212 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



stead of a great number of similar centres. (Of course, accord- 

 ing to a dynamic theory, the act of consciousness is not the re- 

 sult of an excitation in any cell or cells but is produced by the 

 impinging of an aesthesodic upon a kinesodic system in recip- 

 rocal reaction. The transmission of nervous force does not 

 produce a higher force; but the peculiar interference or increase 

 of tension of nerve forces in antagonistic equilibrium does. 

 Consciousness depends on the dynamic element — a translation 

 of force into energy and thus, to us, there seems to be a com- 

 plete hiatus between consciousness and all other phenomena.) 



The above illustrations may serve to show that in the pre- 

 sentative field there are two forms of neurosis which enter into 

 our ideas of subjective and objective. But we seem to have 

 ignored the most obvious distinction — the various degrees of 

 :aesthetic value which the presentations possess. Upon the the- 

 ory of pleasure-pain elsewhere proposed it is possible for any 

 sensation to present with its own proper content other stimuli 

 due to the quantitative relations of the stimuli. (It may be 

 noticed in passing that the apparent difficulty in this theory — its 

 incompetence to explain the pains of negative states, as ennui 

 etc., is only apparent. Whether a stimulus is painful or not 

 depends not on the absolute intensity of the irritation but on 

 the capacity of the mechanism to transmit it. In ennui the 

 sluggish system is incapable of reacting against the slight stimuli 

 and their monotonous character causes a summation and inter- 

 mittent discharge. In fatigue the exaggerated bodily processes 

 of repair are sufficient to create summations in the enfeebled 

 nerve centres. In either case the awakening of attention will 

 remove the symptoms.) 



We conceive that the greater quantitative element involved 

 where pleasure-pain increments are present to a high degree ac- 

 counts for the tendency of such presentations to awaken kin- 

 esodic responses and that we reach by this means essentially the 

 same difference as that between the vestigeal and the " object- 

 ive" presentation. That is, in the presentation essentially de- 

 void of algedonic color, as in the vestigeal one, there is wanting 

 the reflected glow of the extra-focal processes which in the 



