762 Dynamic Theory. 



Now this action of various organs thus brought into co-operation to a 

 definite end, each step or instalment of which action changes the rela- 

 tionship of our consciousness to the recollection required, is in the na- 

 ture of a series of guiding sensations. If a man has an appointment to 

 be at 301 Hennepin Ave. at 3 p. m. , in order to keep it he must have 

 the guidance of certain sensations. As he walks, each step taken sup- 

 plies, by the activity of his muscular sense, the data for the next. If his 

 muscular sense were paralyzed, the second step would not be taken, un- 

 less the visual sense should become a substitute for it, and if that, too, 

 were paralyzed, the journey would immediately terminate, regardless of 

 the fact that his motor apparatus might still be in good order. We do 

 not realize, without special attention, how dependent our physical move- 

 ments are every moment upon these guiding sensory stimulations. When 

 the man has finished his walk, every step of it will have been at least 

 temporarily registered in motions of his nervous tissues, the whole con- 

 stituting a series of motor acts alternating with sensory stimulations like 

 the endless thread of a chaiii-stitch seam. The thread cannot make a 

 new efferent excursion till it returns from the last one. At any point 

 ou the journey if this thread could be traced and the stitches counted, 

 the position of the man with relation to his starting point could be as- 

 certained, and he could recover his starting point by retracing his steps. 

 That is just what is done in the processes of recollection requiring 

 effort. The organ of each separate step is restimulated by the passage 

 to it of the stimulus from its next neighbor. As each restimulated or- 

 gan reflects its agitation back to the organ representing the motive, if it 

 fails to satisfy it, it becomes the basis and guide of the next forward 

 movement of stimulation, and so on till one is reached which completes 

 the motive. Just as, after we have walked toward our destination for a 

 length of time, at the end of each step we are still prepared to take 

 another, conscious that each step, while it is not the one which is to 

 complete the journey, is forming a necessary preparation for a final one 

 that will. 



In the foregoing I may not have correctly indicated the details of the 

 physiological processes, since our knowledge is in part inferential, but 

 I have, without doubt, pointed out the principles upon which all pur- 

 posive cerebral action proceeds ; for, as we shall see, it is all based upon 

 memory. The performance of a purpose to reason, to compose a poem, 

 or to solve a problem, is carried out upon the same general principles 

 as those which govern the recovery of a memory. Indeed, all such ac- 

 tion is nothing more than the recovery of memories. 



The processes or motives which enter into the formation of the will, 

 are, of necessity, automatic, and they are often unconscious. To sup- 

 pose otherwise is to assume that every will is the offspring of a will that 



