1 88 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



ions with the cortical regions bear the character of commissural 

 fibres, associating its activity with various parts of the cortex, 

 not subordinating- them as is the case with the thalamus, which 

 latter forms only an intermediate station (an internodium) be- 

 tween the higher and the lower centres. Our conception of 

 the function of the striate body is corroborated by the fact that 

 according to Wernicke the putamen does not stand in a direct 

 relation to the corona radiata. It receives no fibres from it. 

 Wernicke traces some fibres of the second stripe to the corona 

 radiata, but even they are comparatively few. The greatest 

 part of the two inner stripes forms an intermediate station be- 

 tween the putamen as well as the caudate body and the lower 

 ganglia of the descending fibres. 



Experiments show, as Landois says, that if the striate 

 body is irritated by an electric current the result appears to be 

 the same as if the motor centres of the hemispheres were ex- 

 cited all at once. Nothnagel calls the middle part of the striate 

 body near the ventricle the Laufkuotcn, or ganglion of running. 



It is a great pity that the central position of the striate 

 body renders it very difficult to experiment with it, and thus 

 we know little more of its functions than these isolated facts. 

 But they seem to justify the hypothesis of considering the 

 striate body as the ganglion of co-ordinating the various cerebral 

 activities and rendering them voluntary by focusing their feeling 

 in a well defined state of consciousness. It is true that, should 

 our hypothesis be true, new problems present themselves, but 

 that must be expected of any solution. We may ask : Is the 

 differentiation of the striate body into the lenticular and cau- 

 date .bodies only due to the fact that the fibres of the corona 

 radiata happen to break their way through here, which would 

 make the division incidental and physiologically insignificant, or 

 does the division indicate a differentiation of function ? Now 

 the functions of consciousness are mainly two in kind : there is 

 first the continuous apperception of self and of the surround- 

 ings ; and secondly, the conscious chain of personal recollect- 

 ions which constitute the history of a man's life. How far do 

 these two functions co-operate ? How far are they distinct ? 



