Page:Mind and the Brain (1907).djvu/253

 according to the nature of the bodies which strike them.

How is it that the nerve wave, if it be the depository of the whole of the physical properties perceived in the object, resembles it so little? It is because—this is my hypothesis—these properties, if they are in the undulation, are not there alone. The undulation is the work of two collaborators: it expresses both the nature of the object which provokes it and that of the nervous apparatus which is its vehicle. It is like the furrow traced in the wax of the phonograph which expresses the collaboration of an aërial vibration with a stylus, a cylinder, and a clock-work movement. This engraved line resembles, in short, neither the phonographic apparatus nor the aërial vibration, although it results from the combination of the two.

Similarly, I suppose that if the nervous vibration resembles so little the excitant which gives it birth, it is because the factor nervous system adds its effect to the factor external object. Each of these factors represents a different property: the external object represents a cognition and the nervous system an excitement.

Let us imagine that we succeed in separating these two effects. It will be conceived, theoretically, that a separation of this kind will lay bare the hidden resemblances, giving to each collaborator