rough associative interplay the memory pictures
and the ideas of action and the feelings arose, and the whole inner life
was thus bound up with the processes in these sensorial spheres. When
the mind had done its work, finally an impulse was sent to some motor
apparatus in the brain which then sent off the impulse to some acting
muscles. That whole motor part was thus a kind of appendix to the brain
process. The psychical life had nothing to do with it but to give the
command for its action. The process in the motor part thus began when
the mental proceeding was completed. But it became clear that this view
was only the outgrowth of the strong interest which physiology took in
the sense processes. If a neutral fair account of the brain actions is
attempted, there can hardly be doubt that this whole sensorial view of
the brain is only half of the story and that the motor half has exactly
the same right to consideration. The cortex of the brain, the functions
of which are accompanied by mental processes, is always and everywhere
not only the recipient of sensory stimuli but at the same time the
starting point of motor impulses. That which is centripetal, leading to
the cortex, is therefore not more important for the central process than
that which is centrifugal, leading from the cortex. The cortex is the
apparatus of transmission between the incoming and the outgoing
currents, between the excitements which run to the brain and the
discharges which go from the brain, and the mental accompaniments are
thus accompaniments of these transmission processes. If the channels of
discharge are closed and the transmission is thus impossible, a blockade
must result at the central station and the accompanying mental processes
must be entirely different from those which happen there when the
channels of discharge are wide open. Here too all the special theories
are still in the midst of tumultuous discord. Yet this new emphasis on
the motor side of the psychical process seems to influence modern
psychology more and more.

Nobody can deny that first of all this is the necessary outcome of a
biological view of the brain. What else can be the brain's function in
the midst of nature than the transforming of impressions into
expressions, stimuli into actions? It is the great apparatus by which
the organism steadily adjusts itself to the surroundings. There would be
no use whatever biologically in a brain which had connections with the
sens