Neural Integration 183 



those of fear and rage, and with pain. Otherwise stated, he 

 has coupled them, more definitely than this has been done 

 before, with the conscious psychic life of the organism. 



Concluding Remarks on the Significance of Neural Integra- 

 tion for the Organismal Standpoint 



Perhaps enough illustration and general discussion have 

 been presented to convince the reader not only that "the 

 nervous system functions as a whole" but that this func- 

 tioning is strictly subservient to the needs of the organism 

 as a whole, whether the normal individual, living normally, 

 or the normal individual living under special stress, be con- 

 sidered. It is hoped the reader will not have failed, despite 

 the brevity and inadequacy of the presentation, to perceive 

 the fundamental truth that the organism's totality of activi- 

 ties, executed to so large an extent through the agency of the 

 neural mechanism, are in turn subordinate to the needs of 

 the organism as related to its natural environment. This is 

 only another way of expressing the truth, which has become 

 almost trite since the idea of evolution has been an essen- 

 tial part of biological philosophy, that all, or at least by 

 far the major part, of the activities of organisms are 

 adaptive. 



In connection with no other organ-system than the nerv- 

 ous does the truth come out so patently that the unity and 

 wholeness of the particular system, the unity and wholeness 

 of the organism, and the adaptiveness of the organism to its 

 environment are bound together inseparably; indeed, may 

 almost be called different aspects of one and the same truth 

 of living beings. The very conception of adaptation, at 

 least as touching neural activity, seems dependent upon the 

 correlatedness, the unitedness, of the differentiated parts. 

 The conception of adaptation, so far at least as reflexes are 

 concerned, depends essentially on the mode of relation of 



