As soon as the surface of the brain has recognized the pain and where it comes from, it promptly sends a return message back down the same cable, though by different nerve-wires, to the muscles of the foot and leg, saying, "Jerk that foot away!" As a matter of fact, this message will arrive too late, for the centres in the spinal cord will already have attended to this part of the matter, often almost before you know that you are hurt. However, there is plenty of other work for the brain to do; and its next step, quicker than you can think, is to wake up a dozen muscles all over the body with the order, "Sit down!" And you promptly sit down. At the same time, the brain "central" has ordered the muscles of your arms and hands to reach down and pick up the foot, partly to protect it from any further scratch, and partly to pull the thorn out of it. Next it rushes a hurry call to the muscles controlling your lungs and throat, and says, "Howl!" and you howl accordingly. Another jab at the switchboard, and the eyes are called up and ordered to weep, while at the same time the muscles of the trunk of your body are set in rhythmic movement by another message, and you rock yourself backward and forward. This weeping and rocking yourself backward and forward and nursing your foot seem rather foolish,--indeed you have perhaps often been told that they are both foolish and babyish,--but, as you say, you "can't help it," and there is a good reason for it. The howl is a call for help; and if the hurt were due to the bite of a wolf or a bear, or the cut had gone deep enough to open an artery, this dreadfully unmusical noise might be the means of saving your life; while the rocking backward and forward and jerking yourself about would also send a message that you needed help, supposing you were so badly hurt that you couldn't call out, to anyone who happened to be within sight of you. So that it isn't entirely babyish and foolish to howl and squirm about when you are hurt--though it is manly to keep both within reasonable limits. If the message about the thorn had been brought by your eyes,--in other words, if you had seen it before you stepped on it,--then a similar but much simpler and less painful reflex would have been carried out. The image of the thorn would fall on the _retina_ of the eye and through its _optic nerve_ the message would be flashed to the brain: "There is something slim and sharp in the path,--looks like a thorn." When this message reached the brain, and not till then, would you see the thorn, just as in the case of the pain message from the foot. Then the brain would take charge of the situation just as before, flashing a hasty message to the muscles of the legs, saying, "Jump!" while its message to the throat and lungs, instead of "Yell," would be merely, "Say, 'Goodness!' or 'Whew!'" and you would say it and run on.