ORGANIC MOVEMENTS 95 



death-blow to the doctrine of " specific energy " in any sense. 

 It is true, nothing has been actually ascertained here at 

 present, so far as sensorial nerves and centres are in question ; 

 no experiments have yet been made on the newly born. 

 Might we expect that specificity of " centres " in the adult 

 is completely a product of specificity of previous centripetal 

 conductions ? that by interchanging the connexion of the 

 optic and acoustic nerves to their respective sensory organs in 

 the newly born, the optic brain centre of the adult would be 

 transferred to the place where the acoustic centre normally 

 is, and vice versa ? Such ideas regarding " centres " as 

 simply what is generally called " Einfahrung " in the single 

 nerves, are rather revolutionary ; but one must grant at 

 present, it seems to me, that they are possible, and that, so 

 far as only one sensorial sphere is concerned, they even are 

 probable. If they held good to the fullest extent, all kinds 

 of "pressure -points," " heat -points," and "pain-points " 

 found in the skin of the adult would prove nothing at all, 

 of course, regarding innate specificities of nerves or parts of 

 the brain : all specificities would originally be peripheral. 1 



1 The few "facts" relating to the specificity or non -specificity of nerves 

 or parts of the brain, besides those mentioned above (p. 86), are the following, 

 all relating to the adult. Stimulation of the chorda tympani, i.e. the nerve 

 of taste, carried out directly by electric or mechanical agents, is always followed 

 by a sensation of taste ; this fact, of course, may be interpreted in favour of 

 the specificity of "centres" in the adult, but may also be related to a 

 chemical process in the nerve, set up by the irritation. Langley succeeded in 

 transforming a vaso-contracting nerve into a vaso-dilating one, and a motor 

 nerve into one that stimulated peripheral ganglia ; a connexion of the central 

 part of nerve A with the peripheral part of nerve B, and vice versa, had been 

 effected here ; the experiment proves the possibility of centrifugal conductions 

 leading to different results in one and the same nerve, it does not immediately 

 relate to "centres." 



I myself have laid stress upon the fact that in many of the transplantation 

 experiments in young amphibial larvae, as carried out by Born, the brain has 

 to accomplish quite abnormal duties, which it docs in perfect harmony. See 



