But SWEDENBORG was not satisfied with knowing only that the psychical functions arise within certain regions of the cortex of the large anterior region of the cerebrum: but he continued his search for their inmost origin, and thus he came to the conviction that the _psychical processes in reality result from the joint work which is performed by the minute cortical elements_, which SWEDENBORG called ›_Sphaerulae_› or ›_Cerebellula_›, that is, the same bodies which we now call the _cortical nerve-cells_. These were the units of which the brain was in reality composed and out of which its actual esse was derived. (See ›The Brain›, No. 34). It was to these ›Cerebellula› that the sensory impressions went, and in these they were perceived and brought to consciousness; it was in these that conceptions, thoughts, judgments, conclusions, came into being. (Œc. R. A. II., No. 191, and ›The Brain›, No. 98). And this was possible because there were as many kinds of ›Cerebellula› as there were kinds of sensory impressions, and that these ›Cerebellula› were connected together into groups with different subdivisions. (Œc. R. A. II., No. 193; VII., chap. XX.). It was also from the ›Cerebellula› of the cortex that the determinations and impulses to the various movements of the body emanated. (›The Brain›, No. 99). And this was possible because the ›Cerebellula› cohered each with its own nerve-fibril, which in their turn innervated the muscle fibre, and that the ›Cerebellula› were _arranged into groups, these into greater groups, these into convolutions (gyri)_, etc., corresponding to muscle fibres, muscles, groups of muscles, etc. (Œc. R. A. II., Nos. 146, 156, and ›The Brain›, No. 99). And it is in this connection that SWEDENBORG _refers to experiments on animals by which it might be shown which gyre or part of convolution it is, which answers to this or that muscle in the body_.[80] How SWEDENBORG was able to come to this modern conception ought not to be so exceedingly difficult to understand if we summarize what was already known at that time about these cortical elements and add thereto the conclusions as to the functions of the cortex to which SWEDENBORG had already come. In SWEDENBORG’s time the conception of HIPPOCRATES of the brain as a gland was still generally received. In this one had, however, as MALPIGHI says, ›since the time of PICCOLOMINEUS› learned to distinguish between an outer, greyish layer, ›cerebral cortex›, and an inner, more pure white mass, the ›cerebral medulla›.[81] Through the microscopic investigations of LEEUWENHOEK (1632-1723) it had further been discovered that the substance of the brain (especially of the cortex) contained, besides a great mass of blood-vessels and very fine fibres, _a numberless mass of_ peculiar _small bodies_ of varying size, by him called ›globuli›, connected with the vessels and fibres. (See Œc. R. A. II., Nos. 71-75, 112, etc.).