356 THE BODY AT WORK 



sciousness. A sequence of similar sensations appeals to atten- 

 tion. Unlike sensations interfere one with another. The 

 apparent fusion is not a composite neural effect which con- 

 sciousness views as a single unit. Not even identical images 

 simultaneously formed on the two retinae produce a super- 

 imposed effect upon a particular spot in the brain. Different 

 brain-spots receive the two separate images which the mind 

 views as one. This raises a doubt as to whether perceptions 

 are, properly speaking, fused. It suggests that they are 

 separate points upon which attention rests in rapid succession ; 

 but such a hypothesis does not preclude the conception of the 

 production of a composite sensation by impulses coming 

 simultaneously from the same sense-organ e.g., a unified neural 

 effect as the result of several musical tones. 



Every neural agitation which attracts attention has an 

 effect upon the growth of the nerve-strands in which it occurs. 

 Memory is not an existent. It is the repassage of the same 

 strands. There is no such thing as memory. It is the neural 

 apparatus which responds in a similar way to a similar agita- 

 tion. It is difficult to speak of association and neural habit, 

 the phenomena upon which not only all mental life, but all 

 co-ordinated activities, are based, without using such expres- 

 sions as " the broadening of the path " or " the thickening of 

 the conductor " by the impulses which pass through it. 

 Apparently these analogies may with safety be pressed curi- 

 ously far. Chaotic response to stimulation is unknown. 

 Thanks to the nervous system, action exhibits an ordered 

 relation to stimulation. This relation is determined by educa- 

 tion, giving the term a connotation wide enough to cover all 

 experience. Nerve- tissue adjusts itself to experience ; and 

 since the nerve-matter which takes the pattern is not labile, 

 the process of organization is consecutive and the result per- 

 manent. One pattern is not destroyed as another is impressed. 

 Hence temporal associations are formed. What has been 

 thought once will be thought again, if the circumstances in 

 which it was thought recur. What has been done once will 

 be done again under the influence of a similar sequence 

 of stimuli. The conductors are widened every time that they 

 are used. But, so far as concerns the mind, a reversed influ- 

 ence comes into play. The wider the conductor, the less appeal 



