so without Sentience. According

to the definition we adopt, we may either say that the decapitated

frog, and the soldier in his abnormal state, act without consciousness,

or with it. But what does not seem permissible is to deny that their

actions exhibit the clearest evidence of _sense-guidance_, and the

kind of volition which this sense-guidance implies; and this is quite

enough to separate them from actions of automata. When a man ducks his

head to avoid a stone which he sees falling towards him, he assuredly

has a sensation, i. e. there is a grouping of neural elements, which

subjectively is a sensation, and this originates a grouping of other

neural elements, the outcome of which is a muscular movement, which

subjectively is a motor sensation: _this_ grouping would not have

been originated unless the particular grouping had preceded it; nor

would the simple retinal stimulus have excited this sensation unless

the nerve-centres had been attuned to such response by many previous

experiences: the ignorant child would not duck its head on seeing

the stone approach. In our familiar use of the word Consciousness it

would be correct to say that the man ducks his head “unconsciously”;

and yet expressing the fact in psychological language, we also say:

He ducks his head because _remembering_ the pain of former similar

experiences, he _knows_ that if the stone strikes him he will again

be hurt as before, therefore he _wills_ to avoid it; expressing it

in physiological language we may say: The man acts thus because he

is so organized that a particular neural process is the stimulus of

a particular central discharge; and he became thus organized through

a long series of anterior adjustments responding to stimuli, each

adjustment being the activity of the vital organism.

88. There can be no doubt that the soldier had perceptions, and that

these perceptions guided his movements; whether these shall be called

“states of consciousness” or not, is a question of terms. Now since

we know that _certain actions are uniformly consequent on certain

perceptions_, we are justified in inferring that _whenever the

actions are performed, the perceptions preceded them_: this inference

may be erroneous, but in the absence of positive evidence to the

contrary it is that which claims our first assent. Is it evidence to

the contrary that the perception may have stimulated the action, yet

been unaccompanied by the special mode named consciousness? Not in

the least. We learn to read with conscious effort; each letter has

to be apprehended separately, its form distinguished from all other

forms, its value as a sign definitely fixed, yet how very rarely are

we “conscious” of the letters when we read a book? Each letter is

perceived; and yet this process passes so rapidly and smoothly, that

unless there be some defect in a letter, or the word be misspelled,

we are not “conscious” of the perceptions. Are we therefore reading

automata?[226]

We are said to walk unconsciously at times; and the continuance of the

movement is said to be due to reflex action. But it is demonstrable

that the cutaneous sensibility of the soles of the feet is a primary

condition. If the skin be insensible, the walking becomes a stumble. In

learning to walk, or dance, the child fixes his eyes on his feet, as he

fixes them on his fingers in learning to play the piano. After a while

these registered sensations _connected_ with the muscular sense suffice

to guide his feet or his fingers; but not if feet or fingers lose their

sensibility.

89. With these explanations let us follow the further details of this

soldier’s abnormal actions:--

“The man is insensible to sensory impressions made through the ear,

the nose, the tongue, and, to a great extent, the eye; nor is he

susceptible to pain from causes operating during his abnormal state.

Nevertheless it is possible _so to act upon his tactile apparatus as

to give rise to those molecular changes in his sensorium which are

ordinarily the causes of associated trains of ideas_. I give a striking

example of this process in Dr. Mesmet’s words: ‘Il se promenait dans

le jardin, on lui remet sa canne qu’il avait laissé tomber. Il la

palpe, promène à plusieurs reprises la main sur la poignée coudée de

sa canne--devient attentif--semble prêter l’oreille--et tout à coup

appelle, “Henri! les voilà!” Et alors portant la main derrière son

dos comme pour prendre une cartouche, il fait le mouvement de charger

son arme, se couche dans l’herbe à plat ventre dans la position d’un

tirailleur, et suit avec l’arme épaulée tous les mouvements de l’ennemi

qu’il croit voir à courte distance.’ In a subsequent abnormal period

Dr. Mesmet caused the patient to repeat this scene by placing him in

the same conditions. Now in this case the question arises whether the

series of actions constituting this singular pantomime was accompanied

by the ordinary states of consciousness, the appropriate trains of

ideas, or not? Did the man dream that he was skirmishing? or was he in

the condition of one of Vaucanson’s automata--_a mechanism worked by

molecular changes in the nervous system_? The analogy of the frog shows

that the latter assumption is perfectly justifiable.”

90. Before criticising this conclusion let me adduce other

illustrations of this dreamlike activity. “A gentleman whom I attended

in a state of perfect apoplexy,” says Abercrombie, “was frequently

observed to adjust his nightcap with the utmost care when it got into

an uncomfortable state: first pulling it down over his eyes, and

then turning up the front of it in the most exact manner.” According

to the current teaching, these actions, which seem like evidence

of sensation, are nothing of the kind, because--the patient was

“unconscious”; that is to say, because he did not exhibit one complex

kind of Sensibility, it is denied that he exhibited another kind!

he did not feel discomfort, nor feel the movements by which it was

rectified--because he could not speak, discuss impersonal questions,

nor attend to what was said to him! Abercrombie cites other cases: “A

gentleman who was lying in a _state of perfect insensibility_ from

disease of the brain” (note the phrase, which really only expresses

the fact that external stimuli did not create their normal reactions)

“was frequently observed even the day before his death to take down

a repeating watch from a little bag at the head of his bed, put it

close to his ear and make it strike the hour, and then replace it in

the bag with the greatest precision. Another whom I saw in a state of

profound apoplexy, from which he recovered, had a perfect recollection

of what took place during the attack, and mentioned many things which

had been said in his hearing when he was supposed to be in a state of

perfect unconsciousness.” Dr. Wigan also tells of a lady whom he knew,

and who was actually put in a coffin, under the belief that she was

dead when in a trance. Her sense of hearing was then preternaturally

acute. In her second-floor bedroom she heard what the servants said

in her kitchen. When her brother came to see her and he declared she

should not be buried until putrefaction set in, she felt intense

gratitude and a gush of tenderness, but was unable to move even an

eyelid as a manifestation of her feeling. Suddenly all her faculties

returned. Dr. Wigan adds that he visited the Countess Escalante, one

of the Spanish refugees, who remained in a similar state for a short

period, during which she saw her husband and children, and was quite

conscious of all they did and said--but did not recognize them as her

own. She was absolutely without the power of moving a finger or of

opening her mouth. Dr. Neil Arnott told me of a similar case in his

practice. In these last cases we learn that consciousness--in its

ordinary acceptation--was present, though bystanders could see no trace

of it. And very often in cases where Consciousness, or at any rate

Sensibility, is clearly manifested, its presence is denied, because the

patient on recovering his normal condition is quite unable to remember

anything that he felt and did. Under anæsthetics patients manifest

sensation, but on awaking they declare that they felt nothing--of

what value is their declaration? M. Despine tells us of a patient who

under chloroform struggled, swore, and cried out, “_Mon Dieu! que

je souffre!_” yet when the operation was over, and he emerged from

the effects of the chloroform, he remembered nothing of what he had

felt.[227]

91. Returning now to Dr. Mesmet’s soldier, and to the conclusion that

his dreamlike acts were no more than the actions of one of Vaucanson’s

automata, surely we are justified in concluding, first, that these

actions were not of the same kind as those of an automaton, since they

were those of a living organism; secondly, that they present all the

evidence positive and inferential which Sensibility can present in

the actions we observe in another, and do not feel in ourselves; and

thirdly, if with physiologists we agree that the mechanism of these

actions is “worked by molecular changes in the nervous system,” there

is some difficulty in understanding how Consciousness, which is said

to be caused by such changes, could have been absent--how the _cause

could operate yet no effect be produced_.

