CONFORMITY WITH PLAN 279 



if he is to be in a position to put the arabesque down on paper 

 on his own account. Just as the melody is decomposable 

 into separate notes, so the line may be broken up into separate 

 direction-steps. Just as the notes connect up together into 

 a melody, so the direction-steps connect up into a line. The 

 direction-steps forming the line of an arabesque or the outline 

 of some object are exactly as objective as the notes proceeding 

 from some source of sound in space. 



The receptor action which forms merely the introduction 

 to an action based on experience or a controlled action, con- 

 sists in furnishing melodies of direction-steps in the mark- 

 organ, melodies which then influence the action-organ. 

 The forming of the melody of direction-steps is of very great 

 interest, because usually it is associated with the excitation 

 coming from a receptor that itself is moved to and fro through 

 the subject, as when the eye or the finger " feels." Here 

 subjective and objective indications are bound together into 

 a single unity. 



There appears to be a contradiction here. I have just 

 been emphasising that the direction-steps of which the line 

 is made up are indications as objective as are the notes com- 

 posing the melody. In like manner, the optical stimulus 

 , proceeding from the black colour of the arabesque is 

 undoubtedly also an objective indication ; but now the 

 line appears to be a subjective indication, because it 

 arises through the movement of the eye-muscles of the 

 subject. 



If the eye were mechanically connected with the arabesque, 

 and if the movement of the eye automatically followed along 

 it, then each step that the eye made along the line would 

 undoubtedly be an objective indication, as soon as it became 

 transformed into excitation by a corresponding effector. 

 The eye, however, follows the line of the arabesque by its 

 own muscular movement. In doing so, it proceeds also step 



