Psychology of the Normal and Subnormal

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE BEGINNINGS OF MIND In the previous chapter we have given a brief outline of the mechanism of the nervous system from which the student will understand something of the machinery which underlies mind. Our next step is to try to see how the development of mind follows the growth of the nervous system. Something is known of the development of the nervous system and something is known of the development of mind. Our problem is to fit the two together to make as complete a picture as possible. We have two parts to our task: First, a consideration of the facts of nervous system and of mind; second, a consideration of such logical inferences as may be deduced from the facts. These deductions will enable us to form concepts from which further facts may be predicted. Certain facts of the nervous system enable us to formulate certain concepts in regard to mind and vice versa. We will now consider the functions of the nervous sys- tern in the course of its development. When a stimulus to the peripheral system, such as a pressure or a ray of light or a sound wave, is applied to any sensory dendrite, the nerve fibre is affected in such a way that some kind of transmission of energy takes place. This energy reaches the cell body and there liberates the stored up energy of the cell which passes on thru the neu- rite. It may then reach the nearby dendrite of some otherneuron and the process be repeated. This energy, called neurokyme, is thus transmitted until it finally passes into a neurite which is in contact with a muscle and produces a contraction of that muscle. The nature of this energy for which we have adopted the suggested term neurokyme (nerve wave) is still a matter of dispute. According to some it is physical in the nature of an electrical transmission; acc...