92. What automata can be made to perform is surprising enough, but

they can _never_ be made to display the fluctuations of sense-guided

actions, such as we see in the report of Dr. Mesmet’s soldier:--

“The ex-sergeant has a good voice, and had at one time been employed

as a singer at a café. In one of his abnormal states he was observed

to begin humming a tune. He then went to his room, dressed himself

carefully, and took up some parts of a periodical novel which lay

on the bed, as _if he were trying to find something_. Dr. Mesmet,

suspecting that he was seeking his music, made up one of these into a

roll and put it into his hand. _He appeared_ satisfied, took up his

cane, and went down stairs to the door. Here Dr. Mesmet turned him

round, and he walked quite contentedly in the opposite direction. The

_light of the sun_ shining through a window happened to fall upon

him, and _seemed to suggest the footlights of the stage_ on which he

was accustomed to make his appearance. He stopped, opened his roll of

imaginary music, put himself in the attitude of a singer, and sang with

perfect execution three songs one after the other. After which he wiped

his face with his handkerchief and drank without a grimace a tumbler of

strong vinegar-and-water.”

93. Epileptic patients have frequently been observed going through

similar dreamlike actions in which only those external stimuli which

have a relation to the dream seem to take effect.[228] We interpret

these as phenomena of _disordered_ mental action, the burden of proof

lies on him who says they are phenomena of pure mechanism. A mail-coach

does not suddenly cease to be a mail-coach and become a wheelbarrow

because the coachman is drunk, or has fallen from the box. The horses,

no longer guided by the reins, may dash off the highroad into gardens

or ditches; but it is their muscular exertions which still move the

coach.

Can any one conceive an automaton acting as the sergeant is described

to be in the following passage?--

“Sitting at a table he took up a pen, felt for paper and ink, and began

to write a letter to his general, in which he _recommended himself for

a medal_ on account of his good conduct and courage. It occurred to

Dr. Mesmet to ascertain experimentally how far vision was concerned in

this act of writing. He therefore interposed a screen between the man’s

eyes and his hands; under these circumstances he _went on writing for

a short time, but the words became illegible, and he finally stopped_.

On the withdrawal of the screen, he _began to write again where he had

left off_. The substitution of water for ink in the inkstand had a

similar result. He stopped, _looked at his pen, wiped it on his coat_,

dipped it in the water, and began again, with the same effect. On one

occasion he began to write upon the topmost of ten superposed sheets

of paper. After he had written a line or two, this sheet was suddenly

drawn away. _There was a slight expression of surprise_, but he

continued his letter on the second sheet exactly as if it had been the

first. This operation was repeated five times, so that the fifth sheet

contained nothing but the writer’s signature at the bottom of the page.

Nevertheless, when the signature was finished, his eyes turned to the

top of the blank sheet, and he went through the form of reading over

what he had written, a movement of the lips accompanying each word;

moreover, with his pen _he put in such corrections as were needed_.”

94. Dr. Mesmet concludes that “his patient sees some things and not

others; that the sense of sight is accessible to all things which

are brought into relation with him by the sense of touch, and, on the

contrary, is insensible to things which lie outside this relation.”

In other words, the sensitive mechanism acts, but acts abnormally.

This is precisely what is observed in somnambulists. Yet Professor

Huxley, who makes the comparison, appears to regard both states as

those in which the organism is reduced to a mere mechanism, because

on recovering their normal state the patients are unconscious of what

has passed; and because the frog, without its brain, also manifests

analogous phenomena. Neither premise warrants the conclusion. I

have already touched on the unconsciousness of past actions; let me

add the case of Faraday, who was assuredly not an automaton when he

prepared and delivered a course of lectures which were nevertheless so

entirely obliterated from his memory that the next year he prepared and

delivered the same course once more, without a suspicion that it was

not a new one. As to the frog, I must leave that case till I come to

examine the evidence on which the hypothesis of the purely mechanical

nature of spinal action rests.

95. The point never to be left out of sight is that actions which are

known to be preceded and accompanied by sensations do not lose their

special character of Sentience, as actions of a sentient mechanism,

because they are not also preceded and accompanied by that peculiar

state which is specially called Consciousness, i. e. attention to the

passing changes (comp. p. 403). When we see a man playing the piano,

and at the same time talking of something far removed from the music,

we say his fingers move unconsciously; but we do not conclude that

he is a musical machine--muscular sensations and musical sensations

regulate every movement of his fingers; and if he strikes a false

note, or if one of the notes jangles, he is instantly conscious of

the fact. Either we must admit that his brain is an essential part

of the mechanism by which the piano was played, and its function an

essential agent in the playing; or else we must admit that the brain

and its function were not essential, and therefore the playing would

continue if the brain were removed. In the latter case, we should have

a musical automaton. That a particular group of sensations, such as

musical tones, will set going a particular group of muscular movements,

without the intervention of any _conscious_ effort, is not more to be

interpreted on purely mechanical principles, than that a particular

phrase will cause a story-teller to repeat a familiar anecdote, or an

old soldier “to fight his battles o’er again.”

96. Let us now pass to another consideration, namely, whether

Consciousness--however interpreted--is legitimately conceived as a

factor in the so-called conscious and voluntary actions; or is merely a

_collateral result_ of certain organic activities? To answer this, we

must first remember that Consciousness is a purely subjective process;

although we may believe it to be objectively a neural process, we are

nevertheless passing out of the region of Physiology when we speak of

Feeling determining Action. Motion may determine Motion; but Feeling

can only determine Feeling. Yet we do so speak, and are justified. For

thereby we implicitly declare, what Psychology explicitly teaches,

namely, that these two widely different aspects, objective and

subjective, are but the two faces of one and the same reality. It

is thus indifferent whether we say a sensation is a neural process,

or a mental process: a molecular change in the nervous system, or a

change in Feeling. It is either, and it is both, as I have elsewhere

explained.[229] There it was argued that the current hypothesis of a

neural process _causing_ the mental process--molecular movement being

in some mysterious way _transformed_ into sensation--is not only

inconceivable, but altogether unnecessary; whereas the hypothesis

that the two aspects of the one phenomenon are simply two different

expressions, now in terms of Matter and Motion, and now in terms of

Consciousness, is in harmony with all the inductive evidence.

97. “It may be assumed,” says Professor Huxley, “that molecular

changes in the brain are the causes of all the states of consciousness

of brutes. Is there any evidence that these states of consciousness

may conversely cause those molecular changes which give rise to

muscular motion? I see no such evidence. The frog walks, hops, swims,

and goes through his gymnastic performances, quite as well without

consciousness, and consequently without volition, as with it; and if a

frog in his natural state possesses anything corresponding with what

we call volition, there is no reason to think that _it is anything but

a concomitant of the molecular changes in the brain_, which _form part

of the series involved in the production of motion_. The consciousness

of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body

simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be _as completely

without any power of modifying that working as the steam-whistle which

accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence

upon its machinery_. Their volition, if they have any, is an emotion

_indicative_ of physical changes, not a _cause_ of such changes.”

Particular attention is called to the passages in italics. In the first

is expressed a view which seems not unlike the one I am advocating, but

which is contradicted by the second. Let us consider what is implied.

98. When Consciousness is regarded solely under its subjective aspect

there is obviously no place for it among material agencies, regarded

as objective. So long as we have the material mechanism in view we

have nothing but material changes. This applies to the frog, with

or without its brain; to man, supposed to be moved by volition, or

supposed to move automatically. The introduction of Consciousness is

not the introduction of another agent in the series, but of a new

aspect; the neural process drops out of sight, the mental process

replaces it. The question whether we have any ground for inferring

that in the series there is included the particular neural state which

subjectively is a state of Consciousness, must be answered according

to the evidence. Well, the evidence shows that the actions do involve

the co-operation; and this Professor Huxley expresses when he says that

the molecular changes in the brain form part of the series involved in

the production of motion. Whether we regard the process objectively

as a series of molecular changes, or subjectively as a succession of

sentient changes, the sum of which is on the one side a motor impulse,

on the other a state of consciousness, we must declare Consciousness

to be an agent, _in the same sense that we declare one change in the

organism to be an agent in some other change_. The facts are the same,

whether we express them in physiological or in psychological terms. The

physiologist, having only the material aspect of the organism in view,

says, “A cerebral process initiates a motor process”; the psychologist

says, “A sensation determines an action.” Unless the two processes have

been linked together by an organic disposition, native or acquired,

there will be no such motor process following the cerebral process.

