nervations--an instant too brief to be revealed by the
experimental conditions employed above. The seeming continuity of the
sensation during reflex movement would of course not argue against
such successive instants of anaesthesia, since no discontinuity of
vision during voluntary movement is noticeable, although a relatively
long moment of anaesthesia actually intervenes.

But decidedly the most interesting detail about the anaesthesia is that
shown by the extreme liability of the eye to stop reflexly on the red
or the green light, in the second experiment with the pendulum.
Suppose the eye to be moving from _P_ to _P'_ (Fig. 5); the
anaesthesia, although beginning later than the movement, is present
when the eye reaches _O_, while it is between _O_ and _N_, that is,
during the anaesthetic moment, that the eye is reflexly caught and held
by the light. This proves again that the anaesthesia is not retinal,
but it proves very much more; namely, that _the retinal stimulation is
transmitted to those lower centers which mediate reflex movements, at
the very instant during which it is cut off from the higher, conscious
centers_. The great frequency with which the eye would stop midway in
its movements, both in the second pendulum-experiment and in the
repetition of Dodge's perimeter-test, was very annoying at the time,
and the observation cannot be questioned. The fact of the habitual
reflex regulation of voluntary movements is otherwise undisputed.
Exner[24] mentions a variety of similar instances. Also, with the
moving dumb-bell, as has been mentioned, the eye having begun a
voluntary sweep would often be caught by the moving image and carried
on thereafter reflexly with the pendulum. These observations hang
together, and prove a connection between the retina and the reflex
centers even while that between the retina and the conscious centers
is cut off.

[24] Exner, Sigmund, 'Entwurf zu einer physiologischen
Erklaerung der psychischen Erscheinungen,' Leipzig und Wien,
1894, S. 124-129.

But shall we suppose that the 'connection' between the retina and the
conscious centers is cut off during the central anaesthesia? All that
the facts prove is that the centers are at that time not conscious. It
would be at present an unwarrantable assumption to make, that these
centers are therefore disconnected from the retina, at the optic
thalami, the superior quadrigeminal bodies, or wheresoever. On broad
psychological gro