"In the great head-end which has been mostly darkness springs up myriads of twinkling stationary lights and myriads of trains of moving lights of many different directions. It is as though activity from one of those local places which continued restless in the darkened main-mass suddenly spread far and wide and invaded all. The great topmost sheet of the mass, that where hardly a light had twinkled or moved, becomes now a sparkling field of rhythmic flashing points with trains of traveling sparks hurrying hither and thither. The brain is waking and with it the mind is returning. It is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance. Swiftly the head mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of subpatterns. Now as the waking body rouses, subpatterns of this great harmony of activity stretch down into the unlit tracks of the stalk-piece of the scheme. Strings of flashing and travelling sparks engage the lengths of it. This means that the body is up and rises to meet its waking day."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
People from LondonUniversity of Oxford facultyMedical scientistsPhysicians from EnglandNobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ch. 7: "The Brain and its Work", pp. 224–225
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Scott_Sherrington
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Charles Scott Sherrington
1857 – 1952
19 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Charles Scott Sherrington →
Related Quotes
"Natural knowledge has not forgone emotion. It has simply taken for itself new ground of emotion, under impulsion from…"
"It is difficult to get a hearing from busy men for even a great new truth."
"The brain is a mystery—it has been—and still will be. Not that we do not know many facts about it. The facts we know …"
"Natural science is a branch of knowledge by general consent not primarily based on the a priori. It […] observes and …"
"Today Nature looms larger than ever and includes more fully than ever ourselves. It is, if you will, a machine, but i…"
"The scientific journey has no end. It has only halting places—points at which the traveller can look round and survey."
"The 'motion' of an energy-system is its 'behaviour'. Various types of organization of system produce on that basis va…"
"The gap between 'the State' and 'a machine' is not so wide."
"The influence of mind on the doings of life makes mind an effective contribution to life. We can seize then how mind …"
"[M]an's life of all lives is the most completely and fully bound to earth because life's experience, wholly earthly, …"