43 



at unlike rates, countless other seemingly-simple sensations 

 are produced." 1 And in another instance, following a state- 

 ment that "with each muscular contraction there goes a sen- 

 sation more or less definite", we are told that "This sensation 

 * * * is directly produced either by the discharge itself or by 

 the state of the muscle or muscles excited." 2 To make this 

 more clear, Spencer continues thus: "Between a perception 

 physiologically considered, and a perception psychologically 

 considered, the relation now becomes manifest. We see that 

 a perception can have in a nerve centre no definite localization, 

 but only a diffused localization. No one excited fibre or cell 

 produces consciousness of such external object; the con- 

 sciousness of such external object implies excitement of a 

 plexus of fibres and cells. And not only does this plexus of 

 fibres and cells differ with every other object, but it differs 

 with every different position of the same object." He illus- 

 trates this by drawing a comparison between a perception and 

 a musical chord sounded on a piano. "As by striking a certain 

 set of keys there is brought out a particular combination of 

 tones, simple or complex, concordant or discordant, so when a 

 special object seen strikes by its image a special cluster of 

 retinal elements, and through them sends waves to the fibres 

 and cells of a corresponding central plexus, there results the 

 special aggregate of feelings constituting perception of the 

 object. Without further detail the reader will see how it thus 

 becomes possible for a limited number of fibres and cells to 

 become the seat of a relatively unlimited number of percep- 

 tions." But a piano, he adds, is a dead mechanism. How- 

 ever, "if our piano were so constituted that after any two 

 chords had been repeatedly sounded in succession, there re- 

 sulted some structural change such that when the first of these 

 chords was again evoked by the performer's hands, a faint 

 echo of the second chord followed without aid from the per- 

 former's hands, the parallel would be nearer." 



"We may now pass from perceptions to ideas. Though 

 every true perception along with its presentative feelings 

 necessarily contains certain representative feelings, these do 

 not at first become what we usually understand by ideas. 

 They have not the detachableness which distinguishes ideas 

 that are fully developed. They can be called into existence 

 only by the sense-impressions with which they are directly 

 connected in experience; and they can continue to exist only 

 so long as these continue to exist. To return to our illustra- 

 tion a creature so constructed as to be capable of nothing 



>O.C. 74. 

 2 O.C. 46. 



