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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



ing which the dynamical state is suspended. 

 Now, it appears to me there are innumerable in- 

 tervals during the action of a nerve when the 

 dynamical state, strictly so called, must be sus- 

 pended, though this may to physicists sound 

 new, strange, and absurd. 



Nervous action has been described as molecu- 

 lar vibration, or the to-and-fro movement of the 

 minute constituents of the axis-cylinder or nerve- 

 proper. The rapidity of transit of a nervous 

 impulse is claimed to have been measured, and a 

 very humble speed it is. But even if it were as 

 swift as the swiftest known force, it would etill 

 be a period of time. And just as the time-pe- 

 riod of the motion of the first molecule of the 

 nerve is distinctly separated from the time-period 

 of the last molecule's motion by the times of 

 motion of each of the intervening molecules, so 

 there is a period during which each molecule is 

 in the attitude of receiving energy from its pre- 

 ceding neighbor distinct from the period during 

 which it is in the act of imparting its energy to 

 the succeeding molecule. Receiving and impart- 

 ing are not simultaneous in occurrence, else time 

 would be blotted out, the last molecule would 

 move simultaneously with the first. The very 

 fact that time is an element at all involves the 

 admission that the whole time of vibration is 

 divisible into the individual times of the vibrat- 

 ing elements, and the times of each of these into 

 times of receiving and giving energy. And since 

 the imparting stage is the only one of the two 

 conditions of a vibrating molecule which can be 

 strictly called dynamical, active, energizing, it 

 follows that the dynamical periods of the entire 

 nerve are interrupted by periods that cannot be 

 strictly called dynamical, since they are periods 

 of passivity ; periods of being affected, aroused, 

 awakened ; periods during which a condition ex- 

 ists which exactly corresponds with the condi- 

 tion we call feeling, or the mental state. These 

 periods furnish, then, the desired locus in time, 

 in which feeling may transpire and alternate with 

 energizing affections. 



I am aware that a physicist might reply that 

 the reason why nervous vibration — like all other 

 vibration — involves the element of time is that 

 space has to be traveled over, and that all the 

 period between the receiving of energy by the 

 first molecule and imparting it to the second 

 molecule is occupied by traversing the distance 

 between them, and that if such distance did not 

 exist the motion of the first and last molecules 

 would be simultaneous, and the condition of all 

 the molecules would be a dynamical one. There- 



fore, that the condition of a molecule separated 

 by distance from a second molecule is simply a dy- 

 namical one from the instant of its first receiving 

 energy. Doubtless, I reply, if we obliterate space 

 we obliterate time, and if we in theory blot these 

 out there will surely not be much power left in 

 us to imagine either feeling or energy ! But we 

 cannot conceive of energy without supposing 

 something upon which energy is to be exerted. 

 This implies plurality of objects or parts of mat- 

 ter, and this, again, implies parts of space and 

 time. That the time of receiving energy by a 

 molecule is not identical with that of its impart- 

 ing the received energy is proved even by the 

 law of inertia, which will admit of no beginning 

 of movement till the requisite energy is all re- 

 ceived. Now, there must be a period, in the case 

 of every molecule' about to take part in vibra- 

 tion, during which it is in the condition of re- 

 ceiving its quota of energy necessary to over- 

 come its inertia prior to its beginning to move, or 

 impart the energy being communicated to it. 

 This is the necessary locus in time where feeling 

 may come in as incipient energy, or an affection 

 of matter resembling energy, yet differing from 

 it by its characteristic feature, passivity. 



Thus far the hypothesis of alternation be- 

 tween mental and physical, or feeling and ener- 

 gizing, affections of matter has its difficulties ex- 

 plained away. 



In conclusion, it may be remarked that while 

 the hypothesis links feeling with energy in a 

 causal relation, yet no harm will accrue to physi- 

 cal science by its acceptance ; for the dynamical 

 links, though deemed alternating with links of 

 feeling, need not be reckoned in any problems of 

 physics as affected by the mental states interven- 

 ing, for the mental are the results of the physi- 

 cal and the physical of the mental, in such a 

 manner that no energy is lost, and all is exactly 

 as if the dynamical sequences were uninterrupt- 

 ed. Again, no discrepancy need arise in psycho- 

 logical science by the intervention of dynamical 

 with mental affections, for the actions alternat- 

 ing with feeling are those only which arise in the 

 nerves — or organs of feeling and action — and not 

 in the muscles, whose action, though doubtless 

 preceded by feeling in themselves, are no more 

 to be considered as exponents of the nervous ac- 

 tion than the explosion of a powder magazine is 

 an exponent of the energy present in the ignited 

 match. Even the hypothesis of concomitance is 

 by the, new hypothesis accounted for, by reason 

 of the brevity of the period of transformation of 

 feeling into energy, which practically makes the 



