APPENDIX I. 129 



signal.* It thus appears that " quick as thought " 

 is, after all, not so very quick. 



Concluding Remarks. The preceding results are 

 not entirely without a practical bearing. In medi- 

 cine, it is true, they have not yet been applied, 

 although, perhaps, in cases of paralysis, the velocity 

 of the nervous agent will be found diminished, and 

 diagnostic signs, more or less important, might be 

 derived therefrom. But as, strange to say, the 

 warlike art of gunnery first supplied physiology 

 with the means of measuring the velocity of the 

 nervous agent, so again it is a science apparently 

 far remote from this field of inquiry, astronomy, 

 which is the first to benefit by the progress achieved 

 in it. Astronomical observations, as regards the 

 exact determination of time, have hitherto attained 

 only a limited perfection. Till very recently, in- 

 deed, though the observations of the same astronomer 

 might agree ever so closely, still, between the 

 observations of several, even first-rate astronomers, 

 discrepancies occurred of one second and more, 

 resulting from the different estimate formed by the 

 observers of the time between the passage of the 

 star at the cross-wire and the next beat of the clock. 

 This uncertainty as to the real time of an astro- 

 nomical event has been greatly diminished by the 

 introduction into observatories of the electric chrono- 

 graph. It still subsists, however, and the only way 

 of removing it as completely as possible seems to 



* De physiologische Tijd bij psychische Processen, Acade- 

 misch Proefschri/t, &c. Utrecht, 1 Julij, 1865. 



K 