A dog standing outside the gate is unable to ring the bell, though

having seen another dog ring it, he may wish to do so; but the cerebral

process (his wish) is not linked on to the needful motor process--he

has not learned to realize the wish; whereas the other dog, having by

trial hit upon the right mode of directing his muscles, has registered

this experience, and can ring the bell. The organized disposition

which enables the dog to do this may truly enough be called a

modification of the mechanism; but what we have here to note is that a

sensation originally determined the movement, and always determines it.

99. It is the unfortunate ambiguity of the word Consciousness, and

the questionable hypothesis of the brain being the sole seat of

Sensibility, which darken this investigation. Because animals, after

the brain has been removed, are seen to perform certain actions

as deftly as before, they are said to perform these without the

intervention of Consciousness; when all that is proved by the facts is

that these actions are performed without the intervention of the brain.

In support of this explanation, examples are cited of unconscious

actions performed by human beings. But if we assign Sensibility not to

one part of the nervous system exclusively, but to the whole, we can

readily understand how the loss of a part will be manifested by very

marked changes in the reactions of the whole, and yet not altogether

prevent the reactions of the parts remaining intact. An animal must

respond somewhat differently with and without a brain. One marked

difference is the spontaneity of the actions when the brain is intact,

and the loss of much spontaneity when the brain is injured or removed.

Cerebral processes prompt and regulate actions, as the pressure of the

driver on the reins prompts and regulates the movements of the horses;

but the carriage is moved by the horses and not by the driver; and the

action is executed by the motor mechanism, whether the incitation arise

in a cerebral process or a peripheral stimulation.

100. If we admit that Consciousness is itself an organic process,

accompanying the molecular changes as a convex surface accompanies

a concave, we must also admit that its fluctuations are adjustments

and readjustments of the organic mechanism, and that the actions are

the effects of these--their resultants. The loss of the brain must

obviously cause a great disturbance in these adjustments. We may call

that a loss of Consciousness, if we choose to limit the term to one

_mode_ of sentient reaction. But this loss of a mode does not change

those reactions which persist so as to convert them into purely

mechanical reactions. A troop of soldiers may have lost its directing

officer, but will fight with the old weapons and the old intelligence,

though not with the same convergence of individual efforts. A frog or a

pigeon no more acts as _well_ without a brain as with a brain, than the

troop of soldiers fights as well without an officer.

101. Having thus claimed a place for Consciousness in the series of

organic processes, let us now see whether it has a place among the

active agencies. According to Professor Huxley it is not itself an

agent, but only the “collateral product of the working of the machine.”

It accompanies actions, it does not direct them. It is an index, not a

cause.

Surely it seems more accurate to say that it accompanies _and_ directs

the working? It accompanies the working in two senses: first, as the

subjective aspect of the objective process; secondly, as the change

which produces a subsequent change, that is to say, the movements

initiated by a feeling are themselves also _felt as they pass_; and

this feeling enters into the general stream of simultaneous excitations

out of which new movements and feelings arise; or to express it

physiologically, the sensory impressions determine muscular movements,

which in turn react on the nerve-centres, and these reactions

blend with the general excitation of reflected and re-reflected

processes.[230] Since every change in Consciousness is a change in

the sentient organism, which objectively is a change in the nervous

centres, the working of the mechanism being itself a dependent series

of such changes, each movement must have a reflected influence on the

general state. This reflected influence may be viewed as a collateral

product of the working; but there is no real analogy between it and

the whistle of the steam-engine, because this reflected influence

demonstrably _does_ intervene in the _subsequent_ movements. The

feeling which accompanies or follows a particular movement cannot

indeed modify _that_ movement, since that is already set going, or

has passed; here there is some analogy to the steam-whistle; but the

analogy fails in the subsequent history: no movements whatever of

the steam-engine are modified by the whistle which accompanies the

working of that engine; yet how the reflected influence modifies the

working of the organism! If the hand be passing over a surface, there

is, accompanying this movement, a succession of muscular and tactile

feelings which may be said to be collateral products. But the feeling

which _accompanies_ one muscular contraction _is itself the stimulus_

of the next contraction; if anywhere during the passage the hand

comes upon a spot on the surface which is wet or rough, the change in

feeling thus produced, although a collateral product of the movement,

instantly changes the direction of the hand, suspends or alters the

course--that is to say, the _collateral product of one movement becomes

a directing factor in the succeeding movement_. Now this is precisely

what no automaton can effect, unless for changes that are prearranged.

A steam-engine drives its locomotive over the rails, be they smooth

or rough, entire or broken; it whistles as it goes, but no whistling

directs and redirects its path.

102. Volition is said to be an “emotion indicative of physical changes,

not a cause of such changes.” Here it is necessary to understand in

what sense the term cause is employed. I should prefer stating the

proposition thus: a volition is a state of the sentient organism,

indicative of physical changes which have taken place, and of changes

which will take place. Because it is the _expression_ of the first

group of changes, it cannot be their _origin_; but it can be, and is

the origin of the second group, which it initiates. The indignation

excited by an insult or a blow is not the origin of the emotion or

the pain, but it is the origin of the actions which are prompted by

this sentient state. In fact no sooner do we admit that the organism

is a sentient mechanism, than the conclusion is irresistible that

Sensibility is a factor in the working of that mechanism.

103. “Much ingenious argument,” says Professor Huxley, “has at various

times been bestowed upon the question: How is it possible to imagine

that volition which is a state of consciousness, and as such has not

the slightest community of nature with matter and motion, can act upon

the moving matter of which the body is composed, as it is assumed to do

in voluntary acts? But if, as is here suggested, the voluntary acts of

brutes--or in other words, the acts which they desire to perform--are

as purely mechanical as the rest of their actions, and are simply

accompanied by the state of consciousness called volition, the inquiry,

so far as they are concerned, becomes superfluous. Their volitions

do not enter into the chain of causation of their actions at all....

As consciousness is brought into existence only as the consequence

of molecular motion in the brain, it follows that it is an indirect

product of material changes. The soul stands related to the body as the

bell of a clock to the works, and consciousness answers to the sound

which the bell gives out when it is struck.” This has been answered in

the foregoing pages; nor do I think the reader who has recognized the

ambiguity of the term Consciousness, and the desirability of replacing

it in this discussion by the less equivocal term Sentience, will need

more to be said.

104. The important question whether reflex actions are insentient, and

therefore mechanical, will occupy us in the next problem. The question

of Automatism which has been argued in the preceding chapters, may,

I think, be summarily disposed of by a reference to the irresistible

evidence each man carries in his own consciousness that his actions

are frequently--even if not always--determined by feelings. He is

quite certain that he is not an automaton, and that his feelings are

not simply collateral products of his actions, without the power of

modifying and originating them. Now this fundamental fact cannot be

displaced by any theoretical explanation of its factors. Nor would

this fundamental truth be rendered doubtful, even supposing we were to

grant to the full all that is adduced as evidence that _some_ actions

were the result of purely mechanical processes without sentience at

all. I am a conscious organism, even if it be true that I sometimes act

unconsciously. I am not a machine, even if it be true that I sometimes

act mechanically.

PROBLEM IV.

THE REFLEX THEORY.

“Si omnes patres sic, et Ego non sic.”--ABELARD, _Sic et Non_.

“Will man bestimmen wo der Mechanismus aufhört und wo der Wille

anfängt so ist die Frage überhaupt falsch gestellt. Denn man setzt

hier Begriffe einander gegenüber die gar keine Gegensätze sind.

Vorgebildet in den mechanischen Bedingungen des Nervensystems sind

_alle_ Bewegungen.”--WUNDT, _Physiologische Psychologie_.

“Sollte die so durchsichtige Homologie zwischen Hirn and

Rückenmark, wie solche sich schlagend in Bau und Entwicklung

darthut, wesentlich andere physiologische Qualitäten

bedingen?”--LUSCHINGER in _Pflüger’s Archiv_, Bd. XIV. 384.

THE REFLEX THEORY.

CHAPTER I.

THE PROBLEM STATED.

1. The peculiarity of the Reflex Theory is its exclusion of Sensibility

from the actions classed as reflex; in consequence of which, the

actions are considered to be “purely mechanical.”

