have
some sort of a conception of the separate nerves that bring impressions
to the brain and send directions out from it, which together make up the
nervous system of man. None of these systems is perfect. They are of all
degrees of imperfection down to the utterly useless or worse than
useless system. These nerves are of all degrees of sensitiveness and
accuracy in receiving and transmitting messages. Some may work well,
others imperfectly. No one is much surprised when an automobile,
equipped with a mechanism much simpler than the nervous system, refuses
to respond properly.

The child is born without knowledge but with certain tendencies,
instincts, capacities and potential strength or weakness. His nervous
system and his brain may be good or bad--most likely neither very good
nor very bad. All of his actions both as a child and as a man are
induced by stimulation from without. He feels, tastes, sees, hears or
smells some object, and his nerves carry the impression to his brain
where a more or less correct registration is made. Its correctness
depends largely upon the perfection of the nervous system and the
fineness of the material on which the registration is made. Perfect or
imperfect, the child begins to gather knowledge and it is stored in this
way. To the end of his days he receives impressions and stores them in
the same manner. All of these impressions are more or less imperfectly
received, imperfectly conveyed and imperfectly registered. However, he
is obliged to use the machine he has. Not only does the machine register
impressions but it sends out directions immediately following these
impressions: directions to the organism as to how to run, to walk, to
fight, to hide, to eat, to drink, or to make any other response that the
particular situation calls for.

Then, too, stimulated by these impressions, certain secretions are
instantly emptied from the ductless glands into the blood which, acting
like fuel in an engine, generate more power in the machine, fill it with
anger or fear and prepare it to respond to the directions to fight or
flee, or to any type of action incident to the machine. It is only
within a few years that biologists have had any idea of the use of
these ductless glands or of their importance in the functions of life.
Very often these ductless glands are diseased, and always they are more
or less imperfect; but in whatever condition they are, the machine
responds to their flow.

The