If a child might be born with a good brain, but with his general muscular system completely paralyzed, he could learn nothing at all regarding the world.  He would have no conscious mind.  No sense impression of smell, light, taste, sound, or feeling could be received by the brain of such a child; for no original perceptions of any kind could be taken in.  He would be like a complete telegraph system with every branch office closed.  No intelligence would be transmitted; since no message could be even filed for sending.  Because of the paralysis of the sensory muscles, the child’s conscious mind would remain blank.

[Sidenote:  Each Mind-Center Must Be Developed Specifically]

Recall now that you have a multiplex, not a single brain.  That is, your so-called “brain” is made up of innumerable, distinct “brain centers” which function quite independently of one another.  No particular unit requires help from any of the others in order to do its especial work with full efficiency. Each center attends only to its specific business in your life.  It rests, or relaxes from activity, when it has nothing to do; or when the particular muscles it governs are not in use.  And, of course, when a certain brain center rests or is inactive, its associated mind center also rests or is inactive.

As already has been stated, the mind of a man is built up, through the brain instrument, by the sense impressions transmitted to his consciousness.  In other words, all he knows with his mind first came into his mental capacity from outside impressions of things and ideas.  The fewer the impressions that come into the mind through the brain, the less does a man know.  And only the impressions that come into a particular mind center develop that center. (For example, the development of keenest eyesight by many optical impressions would not affect at all a man’s ability to discriminate among the tones of music, would not give him “a good ear.”)

[Sidenote:  Weak or Undeveloped Centers]

It is evident, therefore, that if a particular brain center temporarily or permanently is deprived of right and sufficient exercise in transmitting sense impressions, its coordinated mind center will be stunted in its growth or starved for lack of mental food.  This is why a man is awkward in using his native tongue when he returns to the country of his birth after a long residence among people of a different nation where that language was not spoken.  But a little exercise of his brain in transmitting again the sound of his native tongue will quickly stimulate his mind with the renewed supply of this particular mental food to which it formerly was accustomed.  In a few weeks he will use the old language naturally; whereas another man, who never had spoken it, would require years to build up such full knowledge from a start of complete ignorance of the language.