lxxxii Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



3. It may with reservations be maintained that agreeableness and 

 disagreeableness accompany every mental state ; but these are given 

 in consciousness not as phases of a dependent quale or attribute, but 

 as simultaneously presented elements. 



Reference is made to Miinsterberg's theory that refiexly produced 

 flexions and extensions are the conditions of those conscious processes 

 which we call agreeableness and disagreeableness, and this is placed in 

 connection with Osswald's discovery that from the same motor nerve 

 root electrical, chemical, mechanical and thermal stimuli may, accord- 

 ing to the intensity and duration of the stimulation, produce move- 

 ments of either flexion or extension. 



Marshall's theory that " the activity of the organ of any content, 

 if efficient, is pleasurable, if inefficient, painful" is summarily dis- 

 missed, apparently because, as the author confesses, it is not under- 

 stood. Throughout the whole paper there is a very remarkable ignor- 

 ing of the element of irradiation which is the key to the physiological 

 aspect of this problem. It would seem that evidence is now sufficient 

 to show that the method of translation of the pleasure-pain stimuli is 

 one of the most important physiological differentials. Absolute reliance 

 is placed on Goldschneider's localization of hot, cold, and pain spots 

 on the skin, which has not been supported by recent careful experi- 

 ment. The present reviewer is far from convinced that the author 

 proves that the existence of pain centres, tracts and peripheral nerves 

 can be brought into accord with the results of introspective psycho- 

 logical analysis and still less convinced that recent discoveries in neu- 

 rology offer evidence for the existence of such organs. It is far more 

 probable that stimuli of certain intensities have the faculty of irradia- 

 tion or overflow and are thus conveyed (often slowly) through access- 

 ory channels or pass from cell to cell until summation phenomena are 

 developed which have genetic relation with sensation but differ in 

 their " massiveness." In some cases the irradiation is facilitated by 

 the state of the paths, in others it is inhibited. Repression may pro- 

 duce local accumulation and destructive violence, while facile trans- 

 lation produces acceleration of function ; thus a physical basis for 

 pleasure-pain is afforded. On the other hand the state of the trans- 

 mitting organs may be modified by central states so that the same peri- 

 pheral stimulus may at one time prove pleasurable, at another pain- 

 ful. The corresponding feelings are analogously related. It is be- 

 lieved that a physiological basis for the resistance theory is much more 

 easy to find than for a theory of specific centres. 



C. L. Herrick. 



