THE WORLD OF LIVING ORGANISMS 171 



affected by the poison, and the muscles that contract as a 

 result of that nervous excitation. 



Often indeed we must reckon in the counter-framework 

 a great part of the central nervous system ; especially in the 

 higher animals, where the pain produced by the defensive 

 weapons is such as to check the attacking movement and 

 make the attacker recoil. 



As we have seen, the counter-framework of the prey has 

 been very exactly described in a number of cases. It extends 

 not merely to the form and position of the ganglion-knot in 

 the beetle larva attacked by the ichneumon-fly, but also to 

 the specific chemical properties of the larva's nervous sub- 

 stance, which is paralysed by the poison. 



When the beetle larva is paralysed, the movement ceases 

 which was the indication serving to initiate the attack. Then 

 the motionless larva forms the indication for the action of 

 egg-laying. In egg-laying, there is a subjective annihilation 

 of the indication. 



THE COUNTER-FRAMEWORK AS EXPRESSION 

 OF THE FUNCTION-RULE 



The study of the counter-framework in the indicator forms 

 an especially important chapter, for by this a connection is 

 established between the world of action and the world-as- 

 sensed ; and the surrounding-wbrld emerges as a self-con- 

 tained unity, enveloping the subject on all sides. 



The function-rule, consequently, relates not only to the 

 framework of the subject that it governs, but also to the 

 counter-framework of the animal serving the subject as enemy 

 or as prey. It includes, however, only the counter-framework 

 from which the indicator is constructed, and completely ex- 

 cludes such parts of it as come into consideration when that 

 other organism is the subject. 