No one denies that most of the reflex actions often have conscious

sensations preceding and accompanying them, but these are said not

to be essential to the performance of the actions, because they may

be absent and the actions still take place. It is notorious that we

breathe, wink, swallow, etc., whether we are conscious of these actions

or not. Our conclusion therefore is that these peculiar states of

Consciousness are _accessory_, not essential to the performance of

these actions. The fact is patent, the conclusion irresistible. But

now consider the equivoque: because an action takes place without our

being conscious of it, the action is said to have had no sensation

determining it. This, which is a truism when we limit Consciousness to

one of the special modes Of Sensibility, or limit sensation to this

limited Consciousness, is a falsism when we accept Consciousness as

the total of all combined sensibilities, or Sensation as the reaction

of the sensory mechanism. That a reflex action is determined by the

sensory mechanism, no one disputes; whether the reaction of a sensory

mechanism shall be called a sensation or not, is a question of terms.

I have shown why it must be so called if anything like coherence is to

be preserved in physiological investigations; and I have more than once

suggested that the fact of intellectual processes taking place at times

with no more consciousness than reflex actions, is itself sufficient to

show that a process does not lapse from the mental to the mechanical

sphere simply by passing unconsciously.

Inasmuch as an organism is a complex of organs, its total function must

be a complex of particular functions, each of which may analytically

be treated apart. Vitality is the total of all its physiological

functions, and Consciousness the total of all its psychological

functions. But inasmuch as it is only in its relation to the whole that

each part has functional significance, and cannot therefore be isolated

in reality, as it is in theory--cannot live by itself, act by itself,

independently of the organism of which it is an organ, there is strict

accuracy in saying that no particular sensation can exist without

involving Consciousness; for this is only saying that no sensory organ

can react without at the same time involving a reaction of the general

sensorium. But since this general sensorium is simultaneously affected

by various excitations each of which is a force, every sensation,

perception, emotion, or volition is a _resultant_ of the composition

of these forces; and as there can be only one resultant at a time, to

be replaced by another in swift succession, this one represents the

_state_ of Consciousness, and this state may or may not be felt under

the peculiar _mode_ named “Consciousness,” in its special meaning. In

other words, the reaction of a sensory organ is always sentient, but

not always consentient.

2. Let us illustrate this by the sensation of musical tone. When

we hear a tone we are affected not only by the fundamental tone,

representing the vibrations of the sounding body as a whole, but

also by the harmonics or overtones, representing the vibrations of

the several parts of that whole. It is these latter vibrations which

give the tone its timbre, or peculiar _quality_; and as the harmonics

are variable with the variable structure of the vibrating parts, two

bodies which have the same fundamental tone may have markedly different

qualities. There are some tones which are almost entirely free from

harmonics; that is to say, their harmonics are too faint for our ear to

appreciate them, though we know that the vibrations must be present.

Apply this to the excitations of the sensorium. Each excitation will

have its fundamental feeling, and more or less accompanying thrills of

other feelings: it is these thrills which are the harmonics, giving to

each excitation its specific quality; but they may be so faint that no

specific quality is discriminated. A fly settles on your hand while you

are writing, the faint thrill which accompanies this excitation of your

sensory nerve gives the specific sensation of tickling, and this causes

you to move your hand with a jerk. If your attention is preoccupied,

you are said to be unconscious of the sensation, and the jerk of

your hand is called a reflex action; but if your attention is not

preoccupied, or if the thrill is vivid, you are said to be conscious

of the sensation, and the action is no longer reflex, but volitional.

Obviously here the difference depends not on the sentient excitation by

an impression on the nerve, but on the state of the general sensorium

and its consequent reaction. Had not the impression been carried to the

sensorium, no movement would have followed the fly’s alighting on your

hand, because no sensation (sensory reaction) would have been excited;

the hypothesis of a purely mechanical reflex is quite inadmissible.

3. Or take another case. It sometimes happens that we fall asleep

while some one is reading to us aloud. The sounds of the reader’s

voice at first awaken the familiar thrills which give the tones their

quality, and the words their significance; but gradually as sleep

steals over us, the organism ceases to react thus; the words lose more

and more of their significance, the tones lose more and more of their

harmonics; at last we pass into the state of unconsciousness--we cease

to hear what is read. But do we cease to feel? We have not _heard_,

but we have been _affected_ by the sounds. Not by distinguishable

sensations; nevertheless a state of the general Sensibility has been

induced. To prove that we have been affected is easy. Let the reader

suddenly cease, and if our sleep be not too profound, we at once awake.

Now, unless the sound of his voice had affected us, it is clear that

the cessation of that could not have affected us. Or let us suppose

our sleep to be unbroken by the cessation of the sound; even this will

not prove that we have been unaffected by the sounds, it will merely

prove that those sounds, or their cessation, did not excite a conscious

state. For let the reader, in no louder tone, ask, “Are you asleep?”

and we start up, with round eyes, declaring, “Not at all.” Nay, should

even this question fail to awaken us, the speaker need only utter some

phrase likely to excite a thrill--such as, “There’s the postman!” or,

“I smell fire!” and we start up.

I remember once trying the experiment on a wearied waiter, who had

fallen asleep in one of the unoccupied boxes of a tavern. His arm

rested on the table, and his head rested on his arm: he snored the

snore of the weary, in spite of the noisy laughter and talk of the

guests. I called out “Johnson,” in a loud tone. It never moved him. I

then called “Wilson,” but he snored on. No sooner did I call “waiter,”

than he raised his head with a sleepy “_yessir_.” Now, to suppose, in

this case, that he had _no_ sensation when the words “Johnson” and

“Wilson” reached his ears, but had a sensation when the word “waiter”

reached his ears, is to suppose that two similar causes will not

produce a similar effect. The dissyllable “Johnson” would excite as

potent a reaction of his sensory organ as the dissyllable “waiter”;

but the thrills--the reflex feelings--were different, because the word

“Johnson” was not associated in his mind with any definite actions,

whereas the word “waiter” was so associated as to become an automatic

impulse.[231]

4. Two sisters are asleep in the same bed, and a child cries in the

next room. The sounds of these cries will give a similar stimulus

to the auditory nerve of each sister, and excite a similar sensory

reaction in each. Nevertheless, the one sister sleeps on undisturbed,

and is said not to hear the cry. The other springs out of bed, and

attends to the child, because she being accustomed to attend on the

child and soothe it when crying, the primary sensation has excited

secondary sensations, thrills which lead to accustomed actions. Could

we look into the mind of the sleeping sister, we should doubtless find

that the sensation excited by the child’s cry had merged itself in

the general stream, and perhaps modified her dreams. Let her become a

mother, or take on the tender duties of a mother, and her vigilance

will equal that of her sister; because the cry will _then_ excite a

definite reflex feeling, and a definite course of action. But this very

sister, who is so sensitive to the cry of a child, will be undisturbed

by a much louder noise; a dog may bark, or a heavy wagon thunder along

the street, without causing her to turn in bed.[232]

Although during sleep the nervous centres have by no means their

full activity, they are always capable of responding to a stimulus,

and sensation will always be produced. When the servant taps at your

bedroom door in the morning, you are said not to hear the tap, if

asleep; you do not perceive it; but the sound reaches and rouses you

nevertheless, since when the second tap comes, although no louder, you

distinctly recognize it. In etherized patients, sensation is constantly

observed returning before any consciousness of what is going on

returns. “I was called,” says Mr. Potter, “to give chloroform to a lady

for the extraction of ten teeth. The first five were extracted without

the slightest movement, but as the operation proceeded, sensation

returned, and I was obliged to use considerable force to keep her in

the chair during the extraction of the last tooth. She came to herself

very shortly after, and was delighted to find she had got over all her

troubles without having felt it the least in the world.”[233]

5. We do not see the stars at noonday, yet they shine. We do not see

the sunbeams playing among the leaves on a cloudy day, yet it is by

these beams that the leaves and all other objects are visible. There

is a general illumination from the sun and stars, but of this we are

seldom aware, because our attention falls upon the illumined objects,

brighter or darker than this general tone. There is a sort of analogy

to this in the general Consciousness, which is composed of the sum of

sensations excited by the incessant simultaneous action of internal

and external stimuli. This forms, as it were, the daylight of our

existence. We do not habitually attend to it, because attention falls

on those particular sensations of pleasure or of pain, of greater

or of less intensity, which usurp a prominence among the objects of

the sensitive panorama. But just as we need the daylight to see

the brilliant and the sombre forms of things, we need this living

Consciousness to feel the pleasures and the pains of life. It is

therefore as erroneous to imagine that we have no other sensations than

those which we distinctly recognize--as to imagine that we see no other

light than what is reflected from the shops and equipages, the colors

and splendors which arrest the eye.

