90 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



from without ; secondly, by the specificity of the variable 

 state of the motor organs ; and thirdly, by the specificity 

 of the variable state of the central organs. 



Hitherto we have been studying only the first class of 

 these regulations. Our analysis, leading to a new proof of 

 vitalism, was based exclusively on the correspondence of 

 the stimuli and the reactions. The brain, and in fact 

 organisation altogether, played no part in that analysis, but 

 it will become important as soon as we come to study the 

 other possible kinds of motor regulation. 



Let us say a few words, in the first place, about regula- 

 bility of the brain functions themselves. This subject has 

 just been touched in our remarks on the doctrine of specific 

 energy. There exists anything but unanimity and agree- 

 ment in this field of physiology, and to form a proper 

 judgment is very difficult for one who, like myself, has no 

 personal experience of the matters in question, and is obliged 

 to rely on the literature. On the one hand, the parts of 

 the brain are regarded as almost completely equal in 

 function, whilst, on the other hand, the utmost functional 

 specificity, even of the individual cell, has been insisted on. 



As far as I am capable of judging, it seems to me, from 

 a study of the literature, both experimental and pathological, 

 that two different fundamental factors are to be distinguished 

 relating to the organisation of the brain and of the so-called 



o o 



cerebral hemispheres in particular, and each accounting for 

 different results among the experimental and pathological 

 facts. 



In fact there is an interesting parallelism between the 

 brain and the youngest germ, inasmuch as they are con- 

 structed according to two different types of complexity. In 



