The Mind and the Brain | Page 7

modification made in our substance by this force X does not necessarily resemble in its nature the nature of that force. This is an assertion opposed to our natural opinions, and must consequently be demonstrated. It is generally proved by the experiments which reveal what is called "the law of the specific energy of the nerves." This is an important law in physiology discovered by M��ller two centuries ago, and consequences of a philosophical order are attached to it. The facts on which this law is based are these. It is observed that, if the sensory nerves are agitated by an excitant which remains constant, the sensations received by the patient differ according to the nerve affected. Thus, the terminals of an electric current applied to the ball of the eye give the sensation of a small luminous spark; to the auditory apparatus, the current causes a crackling sound; to the hand, the sensation of a shock; to the tongue, a metallic flavour. Conversely, excitants wholly different, but affecting the same nerve, give similar sensations; whether a ray of light is projected into the eye, or the eyeball be excited by the pressure of a finger; whether an electric current is directed into the eye, or, by a surgical operation, the optic nerve is severed by a bistoury, the effect is always the same, in the sense that the patient always receives a sensation of light. To sum up, in addition to the natural excitant of our sensory nerves, there are two which can produce the same sensory effects, that is to say, the mechanical and the electrical excitants. Whence it has been concluded that the peculiar nature of the sensation felt depends much less on the nature of the excitant producing it than on that of the sensory organ which collects it, the nerve which propagates it, or the centre which receives it. It would perhaps be going a little too far to affirm that the external object has no kind of resemblance to the sensations it gives us. It is safer to say that we are ignorant of the degree in which the two resemble or differ from each other.
On thinking it over, it will be found that this contains a very great mystery, for this power of distinction (specificit��) of our nerves is not connected with any detail observable in their structure. It is very probably the receiving centres which are specific. It is owing to them and to their mechanism that we ought to feel, from the same excitant, a sensation of sound or one of colour, that is to say, impressions which appear, when compared, as the most different in the world. Now, so far as we can make out, the histological structure of our auditory centre is the same as that of our visual centre. Both are a collection of cells diverse in form, multipolar, and maintained by a conjunctive pellicule (stroma). The structure of the fibres and cells varies slightly in the motor and sensory regions, but no means have yet been discovered of perceiving a settled difference between the nerve-cells of the optic centre and those of the auditory centre. There should be a difference, as our mind demands it; but our eye fails to note it.
Let us suppose, however, that to-morrow, or several centuries hence, an improved technique should show us a material difference between the visual and the auditory neurone. There is no absurdity in this supposition; it is a possible discovery, since it is of the order of material facts. Such a discovery, however, would lead us very far, for what terribly complicates this problem is that we cannot directly know the structure of our nervous system. Though close to us, though, so to speak, inside us, it is not known to us otherwise than is the object we hold in our hands, the ground we tread, or the landscape which forms our horizon.
For us it is but a sensation, a real sensation when we observe it in the dissection of an animal, or the autopsy of one of our own kind; an imaginary and transposed sensation, when we are studying anatomy by means of an anatomical chart; but still a sensation. It is by the intermediary of our nervous system that we have to perceive and imagine what a nervous system is like; consequently we are ignorant as to the modification impressed on our perceptions and imaginations by this intermediary, the nature of which we are unable to grasp.
Therefore, when we attempt to understand the inmost nature of the outer world, we stand before it as before absolute darkness. There probably exists in nature, outside of ourselves, neither colour, odour, force, resistance, space, nor anything that we know as sensation. Light is produced by the excitement of the