92 PtiYCUOLOOT. 



I am happy to say that since the preceding paragraphs 

 (and the notes thereto appertaining) were written, Wundt 

 has himself become converted to the view which I defend. 

 He now admits that in the shortest reactions " there is 

 neither apperception nor will, but that they are merely 

 hrain-reflexes due to pyrictice.''^ * The means of his conver- 

 sion are certain experiments performed in his laboratory 

 by Herr L. Lange, t who was led to distinguish between 

 two ways of setting the attention in reacting on a signal, 

 and who found that they gave very different time-results. 

 In the ' exti'eme sensorial ' way, as Lange calls it, of reacting, 



minimum winking-time' is then 0.0471 {ibid. 581), whilst his reduced reac- 

 tion-time is 0828 [if/id. vii. 637). These tigures have really no scientilic 

 value beyond that of showing, according to Exner's own belief (vii. 581), 

 that Teacliou-time and retlex-time measure processes of essentially the same 

 order. His description, moreover, of the process is an excellent description 

 of a retlex act. " Every one," says he, " who makes reaction-time experi- 

 ments for the first time is surprised to find how little he is master of his own 

 movements, so soon as it becomes a question of executing them with a 

 maximum of speed. Not only does their energy lie, as it were, outside the 

 field of choice, but even the time in which the movement occurs depends 

 only partly upon ourselves. We jerk our arm, and we can afterwards tell 

 with astonishing precision whether we have jerked it quicker or .slower than 

 another time, although we have no power to jerk it exactly at the wi.shed-for 

 moment." — Wundt himself admits that when we await a strong signal with 

 tense preparation there is no consciousness of any duality of ' appercep- 

 tion ' and motor response; the two are continuous (Physiol. Psych., ii. 

 326). — Mr. Cattell's view is identical with the one I defend. "I think," 

 he says, "that if the processes of perception and willing are present at all 

 they are very rudimentary. . . . The subject, by a voluntary effort [before 

 the signal comes], puts the lines of communication between the centre for" 

 the stimulus "and the centre for the co-ordination of motions . . . in a state 

 of unstable equilibrium. When, therefore, a nervous impulse reaches the" 

 former centre, "it causes brain-changes in two directions; an impulse moves 

 along to the cortex and calls forth there a perception corresponding to the 

 stimulus, while at the same time an impulse follows a line of small resist- 

 ance to the centre for the co-ordination of motions, and the proper nervous 

 impulse, already prepared and waiting for the signal, is sent from the 

 centre to the muscle of the hand. When the reaction has often been 

 made the entire cerebral process becomes automatic, the impulse of itself 

 takes the well-travelled way to the motor centre, and releases the motor 

 impulse." (Mind, xi. 282-8.) — Finally, Prof. Lipps has, in his elaborate 

 way (Grundtatsachen, 179-188), made mince-meat of the view that stage 3 

 involves either conscious perception or conscious will. 



* Physiol. Psych., Gd edition (1887), vol. ir. p. 266. 



t Philosophische Studien, vol. iv. p. 479 (1888). 



