ABSTRACT
4.1. In the preceding chapters the apparatus for the classification of impulses has been represented as if it were a neutral, self-contained and completely centralized system which passively registered the simultaneous occurrence of impulses set up by external stimuli and thus came to reflect the significance which the stimuli possessed in the environment of this system. Such a passive apparatus of registration is conceivable, and to consider it served to bring out the general principle of our theory. But it would be something very different from the sort of apparatus which the nervous system constitutes. While it would register the significance of the stimuli in the environment, it would not indicate the special significance which they possess for the living organism of which that apparatus forms a part.
