CHAPTER III

BRAIN ACTION DURING STUDY


Though most people understand more or less vaguely that the brain acts
in some way during study, exact knowledge of the nature of this action
is not general. As you will be greatly assisted in understanding mental
processes by such knowledge, we shall briefly examine the brain and its
connections. It will be manifestly impossible to inquire into its
nature very minutely, but by means of a description you will be able to
secure some conception of it and thus will be able better to control
the mental processes which it underlies.

To the naked eye the brain is a large jelly-like mass enclosed in a
bony covering, about one-fourth of an inch thick, called the skull.
Inside the skull it is protected by a thick membrane. At its base
emerges the spinal cord, a long strand of nerve fibers extending down
the spine. For most of its length, the cord is about as large around as
your little finger, but it tapers at the lower end. From it at right
angles throughout its length branch out thirty-one pairs of fibrous
nerves which radiate to all parts of the body. The brain and spinal
cord, with all its ramifications, are known as the nervous system. You
see now that, though we started with the statement that the mind is
intimately connected with the brain, we must now enlarge our statement
and say it is connected with the entire nervous system. It is therefore