24 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
are conditioned by its action. Psychical, or mental action, assumes three distinct 
forms, namely, Reflex, Latent, and Conscious. 
We have two kinds of reflex mental action—one natural and instinctive; the 
other artificial and acquired. Reflex mental action is that form of psychical phe- 
nomena which occur without the intervention of consciousness,and which, though 
unconscious, accomplish ends analogous to those which take place under the 
direction of thought and volition. 
We have what is termed a reflex psychical action when impulse is sent along 
an afferent nerve from the sunface of the body, and which,on reaching the sensory 
ganglia, is reflected or thrown back along an efferent nerve, in the form of muscu- 
lar motion. In this case an ingoing movement, resulting in a sensation, is con- 
verted into an outgoing movement without an intervention of consciousness. 
Such movements are called Automatic, because they are effected through the 
medium of the nervous mechanism mechanically, like the movements of automata. 
Illustrations of this class of psychic actions are furnished in the batting of the eyes 
when some object is suddenly thrust before them; in the unconscious throwing 
out of the hands to stay the body when about to fall; in the drawing up of the feet 
of a sleeping person when the soles are tickled. 
To ascertain the seat of reflex psychical action, has been one of the interest- 
ing and important questions of modern psychology. The study of psychical 
phenomena from the objective point of view has proved that the brain is not the 
sole seat of mind. The seat of consciousness is in the brain ; but the other forms 
of mental action cannot be restricted to that organ, but are developed, with more 
or less intensity, in the other parts of the nervous system. Consciousness is the 
eye of the soul, and is, therefore, a faculty. But it does not thence follow that 
the mind is active only when this faculty is active. The mind has other sources 
and springs of action. Descartes, followed by many philosophers, identified con- 
sciousness with mind, as though one should confound seeing with perceiving. 
Unconscious mental action we regard as the basis and condition of conscious 
mental action. In pure reflex actions, the brain, or cerebrum, takes no part. 
They are effected through the medium of the spinal cord and the other motor 
centers, of which the cord is a prolongation into the baseof the brain. Hence, 
animals of a low order, being more tenacious of life than those highly developed, 
when deprived of their brains will still perform reflex movements. Brain- 
_ less pigeons will smooth down their feathers ; brainless frogs will rub off sulphuric 
acid which has been dropped upon them, or adjust themselves on a board as it is 
inclined at different angles. Infants, born without brains, have been known to 
perform the usual operation of sucking. There is said to be a man ina French 
hospital who, in consequence of a wound received in the late war with Germany, 
passes out from his normal conscious life once in each month, and lives, for a day 
or two, a life of unconscious reflex action, like a decapitated frog or pigeon. He 
neither sees, hears nor tastes, nor smells, having only one sense organ in a state 
of activity, namely, that of touch, which is exalted into a state of preternatural 