The amount of light received from the stars may be small, but it is

present. The greater glory of the sunlight may render this starlight

inappreciable, but it does not render it inoperative. In like manner

the amount of sensation received from some of the centres may be

inappreciable in the presence of more massive influences from other

centres; but though inappreciable it cannot be inoperative--it must

form an integer in the sum.

6. The reader’s daily experience will assure him that over and above

all the particular sensations capable of being separately recognized,

there is a general stream of Sensation which constitutes his feeling

of existence--the Consciousness of himself as a sensitive being. The

ebullient energy which one day exalts life, and the mournful depression

which the next day renders life a burden almost intolerable, are

feelings not referable to any of the particular sensations, but arise

from the massive yet obscure sensibilities of the viscera, which form

so important a part of the general stream of Sensation. Some of these

may emerge into distinct recognition. We may feel the heart beat, the

intestines move, the glands secrete; anything _unusual_ in their action

will force itself on our attention.

“What we have been long used to,” says Whytt, “we become scarcely

sensible of; while things which are new, though much more trifling,

and of weaker impression, affect us remarkably. Thus he who is wont to

spend his time in the country is surprisingly affected, upon first

coming into a populous city, with the noise and bustle which prevail

there: of this, however, he becomes daily less sensible, till at length

he regards it no more than they who have been used to it all their

lifetime. The same seems to be the case also with what passes within

our bodies. Few persons in health feel the beating of their heart,

though it strikes against their ribs with considerable force every

second; whereas the motion of a fly upon one’s face or hands occasions

a very sensible and uneasy titillation. The pulsation of the great

_aorta_ itself is wholly unobserved by us; yet the unusual beating of a

small artery in any of the fingers becomes very remarkable.”

7. A large amount of sensation is derived from the muscular sense, yet

we are not aware of the nice adjustments of the muscles, regulated by

this sensibility, when we sit or walk. No sooner are we placed in an

exceptional position, as in walking on a narrow ledge, than we become

distinctly aware of the effort required to preserve equilibrium. It is

not the novelty of the position which has increased our sensibility;

that has only caused us to attend to our sensations. In like manner,

the various streams of sensation which make up our general sense

of existence, separately escape notice until one of them becomes

obstructed, or increases in impetuosity. When we are seated at a

window, and look out at the trees and sky, we are so occupied with the

aspects and the voices of external Nature, that no attention whatever

is given to the fact of our own existence; yet all this while there

has been a massive and diffusive feeling arising from the organic

processes; and of this we become distinctly aware if we close our

eyes, shut off all sounds, and abstract the sensations of touch and

temperature--it is then perceived as a vast and powerful stream of

sensation, belonging to none of the special Senses, but to the System

as a whole. It is on this general stream that depend those well-known

but indescribable states named “feeling well” and “feeling ill”--the

_bien être_ and _malaise_ of every day. Of two men looking from the

same window, on the same landscape, one will be moved to unutterable

sadness, yearning for the peace of death; the other will feel his soul

suffused with serenity and content: the one has a gloomy background,

into which the sensations excited by the landscape are merged; the

other has a happy background, on which the sensations play like

ripples on a sunny lake. The tone of each man’s feeling is determined

by the state of his general consciousness. Except in matters of pure

demonstration, we are all determined towards certain conclusions as

much by this general consciousness as by logic. Our philosophy, when

not borrowed, is little more than the expression of our personality.

8. Having thus explained the relation of particular sensations to the

general state of Consciousness considered as the function of the whole

organism, we may henceforward speak of particular sentient states, as

we speak of particular organs and functions, all the while presupposing

that the organs and functions necessarily involve the organism, since

_apart_ from the organism they have no such significance. The reaction

of a sensory organ is therefore always a sentient phenomenon. Apart

from the living organism there can be no such vital reaction, but only

a physical reaction. It is commonly supposed that sensation is simply

the molecular excitation of the cerebrum; yet no one will maintain

that if the cerebrum of a corpse be excited, by a galvanic current

sent through the optic nerve, for instance, this excitation will be a

sensation. Whence we may conclude that it is not the physical reaction

or stimulus which constitutes sensation, but the physiological reaction

of the living organism.

9. Now this is the point which the advocates of the Reflex Theory,

implicitly or explicitly, always deny. Let us trace the origin of the

fallacy, if possible. When we remove the eye from a recently killed

animal, and let a beam of light fall on it, the pupil contracts. This

is a purely mechanical action; no one would suggest that a sensation

determined it. When we remove the leg, and irritate its nerve, the leg

is jerked out. This is also a purely mechanical action. When we remove

the brain from an animal, and pinch its toes, the leg is withdrawn

or the pincers are pushed aside. Is this equally a purely mechanical

action? And if not, why not?

The Reflex Theory would have us believe that all three cases were

mechanical, at least in so far as they were all destitute of sentient

co-operation, the ground for this conclusion being the hypothesis that

the brain is the exclusive seat of sensation. The Reflex Theory further

concludes that since these, and analogous actions, are performed when

the brain is removed, they, being thus independent of sentience, may

be performed when the brain is present without any co-operation of

sentience. The grounds for this conclusion being the facts that in

the normal state of the organism there are many actions of which we

are sometimes conscious, and at other times unconscious; and some

actions--such as the dilatation and contraction of the pupil--of which

we are never conscious. This observation of parts detached from the

organism seems confirmed by observation of actions passing in our

own organisms, both converging to the conclusion that the actions in

question are purely mechanical, involving no sentience whatever. We are

taught, therefore, that there is besides the sentient mechanism, to

which all conscious actions are referred, a reflex mechanism, to which

all unconscious actions are referred. The cerebro-spinal axis, acting

as a whole, constitutes the first; the spinal axis, acting without the

co-operation of the cerebrum, constitutes the second.

10. Before proceeding with our exposition of the theory it may be

well to state two considerations which must be constantly in view. If

it should appear that there is any reasonable evidence for refusing

to limit Sensibility to the cerebrum--and this evidence I shall

adduce--the Reflex Theory must obviously be remodelled. Nor is this

all. We might see overwhelming evidence in favor of the hypothesis that

the cerebrum is the exclusive seat of Sensibility, and still reject as

a fallacy the conclusion that because certain actions can be performed

in the absence of the cerebrum, therefore those actions in the normal

organism are likewise performed without cerebral co-operation. I

mean that it is a fallacy to conclude from the contractions of the

pupil, and the jerking of the leg, when eye and leg are detached

from the organism, that therefore when eye and leg form integral

parts of the organism, such contractions and jerkings are mechanical

reflexes without sentient conditions. And the fallacy is analogous

to that which would conclude from the observations of a mechanical

automaton, that similar appearances in a vital organism were equally

automatic and mechanical. So long as both sets of phenomena are

apprehended simply as they appear to the sense of sight, they may be

indistinguishable; but no sooner do we apprehend them through other

modes, and examine the _modes of production_ of the phenomena, than

we come upon cardinal differences. A limb detached from the organism

is like a phrase detached from a sentence: it has lost its vital

significance, its functional value, in losing its connection with the

other parts. The whole sentence is necessary for the slightest meaning

of its constituent words, and each word is a language-element only

when ideally or verbally connected with the other words required to

form a sentence; without subject, predicate, and copula, no sentence

can be formed. So the organic connexus of parts with a living whole is

necessary for the simplest function of each organ; and a limb, or any

other part, is a physiological element only when (ideally or really)

