298 Cc. U. ARIENS KAPPERS 
forces on the same point of application), while polydendritism is 
possible and even usual on account of the fact that their forma- 
tion is not a resultant line of different forces on the same pole 
(mathematically expressed of different forces on the same point) 
of the cell body since the perinuclear and dendritic protoplasm 
is equally sensitive everywhere to the kathodic influence and may 
respond at several different places to several stimuli of different 
origin, each of which may affect it on that part of its wbiquitous 
receptive surface that is nearest by. 
The ability of the neurone to receive at the same time more 
than one stimulus by different dendrites and to lead their com- 
pound along one axis-cylinder, may be considered as the material 
expression of the formation of a compound impression from 
different perceptions, and this compound again acts as a factor 
in the formation of higher, more complicated compounds, if the 
axis-cylinder runs in the cerebral direction. If it runs in the 
aboral direction, the axis-cylinder is the final common path 
leading to a somatic effector center. 
It seems hardly necessary to emphasize that I do not believe 
that nervous life and still less its psychic, conscious realization 
are, or even could be, explained by such considerations—pro- 
vided they are right. They may, at the best, give us an idea of 
some physico-chemic processes that accompany its evolution 
and explain the form in which our nervous elements appear. 
After all, ‘“‘life’ and its ‘‘données immediates’’ (Bergson)** 
remain as self-imposing truths, that are revealed in but not 
explained by any phenomenon whatever. 
55 Bergson. |’Evolution Creatrice. Felix Alean. Paris, 1907. 
