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

take place unconsciously. For thousands of years men used their eyes, and saw as their descendants see, yet were unconscious of the blue sky and green of the grass. Were their visual reactions not of the same order as our own? So far as the optic apparatus is concerned, there cannot be a doubt on the point; yet in them the sensorium having a somewhat different disposition—the neural elements being differently combined—their reactions correspondingly differed. They too had optical Sensibility, and visual sensations; but they did not feel precisely what we feel.

34. I have chosen these somewhat remote illustrations for the sake of their psychological interest; but I might have confined myself to more familiar examples. Thus the contents of the consciousness of a man born blind cannot be the same as the contents of one who has had visual experiences, which will enter into the complex of every conscious state, because the visual organs will have affected his sensorium; nevertheless in the organism of the blind man there are conditions so similar to those of other men, and his experiences will have been so similar, that in spite of the modifications due to the absence of visual experiences, his consciousness will in the main resemble theirs. But now let us in imagination pursue this kind of modification, let us take away hearing, taste, and smell, and we shall have proportionately simplified the contents of consciousness—the reactions of the sensorium—in thus simplifying the organism. There still will remain Touch, Temperature, Pain, and the Systemic Sensations. There will still remain an organism to react on impressions. So long as there is a living organism, however truncated, there is a sentient mechanism. When the brain has been removed, the removal causes both a disturbance of function and a loss of function; the mechanism has been seriously interfered with; yet all those parts of the mechanism which still co-operate manifest their physiological aptitudes. The animal can live without its brain, ergo it can feel without its brain. Observation proves this, for it discovers the brainless animal manifesting various sensibilities, and combining various movements. The vision of the brainless animal is greatly impaired, but it nevertheless persists. The intelligence is greatly impaired, the spontaneity is reduced to a minimum; but still both intelligence and spontaneity are manifested.

35. The physiologist has only two conclusions open to him. Either he holds Sensation to be a property of nerve-tissue—and in that case he must assign it to the spinal cord as to the brain; or else he holds Sensation to be a function of an organ—and in that case, although analytically he may decompose the organism into separate organs, assigning special sensations to the reactions of each, he must still admit that in reality these organs only yield sensations as component parts of the organism. The notion of a separate organ, such as the brain, being the exclusive seat of sensation is thus seen to be untenable.

In popular phrase, “it is not the eye which sees, but the mind behind the eye.” It is not the stimulus which is the object felt—it is the change in consciousness—the reaction of the sensorium. No one would propound the absurdity that the retinal cells see, or the auditory cells hear (although by a conventional ellipsis these cells are said to be “percipient” of colors and sounds), yet many writers have no hesitation in asserting that the cerebral cells are the seats of these and all other sensations. In a hundred treatises may be read the most precise description of the transformation of molecular changes in the retinal cells into molecular changes in the cerebral cells, where, it is said, “we know that the stimulations become sensations.” Now who knows this? How can it be known? Nay, who, on reflection, fails to see that this cannot be so? If a sensation of sight were not much more than a molecular change in the cerebrum stimulated by a molecular change in the optic tract, three conclusions would follow, each of which is demonstrably erroneous:—

I. The cerebrum in a decapitated animal would respond by a sensation of sight to a retinal stimulation.

II. The animal deprived of its cerebrum could not respond by a sensation of sight to a retinal stimulation.

III. The same retinal stimulation would always produce the same cerebral process and the same sensation; whereas the sensation depends on the condition of the sensorium at the time.

36. The difference between the Reflex Theory and that here upheld is important in its general relations, and yet turns on a point which may easily appear insignificant. The Reflex Theory asserts that when a sensory nerve is stimulated, the excitation of the centre may either subdivide into two waves, one of which passes directly to the brain and there awakens sensation, the other passes over to the motor-roots and causes muscular contractions; or, instead of thus subdividing, the wave may pass at once to the motor-nerves, and then there is movement without sensation. This is obviously a restatement in anatomical terms of the observed fact that some reflexes take place consciously and some unconsciously. But what evidence is there for this anatomical statement? We have seen that there is none. According to all we actually know, and reasonably infer, the continuity of tissue and the irradiation of excitation are such that the stimulus wave must always affect the whole system, so that brain and cord being structurally united, their reactions must co-operate with varying energy dependent on their statical conditions at the time.243