an integral of a vital whole. The organism may be truncated by the

removal of certain parts, as the sentence may be abbreviated by the

removal of certain phrases; but so long as subject, predicate, and

copula remain, there is a meaning in the sentence; and so long as the

organic connexus needful for vitality remains, there will be vital

function. The eye detached from the organism is no longer a part of

the living whole, it no longer lives, its phenomena cease to be vital,

its movements cease to have sentient conditions. The movements of the

pupil may seem to be the same as those of the living eye; but when we

come to examine their modes of production, we learn that they are not

the same. The stimulus of light falling on the eye in the two cases

necessarily has a different effect, because the effect is the result of

the co-operating causes, and the co-operation in the one case is that

of a lifeless organ, in the other that of a living organism. So long as

the eye forms an integral part of the organism, every stimulus acting

on the eye necessarily acts on the organism, and every reaction of the

organ is necessarily conditioned by the state of the organism. Further,

every stimulation of a sensory nerve necessarily affects the general

sensorium, since the whole nervous system is structurally continuous

and functionally co-operant. (See Prob. II. § 16.) Therefore, the

stimulation of the eye, although too faint to be discriminated as a

conscious sensation, must enter as a sentient tremor into the general

stream of Sentience; and although we have no test delicate enough to

reveal this operation, we know the _obverse_ operation of conscious

sensation on the movements of the pupil--in surprise, for example, the

pupil is dilated.

11. There are still stronger reasons for asserting that the spinal

reflexes are necessarily conditioned by the general state of the

sensorium, so that in the normal organism we cannot legitimately

exclude them from Sentience; and the Reflex Theory is therefore

unphysiological, even on the hypothesis that the cerebrum is the

exclusive seat of Sensibility. This hypothesis, however, seems to

me untenable; and all the observed facts which it is invented to

explain admit of a far more consistent explanation. It is irrational

to suppose that a limb, detached from the body, _felt_ the stimulus

which caused its muscles to contract. The limb is not a living

organism, having a sentient mechanism in its nervous mechanism. Not

less irrational is it to suppose that when the limb forms an integral

part of a living organism, with a sentient mechanism of nerves and

nerve-centres, this organism does not react on the stimulus which

excites the muscles of the limb to contract; nor, pursuing the same

train of reasoning, is it irrational to suppose that when this living

organism has been mutilated, and certain parts destroyed, which do

not in their destruction prevent the connexus of the rest, but leave

intact a sentient mechanism of nerves and nerve-centres, then also this

truncated organism still reacts as a whole, still feels the stimulus

which causes the muscles of the limb to contract. Hypothesis for

hypothesis, we may at least say that the one is as reasonable as the

other. And I shall be disappointed if, when the reader has gone through

all the evidence hereafter to be adduced, he does not conclude that

the hypothesis which assigns Sensibility to the nervous mechanism as a

whole is not the more acceptable of the two.

12. Let us now pursue our exposition of the Reflex Theory. All that

we have endeavoured to establish respecting the essential identity of

the processes in conscious and unconscious states, and voluntary and

involuntary actions,--an identity which does not exclude differences of

degree corresponding with these different terms,--is ignored or denied

in the Reflex Theory. Whereas I suppose all processes to be reflex

processes, some of them having the voluntary, others the involuntary

character, physiologists generally distinguish the involuntary as

reflex, and invent for this class a special mechanism. According to

Marshall Hall, who originated the modern form of this theory, actions

are divisible into four distinct classes: the _voluntary_, dependent

on the brain; the _involuntary_, dependent on the irritability of

the muscular fibre; the _respiratory_, wherein “the motive influence

passes in a _direct line_ from one point of the nervous system to

certain muscles”; and the _reflex_, dependent on the “true spinal

system” of _incident-excitor_ nerves, and of _reflex-motor_ nerves.

These last-named actions are produced when an _impression_ on the

sensitive surface is conveyed, by an excitor-nerve, to the spinal

cord, and is there _reflected_ back on the muscles by a corresponding

motor-nerve. In this process _no_ sensation whatever occurs. The action

is purely reflex, purely _excito-motor_--like the action of an ordinary

mechanism.[234]

Müller, who shares with Marshall Hall the glory of having established

this classification, thinks that although the absence of sensation is

a characteristic of the reflex actions, these actions may be, and are

at times, accompanied by sensation. “The view I take of the matter is

the following: Irritation of sensitive fibres of a spinal nerve excites

primarily a centripetal action of the nervous principle conveying the

impression to the spinal cord; if the centripetal action can then be

continued to the _sensorium commune_, a true sensation is the result;

if, on account of division of the cord, it cannot be communicated to

the sensorium, it still exerts its whole influence upon the cord; in

both cases a reflex motor action may be the result.”[235]

13. It is needless nowadays to point out that the existence of a

distinct system of excito-motor nerves belongs to Imaginary Anatomy;

but it is not needless to point out that the Imaginary Physiology

founded on it still survives. The hypothetical process seems to me not

less at variance with observation and induction, than the hypothetical

structure invented for its basis. We have already seen that what

Anatomy positively teaches is totally unlike the reflex mechanism

popularly imagined. The sensory nerve is not seen to enter the spinal

cord at one point, and pass over to a corresponding point of exit; it

is seen to enter the gray substance, which is continuous throughout the

spinal cord; it is there lost to view, its course being untraceable.

Nor does the physiological process present the aspect demanded by the

theory: it is not that of a direct and uniform reflexion, such as

would result from an impression on one spot transmitted across the

spinal cord to a corresponding motor-nerve. The impression is sometimes

followed by one movement, sometimes by another very different movement,

each determined by the state of neural tension in the whole central

system.

Even the facts on which the Reflex Theory is based are differently

interpreted by different physiologists. Van Deen, for instance,

considers that Reflexion takes place without Volition, but not

without Sensation; and Budge, that it takes place without perception

(_Vorstellung_). And when it is remembered that most of the reflex

actions will be accompanied by distinct consciousness whenever

attention is directed to them, or the vividness of the stimulation

is slightly increased, it becomes evident that the absence of

Consciousness (discrimination) is not the differentia of Reflex action.

14. Nor can the absence of spontaneity be accepted as a differentia.

_All_ actions are excited by stimulation, internal or external. What

are called the spontaneous actions are simply those which are prompted

by internal, or by not recognizable stimuli; and could we see the

process, we should see a neural change initiated by some stimulation,

whether the change was conscious and volitional, or unconscious and

automatic. The dog rising from sleep and restlessly moving about,

is acting spontaneously, whether the stimulation which awakens him

be a sensation of hunger, a sensation of sound, the sharp pain of a

prick, or a dash of cold water. If he wags his tail at the sight of

his master, or wags it when dreaming, the stimulation is said to be

spontaneous; but if after his spinal cord has been divided the tail

wags when his abdomen is tickled, the action is called reflex. In all

three cases there has been a process of excitation and reflexion.

15. The advocates of the Reflex Theory insist that spontaneity is

always absent in brainless animals; whence the conclusion that the

brain is the exclusive organ of sensation. But the fact asserted is

contradicted by the evidence. No experimenter can have failed to

observe numberless examples of spontaneity in brainless animals. Many

examples have already been incidentally noticed in previous pages. Let

me add one more from my notes: I decapitated a toad and a triton, and

divided the spinal cord of another triton and a frog. At first the

movements of the decapitated animals were insignificant; but on the

second day the headless toad was quite as lively as the frog; and the

headless triton little less so than his companion with cord divided

but brain intact. I have, at the time of writing this, a frog whose

cord was divided some weeks ago. He remains almost motionless unless

when touched; he is generally found in the same spot, and in the same

attitude to-day as yesterday, unless touched, or unless the table be

shaken. He occasionally moves one of the forelegs; occasionally one of

the hind-legs; but without changing his position. If he were brainless,

this quiescence would be cited in proof of the absence of spontaneity

in the absence of the brain; but this conclusion would be fallacious,

and is seen to be so in the spontaneous movements of his companion who

has _no_ brain.

