Lecture V

> From the countless material stimuli of the outer world we isolated stimuli of the cortex which correspond in the psychological realm to sensations. We then followed these sensations to the brain cortex along the associative fibers into the motor zone from where the material stimulus was led once again towards the muscular system at the periphery where it caused muscular contraction. This transcortical process corresponded on a soul level to the association of ideas, and the resultant movement we designate psychologically as action. We were able to derive the latter sufficiently satisfactorily from the sensation and from the memory pictures of previous sensations, mental images functioning according to the laws of the association of ideas, to be able to pursue the psychic process to its final stage. At this point, however, we encounter a hypothesis that used to be almost universally taught by psychology and which the ordinary human understanding has always arrived at apparently unconsciously. I refer to the assumption of a distinct will as the cause of our actions.