TUE PERCEPTION OF THINGS. VS6 



rents from the sense-organs arouse would seem under 

 normal circumstances to be arousable in no other wa}-. On 

 p. 72 if, above, we saw that the centres aroused by incom- 

 ing peripheral currents are probably identical with the 

 centres used in mere imagination ; and that the vividness 

 of the sensational kind of consciousness is probably cor- 

 related with a discrete degree of inteiwity in the process 

 therein aroused. Referring the reader back to that pas- 

 sage and to what was more lately said on p. 103 ff., I now 

 proceed to complete my theory of the perceptive process 

 by an analysis of what may most probably be believed to 

 take place in hallucination strictly so called. 



We have seen (p. 75) that the free discharge of cells 

 into each other through associative paths is a likely reason 

 why the maximum intensity of function is not reached 

 when the cells are excited by their neighbors in the cortex. 

 At the end of Chapter XXV we shall return to this concep- 

 tion, and whilst making it still more precise, use it for ex- 

 plaining certain phenomena connected with the will. The 

 idea is that the leakage forward along these paths is too 

 rapid for the inner tension in any centre to accumulate to 

 the maximal explosion-point, unless the exciting currents 

 are greater than those which the various portions of the 

 cortex sujDply to each other. Currents from the periphery 

 are (as it seems) the only currents whose energy can van- 

 quish the supra-ideational resistance (so to call it) of the 

 cells, and cause the peculiarly intense sort of disintegra- 

 tion with which the sensational quality is linked. If, hoiv- 

 ever, the leakage forirard ivere to stop, the tension inside cer- 

 tain cells might reach the explosion-point, even though the 

 influence which excited them came only from neighboring 

 cortical parts. Let an empty pail with a leak in its bottom, 

 tipped up against a support so that if it ever became full 

 of water it would upset, represent the resting condition of 

 the centre for a certain sort of feeling. Let water poured 

 into it stand for the currents which are its natural stimulus ; 

 then the hole in its bottom will, of course, represent the 

 'paths ' by which it transmits its excitement to other asso- 

 ciated cells. Now let two other vessels have the function 