16. With spontaneity is associated the idea of volition, and with

volition _choice_. Now I admit that it is complicating the question to

ask any one to conceive a headless animal choosing one action rather

than another; but it is equally difficult to reconcile ourselves to

the idea of “choice” in contemplating the actions of a mollusc. In

what sense we can speak of the volition of a mollusc or an insect has

already been considered (p. 408). When a man in a fit of coughing

seizes a glass of water to allay the tickling in his throat, we have

no hesitation in declaring this to be volitional--and the remedy to

be _chosen_. But when a brainless animal adopts some _unusual_ means,

after the failure of the usual means, to allay an irritation, we still

hesitate to call the action volitional. I see, however, no objection to

calling it the adaptation of a sensitive mechanism which is markedly

unlike any inorganic mechanism.

Place a child of two or three years old upon his back, and tickle

his right cheek with a feather. He will probably move his head away.

Continue tickling, and he will rub the spot with his right hand,

_never_ using the left hand for the right cheek, so long as the right

hand is free; but if you hold his right hand, he will use the left.

Does any one dispute the voluntary character of these actions?

Now compare the actions of the sleeping child under similar

circumstances, and their sequence will be precisely similar. This

contrast is the more illustrative, because physiologists generally

assume that in sleep consciousness and volition are _suspended_.

They say: “The brain sleeps, the spinal cord never; volition and

sensation may be suspended, but not reflex action.” This proposition is

extremely questionable; yet it is indispensable to the reflex theory;

because unless sensation and volition _are_ suspended during sleep, we

must admit that they can act, without at the same time calling into

activity that degree of sensibility which is supposed to constitute

consciousness. The child moves in his sleep, defends himself in his

sleep; but he is not “aware” of it.

“Children,” says Pflüger, “sleep more soundly than adults, and seem

to be more sensitive in sleep. I tickled the right nostril of a

three-year-old boy. He at once raised his right hand to push me away,

and then rubbed the place. When I tickled the left nostril he raised

the left hand. I then softly drew both arms down, and laid them close

to the body, embedding the left arm in the clothes, and placing on it a

pillow, by gentle pressure on which I could keep the arm down without

awakening him. Having done this I tickled his left nostril. He at once

began to move the imprisoned arm, but could not reach his face with

it, because I held it firmly though gently down. He now drew his head

aside, and I continued tickling, whereupon he raised the _right_ hand,

and with it rubbed the _left_ nostril--an action he never performed

when the left hand was free.”

17. This simple but ingenious experiment establishes one important

point, namely, that the so-called reflex actions observed in sleep

are determined by sensation and volition. The sleeping child behaves

exactly as the waking child behaved; the only difference being in

the energy and rapidity of the actions. If the waking child felt and

willed, surely the sleeping child, when it performed precisely similar

actions, cannot be said to have felt nothing, willed nothing? It is

not at one moment a sentient organism, and at the next an insentient

mechanism.

It is possible to meet this case by assuming that the child was nearly

awake, and that a dim consciousness was aroused by the tickling, so

that the cerebral activity was in fact awakened. But, plausible as

this explanation may be (and I am the more ready to admit it because I

believe the brain always co-operates when it is present), it altogether

fails when we come to experiments on decapitated animals. If any one

will institute a series of such experiments, taking care to compare the

actions of the animal before and after decapitation, he will perceive

that there is no more difference between them than between those of the

sleeping and the waking child.

18. Even more striking is the following experiment, devised by Pflüger,

which I have verified, and varied, many times: A frog is decapitated,

or its brain is removed.[236] When it has recovered from the effect of

the ether, and manifests lively sensibility, we place it on its back,

and touch, with acetic acid, the skin of its thigh just above the

_condylus internus femoris_. (Let the reader imagine his own shoulder

burnt at the point where it can be reached with the thumb of the same

arm, and he will realize the operation.) No sooner does the acid begin

to burn than the frog stretches out the _other_ leg, so that its body

is somewhat drawn towards it. The leg that has been burnt is now bent,

and the back of the foot is applied to the spot, rubbing the acid

away--just as your thumb might rub your shoulder. This is very like

the action of the tickled child, who always uses the right hand to rub

the right cheek, unless it be held; but when the child’s right hand is

prevented from rubbing, the left will be employed; and precisely this

do we observe with the brainless frog: prevent it from using its right

leg, and it will use its left!

This has been proved by decapitating another frog, and cutting off

the foot of the leg which is to be irritated. No sooner is the acid

applied, than the leg is bent as before, and the stump is moved to and

fro, as if to rub away the acid. But the acid is not rubbed away, and

the animal becomes restless, as if trying to hit upon some other plan

for freeing himself of the irritation. And it is worthy of remark that

he often hits upon plans very similar to those which an intelligent

human being adopts under similar circumstances. Thus, the irritation

continuing, he will sometimes cease the vain efforts with his stump,

and stretching that leg straight out, bends the _other_ leg over

towards the irritated spot, and rubs the acid away. But, to show how

far this action is from one of “mere mechanism,” how far it is from

being a direct reflex of an impression on a group of muscles, the

frog does not _always_ hit even on this plan. Sometimes it bends its

irritated leg more energetically, and likewise bends the body towards

it, so as to permit the spot to be rubbed against the flank--just as

the child, when both his hands are held, will bend his cheek towards

his shoulder and rub it there.

19. It is difficult to resist such evidence as is here manifested. The

brainless frog “chooses” a new plan when the old one fails, just as

the waking child chooses. And an illustration of how sensations guide

and determine movements, may be seen in another observation of the

brainless frog, when, as often happens, it does not hit upon either of

the plans just mentioned, but remains apparently restless and helpless;

if under these circumstances we perform a part of the action for it,

_it will complete what we have begun_: if we rub the irritated leg, at

some distance from the spot where the acid is, with the foot of the

other, the frog suddenly avails itself of this _guiding sensation_, and

at once directs its foot to the irritated spot.

In these experiments on the triton and the frog, the evidence of

sensation and volition is all the stronger, because the reactions

produced by irritations are not uniform. If when a decapitated animal

were stimulated it always reacted in _precisely the same way_, and

never chose _new means_ on the failure of the old, it would be

conceivable to attribute the results to simple reflex action--i. e. the

mechanical transference of an impulse along a prescribed path. It is

possible so to conceive the breathing, or the swallowing mechanism: the

impression may be directly reflected on certain groups of muscles. But

I cannot conceive a machine suddenly striking out new methods, when the

old methods fail. I cannot conceive a machine thrown into disorder when

its accustomed actions fail, and in this disorder suddenly lighting

upon an action likely to succeed, and continuing _that_; but I can

conceive this to be done by an organism, for my own experience and

observation of animals assures me that this is always the way new lines

of action are adopted. And this which is observed of the unmutilated

animal, I have just shown to be observed of the brainless animal;

wherefore the conclusion is, that if ever the frog is sentient, if

ever its actions are guided by sensation, they are so when its brain is

removed.

20. Schröder van der Kolk thinks that Pflüger was deceived in

attributing sensation and volition to the frog, because the reflex

actions are, he says, so nicely adapted to their ends, that they are

undistinguishable from voluntary actions. The mechanism is such that,

by means of the communications established between various groups of

cells, all these actions adapted to an end may be excited by every

stimulus. But I deny the fact. I deny that all the actions are awakened

by every stimulus. Only some few are awakened, and those are not

always the same, nor do they follow the same order of succession. One

decapitated frog does not behave exactly like another under similar

circumstances; does not behave exactly like himself at different

seasons; unlike a machine, he manifests spontaneity in his actions, and

volition in the direction of his actions.

21. The reader will notice that my illustrations show these actions of

the brainless animal to have the same external characters as those of

the unmutilated animals. I am therefore not here concerned to prove

the psychical nature of these actions, unless it be granted that the

unmutilated animal has sensation and volition. This of course can

only be inferred, not proved. But the inference must not be allowed

in the one case and refused in the other. Young rabbits and puppies

when taken from their mothers manifest discomfort by restless movement

and whining. Do they feel the discomfort they thus express? If ever

rabbits and puppies may be said to feel, we must answer, Yes. Well,

if the brain be removed from rabbits and puppies, precisely similar

phenomena are observed when these young animals are taken from

their mothers. “I observed the motions, which seemed the result of

discomfort, quickly cease when I warmed the young rabbit by breathing

on it. After a while it was completely at rest, and seemed sunk in

deep sleep; occasionally, however, it moved one of its legs without

any external stimulus having been applied, and this not spasmodically,

but in the manner of a sleeping animal.”[237] Is this cessation of

the restlessness, when warmth is restored, not evidence of sensation?

