498 PSYCHOLOGY. 



tinct processes in the brain-cortex (eacli corresponding to 

 the idea or memory-image of one movement), and a million 

 distinct paths of discharge. Everything would then be 

 unambiguously determined, and if the idea were right, the 

 movement would be right too. Everything after the idea 

 might then be quite insentient, and the motor discharge 

 itself could be unconsciously performed. 



The partisans of the feeling of innervation, however, 

 say that the motor discharge itself must be felt, and that 

 it, and not the idea of the movement's distinctive effects, 

 must be the projjer mental cue. Thus the principle of 

 parsimony is sacrificed, and all economy and simplicity are 

 lost. For what can be gained by the interposition of this 

 relay of feeling between the idea of the movement and the 

 movement ? Nothing on the score of economy of nerve- 

 tracts ; for it takes just as many of them to associate a 

 million ideas of movement with a million motor centres, 

 each with a specific feeling of innervation attached to its 

 discharge, as to associate the same million ideas with a 

 million insentient motor centres. And nothing on the score 

 of precision ; for the only conceivable way in which the 

 feelings of innervation might further precision would be by 

 giving to a mind whose idea of a movement was vague, a sort 

 of halting stage with sharper imagery on which to collect 

 its wits before uttering ii^ fiat. But not only are the con- 

 scious discriminations between our kinsesthetic ideas much 

 sharper than any one pretends the shades of difference be- 

 tween feelings of innervation to be, but even were this not 

 the case, it is impossible to see how a mind with its idea 

 vaguely conceived could tell out of a lot of Innervations- 

 gefilhle, were they never so sharply differentiated, which one 

 fitted that idea exactly, and which did not. A sharply con- 

 ceived idea will, on the other hand, directly awaken a dis- 

 tinct movement as easily as it will awaken a distinct feeling 

 of innervation. If feelings can go astray through vague- 

 ness, surely the fewer steps of feeling there are interposed 

 the more securely we shall act. We ought then, on a 

 priori grounds alone, to regard the Innervationsgefuhl as 

 a pure encumbrance, and to presume that the peripheral 

 ideas of movement are sufficient mental cues. 



