CH. I.] NERVE-ACTIONS IN GENERAL. 201 



than that of which it is capable in virtue of its purely animal 

 force, which it reflects upon the motor nerves (364, ii); and 

 the whole of tliis action is purely corporeal and automatic, and 

 cannot be changed, or induced, or extended, or limited, or 

 directed volitionally. If, on the other hand, the external im- 

 ^pression be also felt, then the mind, according to its psycho- 

 logical laws, connects volitionally with it many other conceptions 

 (2 1 9 — 224) , the internal impression s of which can produce through 

 the motor nerves such sentient actions as the unfelt external 

 impression could not have developed at all, or, at least, not in 

 (combination with the will of the animal. It is for this reason, 

 !that we find animals without brain and without any traces of 

 Imind, to be capable of very few kinds of animal movements ; 

 that those of which they are capable are excited by the external 

 'impressions automatically and necessarily ; and that they are so 

 .far from being under the control of the animal, as to be excited 

 ind continue just the same whether they be injurious or bene- 

 icial. In animals endowed with mind, on the contrary, every 

 external sensation develops by means of the series of secondary 

 conceptions caused by it, yet spontaneously or volitionally, a 

 number of new movements, which would not have resulted from 

 the unfelt external impression in this connection, and perhaps 

 not at all. Now, if nature has compensated brainless animals 

 for the want of spontaneous and volitional conceptions adapted 

 [to their preservation and well-being, by the automatic and 

 necessary results of mere impressions, as is particularly the 

 case in the instincts (266) ; it is obvious, that it is with the 

 same object in view that nature has endowed other animals 

 capable of so much more varied animal motor forces, with the 

 faculty of both feeling the external impressions and acting in 

 accordance with the resulting sensations. (Compare § 184, ii.) 

 371. The same relations exist with regard to internal im- 

 pressions. When they are not produced by conceptions, they 

 originate automatically and corporeally from mere animal stimuli 

 of the nerve- medulla, either at the cerebral origin, or in the 

 trunk of the nerves ; and nerve- actions in the machines result 

 just as automatically and corporeally ; either because a purely 

 physical influence suitably irritates the nerves from above 

 downward, or else, because unfelt external impressions reflected 

 in their course to the brain act in the same way. If, however. 



