374 Appendix 



different elementary physiological states, of which each 

 is effective at one definite point of the organism, and all 

 combined constitute the general physiological state, 

 possesses the faculty of depositing independently a "spe- 

 cific accumulation/' from all indications similar to that 

 deposited in the brain by each of the nervous currents 

 which make up the different sensations and leave behind 

 a mnemonic residue capable of being reactivated or 

 revived, By "specific accumulations" of the various ner- 

 vous currents we mean here only that every accumula- 

 tion is capable of giving as discharge only that par- 

 ticular specificity of the nervous current by which this 

 accumulation has itself been deposited. 



The extension of this faculty of "specific accumula- 

 tion" to all physiological phenomena in general accords 

 with the hypothesis that nervous energy is the basis 

 for all the phenomena of life. If in the psycho- 

 mnemonic phenomena properly so called the action 

 of nervous energy produced by "discharge" or 

 by stimulation of the respective center appears in the 

 foreground, whereas the specific physico-chemical 

 phenomena accompanying the discharge remain in the 

 background so that until recently they were quite over- 

 looked, that would be according to the fundamental 

 concept of Claude Bernard on the essential identity of 

 all the different forms of irritability of living matter 

 a difference of degree only but not of essence, inasmuch 

 as true physiological phenomena accompanying the re- 

 spective stimulation (muscular contraction, glandular 

 secretion, etc.) appear with greater distinctness, where- 

 as the specific nervous phenomena which likewise accom- 

 pany this physiological activity are less perceptible. In 

 this way we have tried to explain the fundamental nine- 



