EVIDENCE PROVING THE STATEMENT OF THE CASE 113 



Let us explain. An army has a gradation of officers 

 from the lowest, the corporal, rising to the captain, 

 the colonel, to the commander-in-chief. Now we find 

 in the human organism a similar condition of things. 

 The evidence tends that there are subordinate nervous 

 cells centres from which are, as it is called, reflected 

 the nervous power, and these centres are connected by 

 fibres to superior centres, and so on until we come to 

 the centre of centres the cell or cells which is the 

 corresponding object in the body to that in the army 

 the commander-in-chief. This, however, has not been 

 traced out. We can only reason from physiological 

 effects. All phenomena which do not reach the chief 

 centre are reflected back, often without the knowledge 

 of that centre, and these are what are called, " reflex 

 actions," by physiologists. 



Dr. Waller states the facts in the following words : 

 " A familiar comparison may serve to bring home to 

 some minds a clearer picture of the relation that sub- 

 sists between cerebral and spinal shares in the govern- 

 ment of the body, and lead to a rational conception of 

 the relative significance of the terms voluntary and 

 reflex. An ordinary business enterprise, a factory, a 

 political party, an army in short, any body of men 

 gathered together under leadership is, like the collec- 

 tion of cells forming the animal body, led and controlled 

 by certain individuals whom we may call nerve-centres 

 and characterise as 4 master centres ' and as ' foreman 

 centres.' The function of a master centre in a body, 

 as in a business, is mainly that of administration, to 

 initiate proceedings the detailed supervision of which 

 is delegated to and carried out by foreman centres, to 

 actually take part in supervision only of novel proceed- 



