SENSATION AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 277 



ment seems to spread within certain limits from the 

 point directly touched. 



7. These j)henomena will become more evident 

 when we have more accurately learned the origin of 

 conscious sensations in general, and the conceptions 

 which depend on this. In order that such conscious 

 sensations should result it seems absolutely necessary 

 that the excitement should reach the main brain 

 {cerebrum). Whether other parts of the brain, or even 

 the spinal marrow, are able to give rise to conscious 

 sensations is at least very doubtful, and is at any rate 

 not proved.' But when the excitement reaches the 

 brain, it gives rise not only to feelings, but also to 

 very definite conceptions as to the nature of the excite- 

 ment, its cause, and the locality at which it acts. It 

 is true that sometimes this effect fails and the irritant 

 does not reach consciousness, as, for example, when the 

 attention is strongly attracted in some other direction, 



* The dispute about the so-called ' mind in the spinal marrow ' 

 (^RilckeiunafJcsseele), the question, that is, whether more or less clear 

 conscious conceptions can occur in the nerve-cells of the spinal cord, 

 was long and hotly debated, but is now at rest. It appears to me 

 that the whole form of the question is unscientific, for the question 

 can simply not be solved with the means for research which we can 

 command. Our own consciousness informs us as to our own sensa- 

 tions and conceptions, and we learn those of others from their lips. 

 Where this fails, opinion is always untrustworthy, as, for example, 

 where we try to infer the feelings of men from their behaviour. 

 It is, however, yet more hazardous to attach importance to the 

 movements of a brainless animal, and it is therefore not surprising 

 that two observers should draw quite different conclusions from the 

 same facts, one explaining them as simple reflections, the other being 

 of opinion that such behaviour under such circumstances is only ex- 

 plicable as the result of conscious sensations and conceptions. The 

 lower the animal is in the scale, the more untrustworthy, naturally, 

 is the decision. 



