CHAPTER XIX 



ON SOME STARTING-POINTS FOR A FUTURE 

 ANALYSIS OF THE MECHANICS OF ASSO- 

 CIATIVE MEMORY 



i. The facts have thus far shown that the reflexes 

 are determined chiefly by the structure of the sense- 

 organs, or of the surface of the body, and the arrange- 

 ment of the muscles. The central nervous system 

 participates in these functions only as a conductor. 

 The true problem with which the physiology of the 

 reflexes is concerned is the mechanics of protoplasmic 

 conductivity. This problem is no longer a biological 

 problem but a problem of physical chemistry. 



The only specific function of the brain, or certain 

 parts of it, which we have been able to find is the 

 activity of associative memory. There is at present a 

 tendency to consider the anatomical and histological 

 investigation of the brain as the most promising line 

 for the analysis of these functions. It seems to me 

 that we can no more expect to unravel the mechan- 

 ism of associative memory by histological or morpho- 

 logical methods than we can expect to unravel the 

 dynamics of electrical phenomena by a microscopic 

 study of cross-sections through a telegraph wire or by 



'9 289 



