CONSCIOUSNESS AND SENSATION. 97 
logical. Can it be believed that the remaining 
fibres traversing such a section approach in number 
what would be necessary in allowing one nerve- 
fibre for the area of distribution of each nerve- 
fibre on the surface of the body ? 
If it be attempted to escape from this difficulty 
by attributing with Dr. Beale a function of import- 
ance to those numerous striz or fibrillaz which that 
writer, and after him, Max Schultze, have described 
in nerve-corpuscles and axis-cylinders, the import- 
ance of a single nerve-fibre as a conductor may be 
indefinitely multiplied, but the assumption is made 
that those fibrille are really present during life, 
and that each one is capable of maintaining the 
active or the passive condition quite independent 
of the others with which it is in close alliance; an 
assumption which must appear sufficiently great 
to those who remember how little individuality 
belongs to the much more easily demonstrated 
fibrilla of muscular fibre. Even then, the diffi- 
culty remains as much as ever ; for, if we suppose 
that these fibrillz are continued down all the poles, 
and that the peripheral nerves possess them, as 
well as others, we have indefinitely multiplied the 
tracts in the periphery as well as in the cord, and 
left the disproportion in numbers the same as ever; 
while, if we deny fibrillz to the peripheral nerves, 
G 
