The Undirected Function in the Central Nervous System—A Question Put to Physiology by Psychology1

Many authors have voiced the opinion that the psychical function of the central nervous system may extend beyond the excitation of centres and the conducting of centripetal, centrifugal and intercentral excitation. Research workers who stress the whole rather than individual acts have implicitly presupposed undirected co-operation. The field psychologists, the Gestalt psychologists as well as the 'complex' psychologists have done so; so have, on the other hand, the Vitalists and von Monakow in his Syneidesis. Many of them may almost be regarded as modern animists. But to my knowledge there is only one worker who has propounded a theory, based on experiments, for the co-operation of unconnected parts, namely Paul Weiss of Chicago. I do not use his term 'resonance', a term used previously by Ziehen and J. v. Kriess, because Weiss' conclusions, which originated in connection with the innervation of muscles, were not extended to the cerebral function in general. Besides, the question that interests me here is less the mere co-ordination of the excitable elements as the phenomenon of waking out of the partial sleep which constitutes our waking life. My work is concerned with the wakening of previous ego conditions and continues my research on the ego.

My supposition is not so far-fetched as might be supposed if one