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www.all-about-psychology.com 
This article forms part of an initiative to make important, insightful andengaging public domain works freely available. See following links toaccess material that has already been published under this initiative.
http://www.all-about-psychology.com/psychology-ebook.html http://www.all-about-psychology.com/psychology-journal-articles.html http://www.all-about-forensic-psychology.com/forensic-psychology-ebook.html
 A similar initiative relating to forensic science publications has also beenlaunched.
http://www.all-about-forensic-science.com/forensic-science-ebook.html 
 
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A few days ago a small fire occurred in a house near mine. I happened to be lookingout of my window when a man rushed down the street to turn in an alarm at thecorner box. In an almost unbelievably short time - not more than two or three minutes- a fire engine pulled up before the house. A few minutes later the blaze had beenextinguished and the engine had departed.
A Wonderful Alarm System
This was no extraordinary occurrence; simply a commonplace incident of present daycity life. Still, I could not but wonder at the swift passage of events that followed theringing of the alarm. Here was a marvelous combination of human ingenuity anddiscipline. Automatically the touch of a finger on a switch within the alarm box hadsummoned a roaring engine to the exact location of the fire. Then, with perfectteamwork and precision, their trained firemen had gone about the work of putting outthe blaze.And yet, as a psychologist, I had little reason to marvel at what I saw. For the complexelectrical fire-alarm system and the perfect discipline of the firemen represented onlyan imperfect imitation of the wonderfully sensitive alarm system operating in everynormal human body.At the heart of this system is a central control station - the brain. Leading from it toevery "corner box" of the body is an elaborate network of wires - our nerves. Andfinally, responding to every interchange of messages or alarms, that flash along thenerves to and from the brain are our muscles, performing for us the movementnecessary to protect and support our lives.On the degree of perfection with which this complicated nerve system functions, andon the precision and discipline of our muscles in responding to every signal flashed tothe brain, depends largely our success in meeting tasks or emergencies that every-daylife presents. To learn the secret of this wonderful network of living nerves andmuscles, to discover its weaknesses, repair its faults, and to make it respond moresurely to our common needs - this is the part of psychology.
 
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At one of the World Series baseball games in New York last fall I witnessed an incidentthat illustrated in a vivid way the workings of the human alarm system. One of theYankee batsmen hit a fly ball over first base, well out in right field. It was beyond thereach of the first baseman and the right fielder - apparently a safe hit. And yet the flywas caught by Friach, second baseman of the Giants, ever though, when the ball washit he was stationed farther away from its ultimate landing place than any otherplayer.The reason Frisch caught the ball was this: Almost at the instant the batsman struckthe ball, Frisch had started running in the direction it was traveling. In fact, to mostpeople in the stands his first movement seemed to coincide with the crack of bat onball.
Messages Flashed To The Brain
Yet the two events really were not simultaneous. Between the instant the bat touchedthe ball and the instant Frisch started to run, there was an infinitesimal pause. Andduring that pause, a highly complicated series of actions and reactions had taken placein his body - comparable to the transmission of electric signals and the resultantappearance of the fire engines, but infinitely more complex and infinitely more certain.The crack of the bat stirred into action delicate nerve centers controlling the man'svision and his hearing. From these nerve centers, sensitive nerves carried a report of that event to certain brain cells. These, accepting the message transmitted from theeyes and ears, retransmitted it along another line of nerves to the muscles that carriedhim in the direction of the ball. And not until these muscles received the relayedmessage did he move.That may seem like a long and complicated explanation of a process that took place ina space of time so short as to be virtually incalculable; but it is typical of the working of the wonderful human nervous system and its guiding power, the brain. Every time weperform a conscious action, there is just such an interchange of messages between ournerve centers, our brain and our muscles.
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