630 THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF INDIVIDUALITY 



stimulates gastric secretion and certain pictures with sexual content may 

 set in motion, by way of reflex, certain sexual activities. These pictures may 

 be supplied by social institutions created by us, as for instance, by eating 

 places, by theatres. The outer world thus interacts with our organismal 

 functions by means of pictures, thoughts. But, conversely, gastric contrac- 

 tions during hunger may stimulate certain picture-thoughts of a good meal, 

 with the accompanying emotions. Or certain reflex processes occurring in 

 the sexual organs may secondarily call forth the corresponding thought- 

 emotion complexes, and the memories of the latter may subsequently again 

 set in motion sexual functions. In this manner a very intricate play between 

 outer world and inner world, between our thoughts and our organism, 

 constantly takes place. The outer world acts on our inner world by means 

 of sensations, pictures and thoughts, which also function as suggestions, 

 and through them the outer world influences our actions and our attitudes. 

 Thus, thoughts having their source in sense impressions, exercise their effects 

 essentially through the things and events which they represent, and there 

 exist only quantitative differences in vividness and effectiveness between the 

 direct experience and the effect of thoughts ; both are complicated, but to a 

 varying degree, by a relationship to other thoughts. 



Furthermore, those of our motor reactions which follow thought-emotion 

 complexes and are often induced by the latter, may lead to thoughts which 

 are conscious and which make connection with the "I" concept, while the 

 simple reflexes connecting our senses with our muscles by way of ganglia, 

 are usually unaccompanied by conscious thoughts. There are, besides, many 

 sense impressions acting on an organism, together with memories of past 

 experiences, which do not find direct release in motor actions but merely in 

 thoughts and emotions ; these again tend to lead to an extension of conscious 

 thought and emotion processes; they may ultimately find expression in 

 scientific, philosophic, or artistic productions. In order to be able to under- 

 stand and predict the phenomena of our varied reactions, there would be 

 required in all these cases, a much more intricate and searching analysis of 

 the common factors underlying these processes, than can, as a rule, be made 

 at the present time. 



Processes and things involving common unit factors and differing from 

 others in experimentally reproducible constellations of these unit factors and 

 their mutual relations are mechanisms. In general, constant relations between 

 events, which show definite sequences in time, are what we consider causes 

 and effects, the former preceding the latter constellations; to establish these 

 relationships is to explain ; what can be explained in this way is in a wider 

 sense a mechanism ; it is opposed to what is indeterminable and non-rational. 

 However, in many instances we are satisfied with attaching a word or a 

 label to a thing or process, and having thus attained the possibility of 

 handling in our mind this thing or process for the purposes of mental opera- 

 tions, especially in accordance with the requirements of the natural and 

 social struggle, we are satisfied. In contrast to the term "mechanism" "indi- 

 viduality" implies, by definition, something unique and therefore not repro- 



