Problems of Life and Mind. Second series by George Henry Lewes (best contemporary novels TXT) 📕

161. The foregoing remarks have had the object of showing how little substantial aid Psychology can at present derive from what is known of the elementary structure of the nervous system, indispensable as an accurate knowledge of that structure must be to a complete analysis of its functions. This caution has been specially addressed to those medical and psychological students whose researches leave them insufficient leisure to pursue microscopical investigations for themselves, and who are therefore forced to rely on second-hand knowledge, which is usually defective in the many qualifying considerations which keep scepticism vigilant. Relying on positive statements, and delusive diagrams which only display what the observer imagines, not what he actually sees, they construct on such data theories of disease, or of mental processes; or else they translate observed facts into the terms of this imaginary anatomy, and offer the translation as a new contribution to Science.

162. But little aid as can at present be derived from the teaching of the microscope, some aid Psychology may even now derive from it. The teaching will often serve, for instance, to correct the precipitate conclusions of subjective analysis, which present artificial distinctions as real distinctions, separating what Nature has united. It will show certain organic connections not previously suspected; and since whatever is organically connected cannot functionally be separated, such sharply marked analytical distinctions as those of periphery and centre, or of sensation and motion, must be only regarded as artificial aids. The demonstration of the indissoluble union of the tissues is a demonstration of their functional co-operation. So also the anatomical demonstration of the similarity and continuity of all parts of the central system sets aside the analytical separation of one centre from another, except as a convenient artifice; proving that cerebral substance is one with spinal substance, having the same properties, the same laws of action.

For the present, Psychology must seek objective aid from Physiology and Pathology rather than from elementary Anatomy. In the paragraphs which are to follow I shall endeavor to select the chief laws of nervous activity which the researches of physiologists and pathologists disclose. By these laws we may direct and control psychological research.

163. Vitality is characterized by incessant molecular movement, both of composition and decomposition, in the building up of structure and the liberation of energy. The life of every organism is a complex of changes, each of which directly or indirectly affects the statical and dynamical relations, each being the resultant of many co-operant forces. In the nourishment of every organite there is an accumulation of molecular tension, that is to say, stored-up energy in a latent state, ready to be expended in the activity of that organite; and this expenditure may take place in a steady flow, or in a sudden gush. The molecular movements under one aspect may be called convergent, or formative: they build the structure, and tend to the state of equilibrium which we call the statical condition of the organite, i. e. the condition in which it is not active, but ready to act. Perfect equilibrium is of course never attained, owing to the incessant molecular change: indeed Life is inconsistent with complete repose. Under another aspect the molecular movements may be called discharging: they constitute the dynamic condition of the organite, in which its functional activity appears. The energy is now diverted, liberated, and the surplus, over and above that which is absorbed in formation, instead of slowly dribbling off, gushes forth in a directed stream. The slow formation of a secretion in a gland-cell, and the discharge of that secretion, will illustrate this; or (if muscular tone be admitted) the incipient contraction of the chronic state, and the complete contraction of the dynamic state, may also be cited.

164. The discharge which follows excitation may thus be viewed as a directed quantity of molecular movement. Because it is always strictly relative to the energy of tension, and is inevitable when that tension attains a certain surplus over what is required in construction, there is a limit, 1°, to the growth and evolution of every organite, and every organism (comp. Problem I. § 118), and, 2°, to its dynamical effect. When there is no surplus, the organite is incapable of discharge: it is then exhausted, i. e. will not respond to stimulus.

165. The speciality of nerve-tissue is its pre-eminence in directive energy. Like all other tissues, it grows, develops, and dies; but above all others it has what we call excitability, or readiness in discharging its energy in a directed stream. By its topographical distribution it plays the functional part of exciting the activity of other tissues: it transmits molecular disturbance from periphery to centre, from centre to centre, and from centre to muscles, vessels, and glands. When a muscle is excited it moves, and when a gland is excited it secretes; but these actions end, so to speak, with themselves; the muscle does not directly move any other muscle;184 the gland does not directly excite any other gland. The nerve, on the contrary, has always a wide-spreading effect; it excites a centre which is continuous with other centres; and in exciting one muscle, usually excites a group. Hence the nervous system is that which binds the different organs into a dynamic unity. And Comparative Anatomy teaches that there is a parallelism between the development of this system and the efficient complexity of the organism. As the tissues become more and more specialized, and the organs more and more individualized, they would become more and more unsuited to the general service of the organism, were it not that a corresponding development of the nervous system brought a unifying mechanism.

The great instability of neurine, in other words, its high degree of tension, renders it especially apt to disturb the tension of other tissues. It is very variable; and this variability will have to be taken into account in explaining the restriction of discharges to particular centres. A good example of exaggerated tension is furnished by strychnine poisoning. The centres are then so readily excitable that a touch, or a puff of cold air on the skin, will determine convulsions. And it is worthy of remark that for some hours after this convulsive discharge the centres return to something like their normal state; and the animal may then be stroked, pinched, or blown upon without abnormal reactions. But during this interval the centres are slowly accumulating excess of tension from the poisoned blood; and at the close, convulsions will again follow the slightest stimulus. This alternation of exhaustion and recrudescence is noticed by Schröder van der Kolk in the periodicity of the phenomena exhibited in spinal disease.185

166. Understanding, then, that the propagation of an excitation depends on the state of tension of the tissue, and always follows the line of least resistance, whichever that may be at the moment, we have to inquire whether the transmission takes place only in one direction, from periphery to centre in sensory nerves, and from centre to periphery in motor nerves? By most physiologists this is answered affirmatively. Indeed a special property has been assigned to each nerve, in virtue of this imaginary limitation of centripetal and centrifugal conduction. The “nerve-current” (accepted as a physical fact, and not simply a metaphor) is supposed to “flow” from the central cells along the motor nerve to the muscles; but by a strange oversight the current is also made to “flow” towards the central cells which are said to produce it! Now although the fact may be, and probably is, that normally the sensory nerve, being stimulated at its peripheral end, propagates the stimulation towards the centre, and the motor nerve propagates its central stimulation towards the periphery, the question whether each nerve is not capable of transmission in both directions is not thus answered. A priori it is irrational to assert that nerves fundamentally alike in composition and structure are unlike in properties; and we might as well suppose that a train of gunpowder could only be fired at one end, as to suppose that a nerve could only be excited at one end. And how does the evidence support this a priori conclusion? Dubois Reymond proved that each nerve conducted electricity in both directions; but as Neurility has not been satisfactorily shown to be identical with the electric current, this may not be considered decisive. Such a doubt does not hang over the following facts. M. Paul Bert, pursuing John Hunter’s curious experiments on animal grafting, has grafted the tail of a rat under