SENSIBILITY AND MIND. 89 



they result from the arousing of a headless battery of 

 nerve matter that is still working under the stimulus 

 of waning vitality. The battery is part of a vital 

 machine that once possessed a directing brain, yet is 

 now only an excito-motory center that executes func- 

 tion when provoked, and in directions habit has estab- 

 lished. Thus the trunk and tail of a decapitated 

 menopome will strike toward the part pinched or 

 worried as if to bite or hit the cause of the irritation. 

 The headless body, if turned upon its back, will make 

 an effort to regain its feet; and if the attempt be suc- 

 cessful, the trunk will remain still and at rest, there 

 being no struggle to run away. The effort to regain 

 the feet is not that of purpose, but one of habit. A 

 headless creature can have no desire or plan. The 

 trunk of a recently decapitated lizzard will poise itself 

 upon the feet, and even take steps forward, yet no in- 

 telligence is manifested by such movements. If a toe 

 be pinched, the stump of a neck will strike at the 

 pestering object, as if it were executing an intelligent 

 purpose, yet the movements are excito-motory, or auto- 

 matic. There can be no will or wish in the matter. 

 Even this excito-motory activity ceases in the course 

 of a few hours, or as soon as the nerve-battery in the 

 spinal centers is dead or unimpressible. The heart of 

 a menobranchus will beat for hours after the organ is 

 removed from the body, the muscular contractility 

 being kept up by neural ganglia in the cardiac tissue. 

 The throes or throbs are as rhythmic as if the heart 

 were in the living creature. The action is excito- 

 motory, and will continue as long as the nerve-battery 

 in the organ be vitalized. 



In speaking of the physical properties and pro- 



