69. The question is one of extreme complexity, but may be greatly simplified, if we can manage to reduce it to purely physiological terms, and consider the phenomena in their objective aspect. In dealing with nerves and their actions this was comparatively easy; we had for the most part only physiological processes to unravel. It is otherwise in dealing with nerve-centres--the subjective or psychological aspect of the phenomena inevitably thrusts itself on our attention; and all the mysteries of Feeling and Thought cloud our vision of the neural process. Do what we will, we cannot altogether divest Sensibility of its psychological connotations, cannot help interpreting it in terms of Consciousness; so that even when treating of sensitive phenomena observed in molluscs and insects, we always imagine these more or less suffused with Feeling, as this is known in our own conscious states.
70. Feeling is recognized as in some way or other bound up with neural processes; but Physiology proper has only to concern itself with the processes; and the question whether these can, and do, go on unaccompanied by Feeling, is, strictly speaking, one which belongs to Psychology. It demands as a preliminary that the term Feeling be defined; and the answer will depend upon that definition, namely, whether Feeling be interpreted as synonymous with Consciousness in the restricted sense, or synonymous with the more general term Sentience. If the former, then since there are unquestionably neural processes of which we are not conscious, we must specify the particular groups which subserve Feeling; as we specify the particular groups which subserve the sensations of Sight, Hearing, Taste, etc.; and localize the separate functions in separate organs. If the latter, then, since all neural processes have a common character, we have only to localize the particular variations of its manifestation, and distinguish sensitive phenomena as we distinguish motor phenomena.
71. It is absolutely certain that the Feeling we attribute to a mollusc is different from that which we attribute to a man; if only because the organisms of the two are so widely different, and have been under such different conditions of excitation. If every feeling is the functional result of special organic activities, varying with the co-operant elements, we can have no more warrant for assuming the existence of the same _particular_ forms of Feeling in organisms that are unlike, than for assuming the 47th proposition of Euclid to be presented by any three straight lines. The lines are the necessary basis for the construction, but they are not the triangle, except when in a special configuration. This is not denying that animals _feel_ (in the general sense of that term), it is only asserting that their feelings must be very _unlike_ our own. Even in our own race we see marked differences--some modes of feeling being absolutely denied to individuals only slightly differing from their fellows. If, however, we admit that different animals must have different modes of Feeling, we must also admit that the neuro-muscular activities are generically alike in all, because of the fundamental similarity in the structures. Whether we shall assign Feeling to the mollusc or not will depend on the meaning of the term; but, at all events, we require some term general enough to include the phenomena manifested by the mollusc, and those manifested by all other animals. Sensibility is the least objectionable term. Unless we adopt some such general designation, physiological and psychological interpretations become contradictory and obscure. The current doctrine which assigns Sensibility to the brain, denying it to all other centres, is seriously defective, inasmuch as it implies that tissues similar in kind have utterly diverse properties; in other words, that the same nerve-tissue which manifests Sensibility in the brain has no such property in the spinal cord.