386 A7ii'mal Life and Intelligence. 



likely to deny. In its higher ranges it is the objective basis 

 and aspect of self-restraint. 



A stimulus gives rise to sensation and perception ; the 

 perception gives origin to an emotional state; and the 

 emotional state is fulfilled in appropriate motor-activities. 

 The process is a continuous one, and, in the absence of 

 inhibition, would in all cases inevitably fulfil itself. But 

 through the faculty of inhibition, the final state of activity 

 may be postponed or suppressed. We may place side by 

 side the physiological series and the accompanying psycho- 

 logical series thus — 



Stimulus of ) ^ . . . { Stimulus of 



> -^ nervous processes m brain —=^ \ , 



sense-organ j ^ ^ \ motor-organs. 



Consciousness of ) , , . ^. ( Consciousness of 



i- 1 ><— perception, emotion— ^< ,. ., 

 sense-stimulus J r r > ^ y activity. 



The arrows pointing away from perception and emotion 

 are intended to indicate the fact that the consciousness of 

 sense-stimulus on the one hand, and of activity on the 

 other hand, are accompaniments of the nervous processes in 

 the brain, and are referred outwards to the sense-organ or 

 the motor-organ, as the case may be. It must be remem- 

 bered that the two series, physiological and psychological, 

 belong to distinct phenomenal orders. If one speaks of 

 emotion being fulfilled in activity, and thus seems to jump 

 from the psychological to the physiological series, one does 

 so merely to avoid the appearance of pedantry. 



Now, by the postponement or suppression of action, the 

 process is either arrested in its middle phase, the motor- 

 organs not being innervated at all, or, as I believe to be 

 more probable, the motor-organs are doubly innervated, a 

 stimulus to activity being counteracted by an inhibitory 

 stimulus, the two neutralizing each other either in the 

 motor- organ or the efferent nerves which convey the stimuli. 

 In any case, there is no consciousness * of activity. And 

 the mind occupies itself more and more completely with 

 the central processes, perception, and emotion, and also, in 



* Such consciousness of activity is probably associated with the innerva- 

 tion of afferent, not efferent, nerves. 



