Feeling and Energy . 
389 
1878.] 
seat of our mental state when we are trying or wishing to 
remember. This is proved by our recollecting unexpectedly 
(after giving it up in despair) in a different mental connection 
— that is, in connection with nerves having a different 
physical connection. Then are we convinced that it is pos- 
sible that what we supposed was not attended by feeling or 
consciousness was really so attended after all. 
The mere faCt that feeling organs may not operate in con- 
nection with one another is no proof that they do not feel 
individually. In any case the statement as to the absence 
of feeling in any organ is on a par with the statement that 
a given organ does feel : neither statement can claim to be 
supported by absolute proof. The question, therefore, is 
resolved into one of consistency with known faCts, and I 
have endeavoured to show that the faCts cited under the 
terms “ unconscious cerebration ” and “ feelingless reflex 
aCtion ” are explainable quite consistently with the supposi- 
tion that all aCtion is prompted by antecedent feeling, 
whether or not the feelings concerned have connection with 
other feelings in neighbouring organs. 
At this point of the discussion I am reminded that it is 
incumbent on me to explain consistently with my hypothesis, 
the conditions falling under the terms sleep, swoon, coma, 
death, and the inorganic state. In this connection I need 
hardly remark that it is equally necessary to both hypotheses 
— that of concomitance and alternation alike — to admit that 
dynamical equilibrium in an organ presupposes the absence 
of what we ordinarily call feeling ; for it is the disturbance of 
this equilibrium that creates molecular vibration or nervous 
aCtion — what is ordinarily deemed a mere train of physical 
i sequences. The hypothesis of alternation is quite consistent 
with unconsciousness where dynamical equilibrium exists, 
for where no energy is being received no feeling can, by the 
hypothesis, exist. It is impossible to say with absolute 
certainty that in sleep, coma, or swoon there is total un- 
consciousness ; but even if there is an entire absence of 
feeling, it is doubtless due to the supervention of a state of 
equilibrium in the grouped organs of feeling — the nerves. 
This state of equilibrium may be considered as arising from 
the withdrawal of the blood-supply which seems necessary 
to preserve the semi-fluid condition of the “ axis-cylinders ” 
or true nerves — a condition in which doubtless vibration 
can alone arise from the ordinary exciting causes, and 
therefore a condition indispensable to the presence of 
feeling. The withdrawal of the blood from the nervous system 
seems to be the true cause, for it has been observed that 
