CHAPTER XXIII. 

 THE PRODUCTION OF MOVEMENT. 



'The reader will not have forgotten, in the jungle of 

 purely inward processes and products through which the 

 last chapters have borne him, that the final result of them 

 all must be some form of bodily activity due to the escape 

 of the central excitement through outgoing nerves. The 

 whole neural organism, it will be remembered, is, physio- 

 logically considered, but a machine for converting stimuli 

 into reactions ; and the intellectual part of our life is knit 

 up with but the middle or ' central ' portion of the machine's 

 operations. Let us now turn to consider the final or emer- 

 gent operations, the bodily activities, and the forms of con- 

 sciousness connected therewithal. 



Every impression which impinges on the incoming 

 nerves produces some discharge down the outgoing ones, 

 whether we be aware of it or not. Using sweeping terms 

 and ignoring exceptions, loe might say that every possible feel- 

 ing produces a movement, and that the movement is a movement 

 of the entire oi^ganism, and of each and all its parts. What 

 happens patently when an explosion or a flash of lightning 

 startles us, or when we are tickled, happens latently with 

 every sensation which we receive. The only reason why we 

 do not feel the startle or tickle in the case of insignificant 

 sensations is partly its very small amount, partly our obtuse- 

 ness. Professor Bain many years ago gave the name of the 

 Law of Difi'usion to this phenomenon of general discharge, 

 and expressed it thus : " According as an impression is ac- 

 companied with Feeling, the aroused currents diffuse them- 

 selves over the brain, leading to a general agitation of the 

 moving organs, as well as affecting the viscera." 



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