36 DR. HILL, FROM REFLEX ACTION TO VOLITION. 



Machine ? Wide as is the gap between the tissue which lies 

 upon the stage of the microscope and the functions of which, 

 when alive, that tissue was the seat, the anatomist who is 

 constantly occupied in the study of the nervous system 

 cannot refrain from attempting to answer the question: " How 

 does it do its work?" Fastening facts as steps upon the face 

 of the knowable, Ave attempt to climb as far as they will carry 

 us in order that we may take a wider survey of the unknow- 

 able. No two thinkers assign to their data the same value, 

 or use them in the same way ; nor have Ave any means of 

 deciding who has climbed the highest or sees the farthest. 

 The views which I Avish to lay before you to-night are merely 

 the reflections of an anatomist as to the functions of the 

 tissue at which he works, not the analysis by the psychologist 

 or metaphysician of the phenomena of mental action. 

 Nevertheless, this paper must to a certain extent treat of its 

 subject from both sides. Looking up from the microscope 

 the anatomist asks himself: "What is the work which the brain 

 has to do ?" Attempting to picture it in action he turns from 

 the fabric to the machine, from the machine to the fabric, in 

 his efforts to realise the relation between the two. 



May I use this illustration of the fabric and its manufacture, 

 to explain the objects of this paper? Let us imagine that 

 Ave find ourselves placed before a curtain-making machine, 

 and its wonderfully intricate product a lace curtain, and that 

 we try by contemplating the curtain on the one hand, and 

 the machine on the other, to realise the machine in action, the 

 curtain in process of formation. Look first at the curtain, a 

 labyrinth of threads, crossing and recrossing, looping and 

 knotting, in apparent confusion, but each thread holding its 

 proper place in the pattern, taking part in the realization of a 

 design, which when seen as a Avhole, conveys what seems to 

 be a simple idea, a picture it may be of fruit or flowers. The 

 machine in which this intricate texture is woven must, 

 to some extent, resemble its product in complexity and 

 delicacy ; and it is not without an object that I choose the 

 lace curtain for my illustration. It suggests the fabric, the 

 formation of which Ave wish to investigate. The thought 

 Avhich — preceding volition — flashes, as Ave say. into the mind, 

 presenting to our consciousness what Ave take to be an integral 

 idea, is like the curtain woven of many threads, the ends of 

 which reach far backwards in our lives. It is made up of 

 the experiences of a lifetime, and each experience of 

 countless filaments of sensation. 



