72 PSYCIIOLOOT. 



a good deal more to say upon the subject when we come to 

 the Chapter ou tlie Will. 



My conclusion then is this : that some of the restitution 

 of function (especially where the cortical lesion is not too 

 great) is probably due to genuinely vicarious function on 

 the p:u,it of the centres that remain ; whilst some of it 

 is due to the passing off of inhibitions. In other words, 

 both the vicarious theory and the inhibition theory are 

 true in their measure. But as for determining that measure, 

 or saying which centres are vicarious, and to what extent 

 they can learn new tricks, that is impossible at present. 



FINAL CORRECTION OF THE MEYNERT SCHEME. 



And now, after learning all these facts, what are we to 

 think of the child and the candle-flame, and of that scheme 

 which provisionally imposed itself on our acceptance after 

 surveying the actions of the frog ? [Cf. pp. 25-6, supra.) It 

 will be remembered that we then considered the lower cen- 

 tres en masse as machines for resi^onding to present sense- 

 impressions exclusively, and the hemispheres as equally 

 exclusive organs of action from inward considerations or 

 ideas ; and that, following Meynert, we supposed the hemi- 

 spheres to have no native tendencies to determinate acti^dty, 

 but to be merely superadded organs for breaking up the 

 various reflexes performed by the lower centres, and com- 

 bining their motor and sensory elements in novel ways. It 

 will also be remembered that I prophesied that we should 

 be obliged to soften down the sharpness of this distinction 

 after we had completed our survey of the farther facts. 

 The time has now come for that correction to be made. 



Wider and completer observations show us both that the 

 lower centres are more spontaneous, and that the hemi- 

 spheres are more automatic, than the Meynert scheme 

 allows. Schrader's observations in Goltz's Laboratory on 

 hemisphereless frogs * and pigeons f give an idea quite 

 different from the picture of these creatures which is 

 classically current. Steiner's X observations on frogs 



* Pfluger's Archiv, vol. 41, p. 75 (1887). jlbtd., vol. 44, p. 175 (1889) 

 ^Untersuchuugeu Uber die Physiologic des Froschhirns, 1885. 



