in FUNCTION OF MIND AND BRAIN 31 



infinitely numerous connecting fibres quell the tendency of 

 the motor centres to discharge. 1 The reflex impulse is 

 thus inhibited, and I hold on in spite of pain. Physically 

 the interpretation is of the same order all the way through. 

 The difference is that in the reflex the system of inter- 

 communication is simple, providing only for the undis- 

 turbed flow of excitement in one direction, while in the case 

 of inhibition the system has developed, and the wave of 

 excitement sets in motion energies in other parts of the 

 brain-mass which cancel its original movement. The 

 effect of this development is to bring the stimulus of the 

 moment into relation with other and more remote vital 

 functions, to increase the extent of correlation between 

 different parts, or incidents, of the entire activity of the 

 organism. And in effect it will be observed no matter as 

 yet by what method the correlation transcends the pre- 

 sent. The act is performed or restrained in virtue of 

 effects which will accrue in the future, perhaps the remote 

 future. At the same time the influences operating to pro- 

 mote or restrain it may derive from the past, perhaps the 

 remote past. Expressing the same thing in terms of mind, 

 what we should say of course is that present pain is dis- 

 counted for the sake of some wider, deeper or remoter end, 

 my safety or my credit. Whatever the nature of the end, 

 the obvious point is that the experience of the moment, 

 instead of being left isolated, is connected with other ex- 

 periences contemporaneous, past and future, and perhaps 

 with my life as a whole. Now to achieve such inter- 

 connection and thereby to order behaviour is, we may say, 

 the generic function of Mind regarded as a factor in life, 

 and we can thus easily see that the functions of Mind and 

 of the nervous system are generically the same. Speci- 

 fically we shall find that there are forms of correlation in 

 which the psychical factor is unimportant or absent, while 



1 The structure of the nervous system is specially adapted to the 

 inhibition and equally to the co-operation of reflexes by the fact that 

 many paths of conduction unite through synapses in common paths. If 

 two or more excitements end in the " final common path " leading 

 to the same muscle, they naturally cancel one another if opposed 

 and strengthen one another if allied (see Sherrington, op. clt. esp. 

 Lect. IV.). 



