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

Müller, who shares with Marshall Hall the glory of having established this classification, thinks that although the absence of sensation is a characteristic of the reflex actions, these actions may be, and are at times, accompanied by sensation. “The view I take of the matter is the following: Irritation of sensitive fibres of a spinal nerve excites primarily a centripetal action of the nervous principle conveying the impression to the spinal cord; if the centripetal action can then be continued to the sensorium commune, a true sensation is the result; if, on account of division of the cord, it cannot be communicated to the sensorium, it still exerts its whole influence upon the cord; in both cases a reflex motor action may be the result.”235

13. It is needless nowadays to point out that the existence of a distinct system of excito-motor nerves belongs to Imaginary Anatomy; but it is not needless to point out that the Imaginary Physiology founded on it still survives. The hypothetical process seems to me not less at variance with observation and induction, than the hypothetical structure invented for its basis. We have already seen that what Anatomy positively teaches is totally unlike the reflex mechanism popularly imagined. The sensory nerve is not seen to enter the spinal cord at one point, and pass over to a corresponding point of exit; it is seen to enter the gray substance, which is continuous throughout the spinal cord; it is there lost to view, its course being untraceable. Nor does the physiological process present the aspect demanded by the theory: it is not that of a direct and uniform reflexion, such as would result from an impression on one spot transmitted across the spinal cord to a corresponding motor-nerve. The impression is sometimes followed by one movement, sometimes by another very different movement, each determined by the state of neural tension in the whole central system.

Even the facts on which the Reflex Theory is based are differently interpreted by different physiologists. Van Deen, for instance, considers that Reflexion takes place without Volition, but not without Sensation; and Budge, that it takes place without perception (Vorstellung). And when it is remembered that most of the reflex actions will be accompanied by distinct consciousness whenever attention is directed to them, or the vividness of the stimulation is slightly increased, it becomes evident that the absence of Consciousness (discrimination) is not the differentia of Reflex action.

14. Nor can the absence of spontaneity be accepted as a differentia. All actions are excited by stimulation, internal or external. What are called the spontaneous actions are simply those which are prompted by internal, or by not recognizable stimuli; and could we see the process, we should see a neural change initiated by some stimulation, whether the change was conscious and volitional, or unconscious and automatic. The dog rising from sleep and restlessly moving about, is acting spontaneously, whether the stimulation which awakens him be a sensation of hunger, a sensation of sound, the sharp pain of a prick, or a dash of cold water. If he wags his tail at the sight of his master, or wags it when dreaming, the stimulation is said to be spontaneous; but if after his spinal cord has been divided the tail wags when his abdomen is tickled, the action is called reflex. In all three cases there has been a process of excitation and reflexion.

15. The advocates of the Reflex Theory insist that spontaneity is always absent in brainless animals; whence the conclusion that the brain is the exclusive organ of sensation. But the fact asserted is contradicted by the evidence. No experimenter can have failed to observe numberless examples of spontaneity in brainless animals. Many examples have already been incidentally noticed in previous pages. Let me add one more from my notes: I decapitated a toad and a triton, and divided the spinal cord of another triton and a frog. At first the movements of the decapitated animals were insignificant; but on the second day the headless toad was quite as lively as the frog; and the headless triton little less so than his companion with cord divided but brain intact. I have, at the time of writing this, a frog whose cord was divided some weeks ago. He remains almost motionless unless when touched; he is generally found in the same spot, and in the same attitude to-day as yesterday, unless touched, or unless the table be shaken. He occasionally moves one of the forelegs; occasionally one of the hind-legs; but without changing his position. If he were brainless, this quiescence would be cited in proof of the absence of spontaneity in the absence of the brain; but this conclusion would be fallacious, and is seen to be so in the spontaneous movements of his companion who has no brain.

16. With spontaneity is associated the idea of volition, and with volition choice. Now I admit that it is complicating the question to ask any one to conceive a headless animal choosing one action rather than another; but it is equally difficult to reconcile ourselves to the idea of “choice” in contemplating the actions of a mollusc. In what sense we can speak of the volition of a mollusc or an insect has already been considered (p. 408). When a man in a fit of coughing seizes a glass of water to allay the tickling in his throat, we have no hesitation in declaring this to be volitional—and the remedy to be chosen. But when a brainless animal adopts some unusual means, after the failure of the usual means, to allay an irritation, we still hesitate to call the action volitional. I see, however, no objection to calling it the adaptation of a sensitive mechanism which is markedly unlike any inorganic mechanism.

