CONSCIOUSNESS AND SENSATION. 97 



logical. Can it be believed that the remaining 

 fibres traversing such a section approach in number 

 what would be necessary in allowing one nerve- 

 fibre for the area of distribution of each nerve- 

 fibre on the surface of the body ? 



If it be attempted to escape from this difficulty 

 by attributing with Dr. Beale a function of import- 

 ance to those numerous striae or fibrillae which that 

 writer, and after him, Max Schultze, have described 

 in nerve-corpuscles and axis-cylinders, the import- 

 ance of a single nerve-fibre as a conductor may be 

 indefinitely multiplied, but the assumption is made 

 that those fibrillae are really present during life, 

 and that each one is capable of maintaining the 

 active or the passive condition quite independent 

 of the others with which it is in close alliance ; an 

 assumption which must appear sufficiently great 

 to those who remember how little individuality 

 belongs to the much more easily demonstrated 

 fibrillae of muscular fibre. Even then, the diffi- 

 culty remains as much as ever ; for, if we suppose 

 that these fibrillae are continued down all the poles, 

 and that the peripheral nerves possess them, as 

 well as others, we have indefinitely multiplied the 

 tracts in the periphery as well as in the cord, and 

 left the disproportion in numbers the same as ever; 

 while, if we deny fibrillae to the peripheral nerves, 



