48 FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



1 9. Cerebral Inhibition 



The best golf-player does not think, as he plays his 

 stroke, of the hundred-and-one muscular contractions 

 which, accurately co-ordinated, result in his making a 

 fine drive or a perfect approach ; nor does the pianist 

 examine the order of movement of his fingers. His 

 "sub-liminal self," his " unconscious cerebration," attends 

 to these details without his conscious intervention, and 

 all the better for the absence of what the nerve-physiol- 

 ogists call "cerebral inhibition" that is to say, the 

 delay or arrest due to the sending round of the message 

 or order to the muscles by way of the higher brain- 

 centres, instead of letting it go directly from a lower 

 centre without the intervention of the seats of attention 

 and consciousness. The sneezing caused in most people 

 by a pinch of ordinary snuff can be rendered impossible 

 by " cerebral inhibition," set up by a wager with the 

 snuff-taking victim that he will fail to sneeze in three 

 minutes, however much snuff he may take. His attention 

 to the mechanism of the anticipated sneeze, and his desire 

 for it, inhibit the whole apparatus. So long as you can 

 make him anxious to sneeze and fix his attention on the 

 effort to do so, by a judicious exhortation at intervals, 

 he will not succeed in sneezing. When the three 

 minutes are up, and you both have ceased to be inter- 

 ested in the matter, he will probably sneeze unexpectedly 

 and sharply. I was set on to this train of thought by 

 a recent visit to an exhibition of photographs. 



There were many very interesting illustrations of the 

 application of photography to scientific investigation. 

 Among others I saw a fine enlarged photograph of the 

 common millipede (Julus terrestris), and my desire was 

 renewed to have a bioscopic film-series of the movements 

 of this creature's legs. Some years ago I attempted 

 to analyse, and published an account of, the regular 



