510 MESSRS. F. GOTCH AND V. HORSLEY 



of it no basis of actual fact, but that it is more philosophical to associate such source 

 with the sensory part. 



Among the considerations which favour this view are the following : The 

 undoubted physiological resemblance which exists between the succession of events in 

 a voluntary or reflex movement, respectively, and the analysis of such psychological 

 events as are known to be concomitants of the former. The psychological phenomena 

 of reflex action show that the afferent impulse in all cases precedes the efferent dis- 

 charge ; psychological analysis also shows that muscular sense impressions similarly 

 precede those discharges which evoke " voluntary " coordinated movements. Hence 

 he concluded that since the sensory excitation always precedes the efferent output, the 

 former must have primary importance, in other words, that the development of kinetic 

 energy must take place in the afferent side of the centre. To express this view 

 briefly he coined the term kinaesthesis. 



As the electrical method affords the first opportunity of an experimental contribu- 

 tion to this subject, it is interesting to find how strongly its application bears out 

 BASTIAN'S position. In this chapter it appears probable that the kinetogenetic 

 portion of the centre is the afferent side of it, and the more especially when it is 

 seen how readily the centre discharges into the afferent nerve channels (i.e., actually 

 " backwards," as compared to the course of ordinary afferent impression). 



The method has further enabled us to ascertain what connections and facilities for 

 conduction the efferent, or so-called motor side of a nerve centre possesses, and 

 instead of finding, as might have been expected from the ordinarily expressed beliefs on 

 this subject, that we had to deal with a source of energy that was readily aroused, 

 and freely connected with its neighbours, we found, to our surprise, that it afforded 

 nothing of the sort, and that its power of conducting impulses centripetally was 

 apparently nil. 



Curiously enough, this last point was foreseen also by JAMES, who, in his celebrated 

 work on the 'Feeling of Effort,' 1880, while endorsing the views of BASTIAN, says 

 that the " electrodes of the physiologist," if applied to the central end of the anterior 

 root, would not arouse any "sentient," i.e., afferent impulse in the cord. We are 

 happy to find that our experimental results, unusual though they were, are, never- 

 theless, in close agreement with the deductions of the logical method of these 

 distinguished writers. 



