CONFORMITY WITH PLAN 357 



function-circles, with reference to the medium, enemies, 

 food, family life, the business of the community, etc. 



The world-as-sensed, discovered through observation of the 

 body, contains a greater number of indications than the world 

 of the senses can afford us directly. The stimulus producing 

 the reflex closing of the eyelid is often so trivial and so fleeting 

 that we are not conscious of it at all, and yet we shall admit 

 that even this releases an indication, though, for our con- 

 sciousness, it may remain below the threshold. The nature 

 of this indication belonging to the reflex-arc is as much out 

 of the reach of our knowledge as though we were dealing 

 with that of some animal ; and yet it belongs to the sensed- 

 world of our body. The same is true of all the indications 

 that appear in the countless reflex actions of our organs, 

 especially the organs of digestion, respiration and circulation. 

 We know absolutely nothing about the indications of our 

 innumerable body-cells. What we are conscious of are only 

 those that appear in the mark-organ of our brain, when 

 we perform plastic actions. This is the whole material that 

 serves for the construction of our conscious sensed-world. 



The proof of this lies in the fact that only those nerve- 

 fibres that run from the organs of reception to the cerebral 

 hemispheres cause sensations to arise in us when they are 

 directly stimulated : when any of the other nerves are so 

 stimulated, we have no sensations. Accordingly it is only 

 on stimulation of the mark-organ that sensations arise in us, 

 and not on stimulation of the action-organ of the central 

 nervous system. Moreover, if the process runs on reflex 

 or instinctive lines, no sensations are experienced. From 

 which we may conclude that sensations are connected with 

 the onset of super-mechanical processes in the mark-organ. 



Only when this has been recognised, can we attain to a 

 right understanding of the fundamental doctrine of Johannes 

 MiiUer, who described as " specific sensory energy " the 



