The Children How to Study Them a Course of Lectures

mulus from the eye or the ear. The representation is purely diagrammatic, for the sake of clearness of description. The brain areas A, B, C, D, E each receive nerve-fibres carrying impressions from the eye and the ear, so that they can separately be stimulated by sight and sound. Fibres pass from each brain area to the muscles a, b, c, d, e, respectively ; when A is stimulated, the muscle a contracts ; if the centre E be stimulated, the corresponding muscle e contracts, and so for each centre and muscle respectively : the muscle is the visible index of nerve- currents proceeding from its own centre. If we see the muscles a, b contract at the same moment, that indicates that the centres A, B acted together. If you see my arm move, you know this means that the muscles of my arm are contracting, and that this is due to currents of nerve-force passing out to them from certain nerve-cells by means of the efferent or motor nerves. Place an orange in front of a child; then you will see his head and eyes turn towards it, next his hand is moved over the orange, his fingers are closed over it, and it is seized. This series of movements is due to a series of nerve-currents passing from the nerve-cells to the muscles of the parts moving; this series of nerve-currents from the nerve-cells to themuscles follows the impression produced upon the brain by the sight of the orange, or by the afferent currents passing from the eyes to the brain, and these are stimulated by the light ref... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.