The Hickman courier., 1878-06-21
How Fast Can You Think.

'@sA iasasass aalszFsss1 tss seyss.sssss
; How Fast Can You Think.
"Quick as thought" and ''quick a
lightning" are commonly used as synon
ymous expressions. An electric impplst
traverses a wire as wave OF motion q
nervous impulse proceeds by a develop
ment of chemical change in the nerve
| 1t runs along the nerve somewhat ascom'
} bustion follows q train of gunPowder
} and not much if any more rapidly. La.
deed HeImholtz has clearly determined
the rate of nervous propagation to be les
than one hundred feet a second, or about
mile a minute. To use a rude illustrs-
tion, if a railway could feel, the sense re-
portofa train starting in New York would
reach Albany but little in advance Of
the fastest trains that have been run
upon the Hudson River road Even
along the courses as short rs the nerves
of the human body an appreciable time
is required for the passage of nervous
impulses.
With a simple apparatus, Hirsch
found that a touch upon the face could
be recognized and responded to By pre-
determined signal operated by the hsnd
in one-seventh of a second With q
sound test, acting of course upon the
ear, the answering signal was made in
ene-sixth of a second when the eye was
addressed, the response came in one-ffthI
of a second. Since the distance travelled
by the nervous impulses were nearly the
same in all these experiments, it is eyi-
dent that the greater part Of these diff
terences of time noted must be charged
te the greater or smaller rapidity
OF the act OF recognition; the
entire process in each case being the
transmission of sensation (touch, hear
ing or sight) to the brain, its recognition,
the willing of the signal agreed upon.
the transmission of the order to the mus
eles of the hand, and the movement oil
those muscles. Thus it would appCarl
that less time is required for reeogniziI,.ai
touch than sound, les tine heay'f
than to zee. But what part Of the ffh,
sixth or seventh of a zecond, as the case
might be, was copGmed in the act Of
recognition
Donders wsg successful in answering
this questieroy the use Of several forms
of appsrat.s involving entirely different
methodgyet yielding the same result.
He fond, for instance, with the ''noe-
m,sachograph" that the double act OF /
4ecognizing a sound and willing the re-
sponse required rs 600 of a second. OF
this time 4O-1, 900 of a second were re-
quired for simple recognition, thus leav-
ing 35-1,0O for volition. With the
"noematachometer" be found that the
same time, 4O-1, 900 Cor l 25) of a second
was required TO judge which was the first
Of the two irritants acting on the same
sense. a slightly longer time was re-
luired to judge the priority of signals
acting on different senses, as a sound and
a light. 1t also took longer to recognize
a letter by seeing its form than by hear
ing its sound.
This i'll man of middle age. Young
people thought quicker, but the differ
snce was not great. In all the ex-
periments the time required for a simple
thought, was never less than fortieth
Of second. In otner words, the
mind can perform not more than
twenty four hundred simple acts a min
ute, fifteen hundred minute being the
rate for persons of middle age.
From these figures it will be seen how
absurd are many popular notions in re-
gard to the feetness of thought, how
exaggerated are the terrors of remorseful
memory that moralists have invented
for the method of dying. And we may
"discount" " also the stories
told by men saved from drowning, cut
down before death by hanging, or rescued
from sudden and deadly peril from other
causes. No doubt a man may think OF
great multitude of experience, good or
bad, in 3 few minutes; but that the
thoughts and emotions of long life may
surge through the mind during tne
seconds of asphyxiation are manifestly
Admit that the speed OF meutal action
is abnormally rapid at such times, say
{, 500 simple cognitions minute, or
15O, 900 an hour. If man were an
hour in drowning, instead of few min
utes, and all the time be given to men,
tai review of life, he would, if forty
years old, have time to give ten thoughts
of the simplest character 10 each day
that he lived. In other words, memory
would have time to review the experien.
ces of at most the hundredth part of one
second cut of each days waking thou-
sands.