WILL. 517 



If the motor cells are distinct structures, they are as insen- 

 tient as the motor nerve-trunks are after the posterior roots 

 are cut. If they are not distinct structures, but are only 

 the last sensory cells, those at the 'mouth of the funnel,'* 

 then their consciousness is that of kinsesthetic ideas and 

 sensations merely, and this consciousness accompanies the 

 rise of activity in them rather than its discharge. The en- 

 tire content and material of our consciousness — conscious- 

 ness of movement, as of all things else — is thus of periph- 

 eral origin, and came to us in the first instance through 

 the peripheral nerves. If it be asked what we gain by this 

 sensationalistic conclusion, I reply that we gain at any rate 

 simj)licity and uniformity. In the chapters on Space, on 

 Belief, on the Emotions, we found sensation to be a much 

 richer thing than is commonly supposed ; and this chapter 

 seems at this point to fall into line with those. Then, as 

 for sensationalism being a degrading belief, which abol- 

 ishes all inward originality and spontaneity, there is this 



has studied is a complex resultant of many factors. One of them, it seems 

 to me, is an instinctive tendency to remrt to the type of the bilateral 

 inovements of childhood. In adult life we move our arms for the most 

 part in alternation ; but in infancy the free movements of the arms are 

 almost always similar on both sides, symmetrical when the direction of 

 motion is horizontal, and with the hands on the same level when it is ver- 

 tical. The most natural innervation, when the movements are rapidly per- 

 formed, is one which takes the movement back to this form. Our estima- 

 tion meanwhile of the lengths severally traversed by the two hands is 

 mainly based, as such estimations with closed eyes usually are (see Loeb's 

 own earlier paper, U liter suchungen fiber den Fuhlraum der Hand, in 

 Pflilger's Archiv, xli. 107), upon the apparent velocity and duration of 

 the movement. The duration is the same for both hands, since the move- 

 ments begin and end simultaneously. The velocities of the two hands are 

 under the experimental conditions almost impossible of comparison. It is 

 well known how imperfect a discrimination of Speights we have w^hen we 

 ' heft' them sinultaneously, one in either hand; and G. E. Miiller has well 

 shown (Ptliiger's Archiv, xlv. 57) that the velocity of the lift is the main 

 factor in determining our judgment of weight. It is hardly possible to 

 conceive of more unfavorable conditions for making an accurate compari- 

 son of the length of two movements than those which govern the experi- 

 ments which are under discussion. The only prominent sign is the dura- 

 tion, which would lead us to infer the equality of the two movements. We 

 consequently deem them equal, though a native tendency in our motor 

 centres keeps them from being so. 



* This is by no means an implausible opinion. See Vol I. p. 65. 



