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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: to be under the conscious control of the will in any animal.
In such cases some explanation, quite distinct from habit,
will have to be discovered. The radiation of nerve-force
from strongly-excited nerve-cells to other connected cells,
as in the case of a bright light on the retina causing
a sneeze, may perhaps aid us in understanding how some reflex
actions originated. A radiation of nerve-force of this kind,
if it caused a movement tending to lessen the primary irritation,
as in the case of the contraction of the iris preventing too much
light from falling on the retina, might afterwards have been
taken advantage of and modified for this special purpose.
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
