The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1878-04-25
How East Can Ynu Think

"Quick as thought" and "Quick as
lightning" are commonly used as syn
onymous expressions. But their differ
ence is really great. An electric i'm
pulse traverses a wire as wave of mo-
ton; a nervous impulse proceeds by
development of chemical change in the
nerve. 1t runs along the nerve some
what as combustion follows train of
gunpowder, and not much if any more
rapidly. Indeed, Helmholtz has clearly
determined the rates of nervous propa-
CATION to be less than hundred feet a
second, or about a mile a minute. To
use rude illustration, IL railway
could feel, the sense report of train
starting in New York would reach AL
bany but little in advance of the fastest
trains that have been run upon the Hud
son River road. Even along courses as
short as the nerves of the human body
an appreciable time is required for the
passage of nervous impulses.
With a simple apparatus, Hirsch
found that touch upon the face could
be recognized and responded to by a
predetermined signal operated by the
| hand in one-seventh of second. With
sound test, acting, of course, upon the
ear, the answering signal was made in
one-sixth of second; when the eye was
addressed, the response came in one-ffth
of second. Since the distances trav-
eled by the nervous impulses we're nearly
the same in all these experiments, it is
evident that the greater part of the diff
| ference of time noted must be charged
to the greater or smaller rapidity of the
act of recognition; the entire process
in each case being the transmission of
sensation (touch, hearing or sight) to
the brain, its recognition, the willing of
the signal agreed upon, the transmission
of the order to the muscles of the hand
and the movement of those muscles
Thus it would appear that less time is
required for recognizing touch than a
sound, less time to hear than to see
But what part of the fifth, sixth or sew
enth of a second, as the case might be
was consumed in the act of recognition
Donders was successful in answering
this question by the use of several forms
of apparatus, involving entirely differ
ent methods, yet yielding the same re
suits. He found, for instance, with the
noematachograph," that the double
act of recognizing sound and willing
the response, required seventy-fve thou
sandths of a second. Of this time, fort,
thousandths of second were required
for simple recognition, thus leavin,
thirty-fve thousaDdths for volition
With the noematachometer he foun,
that the same time, forty -thousandth
(or one twenty-ffth) of second, wa
} required to judge which was first of tw
irritants acting on the same sense. /
| to1s s,ul,4
judge the priority of signals acting o.
different senses, as a sound and light
| It also took longer to recognize lette
by seeing its form than by hearing it
, sound.
| This in man of middle age. Youn
, people thought quicker, but the diffel
ence was not great. In all the exper
, ments the time required for a simpl
thought was never less than fortieth c
+ second. In other words the mind ca
f perform not more than twenty-four hur
, dred simple acts a minute, fifteen hui
r dred minute being the rate for pc
sons of middle age.
f From these figures it will be seen no,
! absurd are many popular notions in r'
gard to the feetness of thought, how e.
aggerated are the terrors of remorsefl
| memory that moralists have invente
: for the moment Of dying. And we ma
=. reasonably discount also the storit
: told by men saved from drowning, CT
= down before death by hanging, or re
e & cued from sudden and deadly peril frol
!, other causes. No doubt man ma
! think of a great multitude of exper
u ences, good or bad, in few minutes
but that the thoughts and emotions of
q long life may surge through the min
;; during the seconds of asphyxiation a.
d manifestly impossible.
r Admit that the speed of mental a
K ton is abnormally rapid at such time
It say twenty-five hundred simple cogit
d tions minute, or $50, 900 an hour.
1t man were an hour in drowning, i
a stead of a few minutes, and all the tin
IT be given a mental review of his life,
e would, if forty years old, have time
t. give ten thoughts of the simplest cha
acter to each day that he hadlived.
e other words memory would have time
v review the experiences of at most tt
d hundredth part of one second out
# each days waking thousands.