Neural Integration 1()5 



reflex effects can be excited [by fluid 1 from the very or£rans 

 the cutting and wounding of which remains witliout ett'ect." ^ 

 The reflex mechanism inyolyed is adjusted to respond only 

 to a stimulus of a special kind. In tliis it is comparable to 

 the optical mechanism referred to aboye. 



These illustrations show something of the general nature 

 of the reflex-arc as an integrated structure. But we want 

 to know something about the part contributed by the 

 difl*erent constituents of the arc to this nature. The spe- 

 cific office of sense organs yiewed as the receptor members of 

 the arcs will first engage attention. "The main function of 

 the receptor is therefore to lower the threshold of excit- 

 ahility of the arc for one kind of stimulus, and to heighten 

 it for all others.'^ ^ This principle is so important that we 

 must allow no yagueness as to its meaning. It means that 

 while more than one sort of stimulus may put a particular 

 sense apparatus into operation, there is one and only one 

 kind, namely, that to which the sense organ is naturally 

 subject, that elicits the reflex in its normal or type expres- 

 sion. A sense organ may be looked upon as a group of 

 receptors attuned to a special stimulus, as contrasted with 

 that of the general stimuli to which an organism is always 

 subject by being always in contact with its enyironment. 



In illustration Sherrington instances the fact that the 

 threshold for the touch-sensation is lower for a mechanical 

 stimulus than for an electrical stimulus. Haying regard to 

 the whole lot of reflex-arcs of the body, we may say that 

 the different sense organs constitute mechanisms of selective 

 excitability/ for the different stimuli, each organ })elng so 

 adapted to its natural stimulus that it responds to this 

 better than to any other. This reference to the sense or- 

 gans as adaptive makes it desirable to notice the fact that, 

 according to Sherrington, electricity is neyer an ade(ju<ite 

 stimulus of any sense organ because it is not a natural 

 stimulus for any, since it does not enter into the natural 