Place a child of two or three years old upon his back, and tickle his right cheek with a feather. He will probably move his head away. Continue tickling, and he will rub the spot with his right hand, never using the left hand for the right cheek, so long as the right hand is free; but if you hold his right hand, he will use the left. Does any one dispute the voluntary character of these actions?

Now compare the actions of the sleeping child under similar circumstances, and their sequence will be precisely similar. This contrast is the more illustrative, because physiologists generally assume that in sleep consciousness and volition are suspended. They say: “The brain sleeps, the spinal cord never; volition and sensation may be suspended, but not reflex action.” This proposition is extremely questionable; yet it is indispensable to the reflex theory; because unless sensation and volition are suspended during sleep, we must admit that they can act, without at the same time calling into activity that degree of sensibility which is supposed to constitute consciousness. The child moves in his sleep, defends himself in his sleep; but he is not “aware” of it.

“Children,” says Pflüger, “sleep more soundly than adults, and seem to be more sensitive in sleep. I tickled the right nostril of a three-year-old boy. He at once raised his right hand to push me away, and then rubbed the place. When I tickled the left nostril he raised the left hand. I then softly drew both arms down, and laid them close to the body, embedding the left arm in the clothes, and placing on it a pillow, by gentle pressure on which I could keep the arm down without awakening him. Having done this I tickled his left nostril. He at once began to move the imprisoned arm, but could not reach his face with it, because I held it firmly though gently down. He now drew his head aside, and I continued tickling, whereupon he raised the right hand, and with it rubbed the left nostril—an action he never performed when the left hand was free.”

17. This simple but ingenious experiment establishes one important point, namely, that the so-called reflex actions observed in sleep are determined by sensation and volition. The sleeping child behaves exactly as the waking child behaved; the only difference being in the energy and rapidity of the actions. If the waking child felt and willed, surely the sleeping child, when it performed precisely similar actions, cannot be said to have felt nothing, willed nothing? It is not at one moment a sentient organism, and at the next an insentient mechanism.

It is possible to meet this case by assuming that the child was nearly awake, and that a dim consciousness was aroused by the tickling, so that the cerebral activity was in fact awakened. But, plausible as this explanation may be (and I am the more ready to admit it because I believe the brain always co-operates when it is present), it altogether fails when we come to experiments on decapitated animals. If any one will institute a series of such experiments, taking care to compare the actions of the animal before and after decapitation, he will perceive that there is no more difference between them than between those of the sleeping and the waking child.

18. Even more striking is the following experiment, devised by Pflüger, which I have verified, and varied, many times: A frog is decapitated, or its brain is removed.236 When it has recovered from the effect of the ether, and manifests lively sensibility, we place it on its back, and touch, with acetic acid, the skin of its thigh just above the condylus internus femoris. (Let the reader imagine his own shoulder burnt at the point where it can be reached with the thumb of the same arm, and he will realize the operation.) No sooner does the acid begin to burn than the frog stretches out the other leg, so that its body is somewhat drawn towards it. The leg that has been burnt is now bent, and the back of the foot is applied to the spot, rubbing the acid away—just as your thumb might rub your shoulder. This is very like the action of the tickled child, who always uses the right hand to rub the right cheek, unless it be held; but when the child’s right hand is prevented from rubbing, the left will be employed; and precisely this do we observe with the brainless frog: prevent it from using its right leg, and it will use its left!

This has been proved by decapitating another frog, and cutting off the foot of the leg which is to be irritated. No sooner is the acid applied, than the leg is bent as before, and the stump is moved to and fro, as if to rub away the acid. But the acid is not rubbed away, and the animal becomes restless, as if trying to hit upon some other plan for freeing himself of the irritation. And it is worthy of remark that he often hits upon plans very similar to those which an intelligent human being adopts under similar circumstances. Thus, the irritation continuing, he will sometimes cease the vain efforts with his stump, and stretching that leg straight out, bends the other leg over towards the irritated spot, and rubs the acid away. But, to show how far this action is from one of “mere mechanism,” how far it is from being a direct reflex of an impression on a group of muscles, the frog does not always hit even on this plan. Sometimes it bends its irritated leg more energetically, and likewise bends the body towards it, so as to permit the spot to be rubbed against the flank—just as the child, when