We see an infant restless, struggling, and squalling; and we believe

that it is hungry, or that some other sensations agitate it; it is

put to the breast, and its squalls subside; or a finger is placed in

its mouth, and it sucks that, in a peaceful lull, for a few moments,

to recommence squalling when the finger yields no satisfaction. If we

accept these as signs of sensation, I do not see how we can deny such

sensation to the brainless animal which will also cease to cry, and

will suck the delusive finger.

22. One of the earliest advocates of the Reflex Theory sums up

his observations in these words: “It is clear that brainless

animals, although without sensation, because not endowed with

mind, nevertheless, by means of external impressions which operate

incessantly on them, perform all the acts and manifest all the activity

of the sentient animal; everything that is effected sensationally

and volitionally, they effect by means of the organic forces of the

impressions.”[238] Call Sensibility one of the organic forces, if you

please, but so long as the acts performed are not only the same as

those of a sentient animal, but are performed by the same mechanism,

they have every claim to the character of sensational acts which can be

urged in the case of these animals when the brain is present. And the

only reason on which this claim is disputed is the assumed loss of all

sensation with the loss of the brain. Here, therefore, lies the central

point to be determined.

CHAPTER II.

DEDUCTIONS FROM GENERAL LAWS.

23. The evidence is of two kinds: deductions from the general laws of

nervous action, and inductions from particular manifestations. The

former furnish a presumption, the latter a proof.

The central process which initiates a reflex action may be excited

by the external stimulation of a peripheral nerve, by the internal

stimulation of a peripheral nerve, or by the irradiation from some

other part of the central tissue. The last-named stimulations are

the least intelligible, because they are so varied and complex,

and so remote from observation; among them may be placed, 1°, the

organized impulses of Instinct and Habit, with their fixed modes of

manifestation; 2°, the organized impulses of Emotion, which are more

variable in their manifestations, because more fluctuating in their

conditions; 3°, the organized impulses of Intellect, the most variable

of all. Whether we shrink on the contact of a cold substance or on

hearing a sudden sound,--at the sight of a terrible object,--at the

imaginary vision of the object,--or because we feign the terror which

is thus expressed,--the reflex mechanism of shrinking is in each case

the same, and the neural process discharged on the muscles is the same;

but the state of Feeling which originated the change--or, in strictly

physiological terms, the inciting neural process which preceded this

reflex neural process--was in each case somewhat different, yet in each

case was a mode of Sensibility.

24. The property of Sensibility belongs to the whole central tissue;

and we have every reason to believe that unless it is excited no reflex

takes place, whereas when it is exaggerated--as in epilepsy, or under

strychnine--the reflex discharges are convulsive. When anæsthetics are

given, consciousness first disappears, and then reflexion. When the

sensorium is powerfully excited by _other_ stimuli, the normal stimulus

fails to excite either consciousness or reflexion. Hence our conclusion

is that for consciousness, on the one hand, and _normal_ reflexion, on

the other, the proximate condition is a change in the sensorium; or--to

phrase it more familiarly--Feeling is necessary for reflex action.

The difficulty in apprehending this lies in the ambiguity of the

term Feeling. Many readers who would find no difficulty in admitting

Sensibility as a necessary element in reflex action, will resist the

idea of identifying Sensibility with Feeling. But this repugnance must

be overcome if we are to understand the various modes of Sensibility

which represent Feeling in animals, and its varieties in ourselves. We

understand how the general Sensibility manifests itself in markedly

different sensations--how that of the optic centre differs from that

of the auditory centre, and both from a spinal centre. The tones of a

violin are not the same as the tones of a violoncello, both differ from

the tones of a key-bugle: yet they all come under the same general laws

of tonality. So, as I often insist, the tissues in brain and cord being

the same, their properties must be the same, their laws of excitation,

irradiation, and combination the same, through all the varieties in

their manifestations due to varieties of innervation. Hence it is

that there are reflex cerebral processes no less than reflex spinal

processes: the motor impulse from, the hemispheres on the _corpora

striata_, or from posterior gray substance on anterior gray substance,

is similar to that from the anterior gray substance on the motor

nerves. The difference in reflexes arises from the terminal organs; as

the difference in sensations arises from the surfaces stimulated. But

not only are there reflex processes in the brain, of the same _order_

as those in the cord, there are volitional processes in the cord of

the same order as those in the brain. And in both the processes are

sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious. No evidence suggests that

in the conscious action there is a sensorial process, and a purely

physical process in the unconscious action--only a different _relation_

of one sensorial process to others.

25. Let us contrast a cerebral and a spinal process, in respect to the

three stages of stimulation, irradiation, and discharge. A luminous

impression stimulates my retina, this excites my sensorium, in which

second stage I am conscious of the luminous sensation; the final

discharge is a perception, or a mental articulation of the _name_ of

the luminous object. But the irradiation may perhaps not have been

such as to cause a _conscious_ sensation, because the requisite neural

elements were already grouped in some other way; in this case there is

an unconscious discharge on some motor group, and instead of perceiving

and naming the luminous object, I move my head, or my band, or my

whole body, avoiding the object, or grasping at it. A third issue is

possible: the irradiation, instead of exciting a definite perception,

or a definite movement, may be merged in the stream of simultaneous

excitations, and thus form the component of a group, and the discharge

of this group will be a perception or a movement.

It is the same with a spinal process. An impression on the skin is

irradiated in the cord, and the response is a movement, of which we

are conscious, or unconscious. Here also a third issue is possible:

the irradiation may be merged in a stream of simultaneous excitations,

modifying them and modified by them, thus forming a component in some

ulterior discharge.

26. The obstacle in the way of recognizing that cerebral processes and

spinal processes are of the same order of sensorial phenomena, and have

the same physiological significance when considered irrespective of the

group of organs they call into activity, is similar to the obstacle

which has prevented psychologists from recognizing the identity of the

logical process in the combinations of Feeling and the combinations

of Thought, i. e. the Logic of Feeling and the Logic of Signs. This

obstacle is the fixing attention on the diversity of the effects when

the same process operates with different elements. Because the spinal

cord manifests the phenomena of sensation and volition, we are not to

conclude that it also manifests ideation and imagination; any more

than we are to conclude that a mollusc is capable of musical feelings

because it is affected by sounds.

27. The careless confusion of general properties with special

applications of those properties, and of functions with properties, has

been a serious hindrance to the right understanding of Sensibility and

its operations. Instead of recognizing that the nervous system has one

general mode of reaction, which remains the same under every variety

of combination with other systems, physiologists commonly lose sight

of this general property, and fix on one mode of its manifestation as

the sole characteristic of Sensibility. Sometimes the mode fixed on

is Pain, at other times Attention. Thus, when an animal manifests no

evidence of pain under stimulations which ordinarily excite severe

pain, this is often interpreted as a proof that _all_ sensation is

absent; and if with this absence of pain there is--as there often

is--clear evidence of the presence of some other mode of sensibility,

the contradiction is evaded by the assumption that what here looks like

evidence of sensation is merely mechanical reflexion. One would think

that Physiology and Pathology had been silent on the facts of analgesia

without anæsthesia, and of so much conscious sensation which is

unaccompanied by pain.[239] Who does not know that a patient will lose

one kind of sensibility while retaining others--cease to feel pain,

yet feel temperature, or be insensible to touch, yet exquisitely alive

to pain?[240] Inasmuch as Sensibility depends on the condition of the

centres, an abnormal condition will obviously transform the reaction

of the centres into one very unlike the normal reaction. For example,

Antoine Cros had a patient who was quite unable to feel the sensation

of cold on her left side--every cold object touching her skin on that

side was felt as a very hot one; whereas a hot object produced “the

sort of sensation which followed the application of an intermittent

voltaic current.”[241] Thus also the experiments of Rose[242] and

others have exhibited the effects of a dose of Santonine in causing all

objects to be seen as yellow in one stage, and violet in another.