24 PSYCIIOL00 7. 



THE EDUCATION OF THE HEMISPHEBES. 



Nerve-currents run in through sense-organs, and whilst 

 provoking reflex acts in the lower centres, they arouse ideas 

 in the hemispheres, which either permit the reflexes in 

 question, check them, or substitute others for them. All 

 ideas being in the last resort reminiscences, the question to 

 answer is : Hoio can processes become organized in the hemi- 

 spheres ichich correspond to reminiscences in the mind ?* 



Nothing is easier than to conceive a possible way in 

 which this might be done, provided four assumptions be 

 granted. These assumptions (which after all are inevitable 

 in any event) are : 



1) The same cerebral process which, when aroused 

 from without by a sense-organ, gives the perception of an 

 object, will give an idea of the same object when aroused 

 by other cerebral processes from within. 



2) If processes 1, 2, 3, 4 have once been aroused to- 

 gether or in immediate succession, any subsequent arousal 

 •of any one of them (whether from without or within) will 

 tend to arouse the others in the original order. [This is the 

 so-called law of association.] 



3) Every sensorial excitement propagated to a lower 

 centre tends to spread upwards and arouse an idea. 



4) Every idea tends ultimately either to produce a 

 movement or to check one which otherwise would be pro- 

 duced. 



Suppose now (these assumptions being granted) that we 

 ihave a baby before us who sees a candle-flame for the first 



* I hope that the reader will take uo umbrage at uiy so mixing the 

 phj'sical and mental, and talking of reflex acts and hemispheres and remi- 

 niscences in the same breath, as if they were homogeneous quantities and 

 factors of one causal chain. I have done so deliberately; for although I 

 •admit that from the radically physical point of view it is easy to conceive 

 ■of the chain of events amongst the cells and fibres as complete in itself, 

 and that whilst so conceiving it one need make no mention of ' ideas,' 

 I yet suspect that point of view of being an unreal abstraction. Reflexes 

 in centres may take place even where accompanying feelings or ideas guide 

 them. In another chapter I shall try to show reasons for not abandoning 

 this common-sense position ; meanwhile language lends itself so much 

 more easily to the mixed way of describing, that I will continue to employ 

 the latter. The more radical-minded reader can always read 'ideational 

 process ' for • idea. ' 



