854 The Relations of Mind and Matter. [September, 
germ cell of an animal exists as a remarkable counterpart of the 
general energies of its parent, and the offspring develops into a 
close copy of the parental physical characteristics and mental 
conditions. Yet the special knowledge of the parent is never 
transmitted to the child. Unless the latter gain special knowl- 
edge of its own, it will remain in this respect undeveloped. So 
one cell may transmit to its successor its organizing characteris- 
tics, but scarcely its more delicate special motor conditions. 
In fact, the more we consider this hypothesis the more unsat- 
isfactory does it appear. If the brain is to be looked upon as a 
material organism, a machine with thought for one of its products, 
we might naturally expect to find some analogy to its mode of 
action in other machines. It is credited with a double duty. It 
is a receiver and dispatcher of nervous impressions, and it has a 
special discriminating power as to how, when and whither it shall 
despatch these impressions. What is there in the brain to decide 
which impressions shall be retained and which transmitted? Are 
there special resistances in some cells of the brain which hinder 
the transmission of sensory impressions to the muscles? If so, 
how come these resistances to break down at such arbitrary 
periods. What principle makes some cells resisting and others 
non-resisting? How is it, again, after this resistance has yielded, 
and the motor energy flowed out to the muscles, that the thought 
which it represents is still found intact in the mind, and usually 
stronger than before? What machine is it that has its energy 
within itself and still possesses it after using it to set a train of 
wheels in motion? And finally, how do we explain the peculiar 
relations of consciousness to these thought impressions ? 
- All this presents no difficulty if we can conceive of a mental 
organism distinct from, but in the most intimate relation with, the 
cerebrum, upon whose separate regions its thoughts play, like the 
fingers of a performer upon the separate keys of a piano. The 
same finger may touch many keys in succession and bring outa 
special tone from each.” The player may be a single organism, & 
resultant of organizing motor energies inherent in a definite mass 
= of substance, while the instrument may be made up of many sep- 
arate parts, having only general and no intimate interrelations. 
: The player may bring out what sound he desires, but it would 
_ not be easy for one key to emit another sound at will, or to force 
another key to emit its special sound. And even if the piano 