37. The physiological fact that the irradiation is restricted to certain paths, and therefore only certain portions of the whole system are excited to discharge—the fact that stimulation takes effect along the lines of least resistance—is that which gives the Reflex Theory its plausible aspect. But this fact of restriction is not dependent on an anatomical disposition of structure, it is, as we have already seen (Problem II. § 166), dependent on a fluctuating physiological disposition—a temporary statical condition of the centres. And it enables us to understand why the reflex action which is at one moment a distinctly conscious or even a volitional action, is at another sub-conscious or unconscious. When an object is placed in the hand of an infant the fingers close over it by a simple reflex. This having also been observed in the case of an infant born without a brain,244 one might interpret it as normally taking place without brain co-operation, were there not good grounds for concluding that normally the brain must co-operate. Thus if the object be placed in the hand of a boy, or a man, the fingers will close, or not close—not according to an anatomical mechanism, but according to a physiological condition: if the attention preoccupy his sensorium elsewhere, his fingers will probably close, probably not; if his sensorium be directed towards the object, either by the urgency of the sensitive impression, or by some one’s pointing to the object, the fingers will close or not close, just as he chooses—perhaps the hand will be suddenly drawn away. The centre of innervation for the fingers is in the cord, and from this comes the final discharge of the sensitive stimulation; but the neural processes which preceded this discharge, and were consequent on the stimulation, were in each case somewhat different. In each case the impression on the skin was carried to the cord, and thence irradiated throughout the continuous neural axis, restricted to certain paths by the resistance it met with, but blending with waves of simultaneous excitations from other sources, the final discharge being the resultant of these component forces. We may suppose the brain to be the seat of consciousness, and yet not conclude that the brain was unaffected because the fingers closed unconsciously; any more than we conclude that the retina of the unoccupied eye is unaffected by light when with the other we are looking through a microscope, and only see objects with this eye—though directly we attend to the impressions on the other eye we see the objects which before were unseen. We know that the muscles of the back are all involved in walking, standing, etc., but we are seldom conscious of their co-operation till rheumatism or lumbago makes us painfully alive to it.

38. The two main positions of the Reflex Theory are, 1°, that reflex actions take place without brain co-operation,—as proved by observation of decapitated animals; 2°, that they take place without brain co-operation,—as proved by our being unconscious of them.

To these the answers are: 1°. The proof drawn from observation of decapitated animals is defective, because the conditions of the organism are then abnormal—there is a disturbance of the mechanism, and a loss of some of its components. The fact that a reflex occurs in the absence of the brain is no proof that reflexes when the brain is present occur without its participation. 2°. The absence of consciousness cannot be accepted as proof of the brain not being in action, because much brain-work is known to pass unconsciously, and there are cerebral reflexes which have the same characters as spinal reflexes.

39. A prick on the great toe traverses the whole length of the spinal axis with effects manifested in various organs—the muscles of the limb, the heart, the chest, the eyes, etc. The leg is withdrawn, the heart momently arrested, the eyes turned towards the source of irritation, the thoughts directed towards relief. These effects can be observed—there are others which lie beyond our observation, and can only be revealed by delicate experimental tests. But even the observable effects are very fluctuating, because they depend on fluctuating conditions. All we can say is, that so long as there is continuity of structure, there must be continuity of excitation; and the brain structurally connected with the centre of a sensory impression, must necessarily co-operate more or less in the reactions of that centre. In other words, the brain, although not the exclusive seat of sensation, plays a part in every particular sensation, so long as it forms a part of the stimulated organism.

40. This view being so widely opposed to the views current in physiological schools, I was gratified to find Dr. Crichton Browne led by his researches to a conclusion not unlike it in essential features. In his essay on the Functions of the Optic Thalami245 (well worthy of attention on other grounds) he says: “Allowing the spinal cord a power of independent action, it may still be that it generally acts reflexly through, or in association with, a superior centre. The sensorial ganglia can undoubtedly act alone in a reflex manner, but they almost invariably consult the cerebrum before dealing with the impressions which they receive; so it may be that the spinal cord, though capable of spontaneous reaction, may yet commonly refer to some higher seat of compound co-ordination before sending forth an answer to any message brought to it.” What is here stated as a possible and occasional process, I consider to be a necessary and universal process. Dr. Browne acutely remarks that if “what may be termed the encephalic loop were an integral part of every reflex act, then the influence of an intracranial lesion in checking reflex action would not be difficult to understand”—and we may add the notorious influence of the brain in arresting reflex actions, and modifying them by the will, which is only explicable on the supposition that the cerebral and spinal centres are functionally associated. Dr. Browne further remarks: “In experimenting upon myself I have sometimes thought that when the toe is pricked the sensation of pain actually precedes the movement of withdrawal; and in experimenting upon patients with sluggish nervous systems I have certainly noticed that after the pricking of the