MENTAL FACULTIES 



assume the same to be true of all those faculties which, 

 whether they have their seat in the cerebrum or in the lower 

 nerve centres, have in an eminent degree a reflex character, and 

 therefore are described in the narrower sense as reflex move- 

 ments." 



In fact, it seems to be an unavoidable and self-evident 

 consequence of my view also that all reflex action is a property 

 acquired by practice, that it is inherited dexterity produced by 

 exercise. But if reflex action is included under the term 

 instinct, one must logically go so far, as E. v. Hartmann 

 does, as to speak of an instinct of the lower nerve centres, e.g. 

 of the sympathetic ganglion cells which govern the movements 

 of the heart and the intestine. Thus V. Hartmann explains 

 " the purposefulness of the reflex instincts of the lower nerve 

 centres" partly as the "outflow or as a caput mortuum of 

 former conscious purposeful action of the cerebrum" as 

 though all purposeful action must have been originally influ- 

 enced by the latter. Nay, further, he goes so far as to main- 

 tain "the essential similarity and continuity of transition 

 between instinct and natural recuperative power," and to 

 express the opinion that it is impossible to establish a different 

 principle of explanation for the two phenomena. " Accord- 

 ingly, the way in which the type of the whole worm is 

 contained in the ganglion of the worm -ring in process of 

 regeneration is to be described as a molecular ganglionic 

 predisposition established by inheritance." Further, "We 

 can consequently have no scruples in supposing the existence 

 in the ganglia which govern the vegetative sexual functions 

 of predispositions for the regulation of the development of 

 eggs and spermatozoa the most important and most delicate 

 products in the whole of organic life predispositions of the 

 same nature as those for the regeneration of lost parts of the 

 body, or for the construction of the comb of the bees, of the 

 web of the spider, or the shell of the Nautilus." 



