92 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



operation, are followed by sensorial and motorial defects, but 

 that these defects become smaller and smaller as time 

 advances, 1 until a certain maximum of regulation is reached. 

 It is highly probable that this regulation, in part at least, 

 is due to the fact that some typical nervous connexions in 

 the brain, which had been destroyed by the apoplexy or by 

 the operation, are restored after a while : not, of course, 

 morphologically, for there is no actual restitution or re- 

 generation of any sort in the brain of vertebrates, but 

 physiologically, in the sense that the functional connexion 

 between the parts A and B is now, after the destruction of 

 the shortest route, accomplished by some other of the many 

 possible routes. 



It was upon these facts that our doubts respecting the 

 doctrine of the so-called "specific energy" in its extremes were 

 based. The same facts, when more accurately and minutely 

 established, might furnish a sort of new and independent 

 proof of vitalism, by showing the brain to be what might 

 be called a " functional harmonious-equipotential system." 

 The specificity of a motory reaction is not dependent on 

 the specificity of the brain as such, but the organisation of 

 the brain is only used in order to perform a specific reaction, 

 and its different parts may be used differently in such a 

 manner that harmony, i.e. the specificity of the individualised 

 effect in question, is never altered. 



By no means do we wish these words to be understood 

 as if the possible harmony of the parts of the brain in use 

 were perfect in every case. On the contrary, in spite of 



1 As a rule this diminishing of functional defects is attributed to the 

 ceasing of the "shock." Most recent authors, however, agree that use has 

 been made a little too freely of "shocks." There can be little doubt that 

 this favourite term has often blinded us to the existence of true regulation. 



