PSYCHO-PHYSICS 215 



quence of which its conducting power would be appropriately 

 enhanced or inhibited ? 



Bose was able to realise his theoretical anticipations 

 in a striking manner, by application of electric force 

 of a polar character. By conferring on the plant nerve 

 a favourable molecular disposition, a feeble stimulus, 

 previously below the threshold of perception, now produced 

 an extraordinarily large response. Conversely, an intense 

 excitation was arrested during transit by inducing opposite 

 molecular disposition on the nervous tissue. A climax was 

 reached when Bose was able by similar methods to confer 

 on the same nerve of an animal a supra-conducting or 

 non-conducting property at will. Thus, under a particular 

 molecular disposition of the nerve, the experimental frog 

 responded to stimulus which had hitherto been below 

 its threshold of perception. Under the opposite disposition 

 the violent spasm under salt- tetanus was at once quelled. 

 On the cessation of the directive force the nerve immediately 

 regained its normal property. 



Bose was thus able to demonstrate experimentally the 

 possibility of conferring two opposite * molecular disposi- 

 tions ' to the nerve by which the nervous impulse could be 

 accentuated or inhibited. And we are now able to obtain 

 a true insight of various phenomena within our experience 

 the effect of attention, for example, in increasing the power 

 of perception. The influence of suggestion, moreover, now 

 becomes understood. The most important to us is the 

 power of auto-suggestion or the power of Will. Who can 

 define this power of Will intensified by practice and con- 

 centration ? In the concluding portion of a recent address 

 there occurs the following passage on the potentiality 

 that is in man to rise victorious over circumstances : 



In the determination of sensation, then, the internal stimulus 

 of Will may play as important a part as the shock from outside. 

 And thus through the inner control of the molecular disposition 

 of the nerve, the character of the resulting sensation may 

 become profoundly modified. The external then is not so 



