THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 43 



* 



the ordinary sense of the term, therefore, corresponds 

 only to a fractional part of nerve-activities in gene- 

 ral, there is, again, the very best reason for believ- 

 ing that Consciousness, so far from being co-exten- 

 sive with Mind, or mental phenomena, is in reality 

 limited to a comparatively small poition of what 

 may be rightly ranged under this category. Many truly 

 mental phenomena never reveal themselves in con- 

 sciousness at all, and the roots of these strike far and 

 wide; so that, instead of accepting the popular view, 

 that the Brain is the organ of Mind, I believe it would 

 be nearer the truth to look upon the whole Nervous 

 System as the organ of Mind a doctrine which has 

 already been taught by Mr. G. H. Lewes and others. 

 The Brain, it is true, is its principal organ, whilst Con- 

 sciousness or Feeling l is probably only attendant upon 

 the activity of quite a limited portion of this 2 . And, 



1 Not using these words, however, in the sense in which they are 

 employed by Mr. Lewes, as has been explained in an article on ' Sensa- 

 tion and Perception' in Nature, vol. i. Nos. 8 and 12. 



2 On this subject we have said elsewhere (article on ' Conscious- 

 ness,' 'Journal of Mental Science,' January 1870, p. 522): 'Mind is 

 generally supposed to be constituted by our conscious states or nerve- 

 actions only ; but as these conscious states are themselves only the last 

 terms of a series of molecular actions talcing place in ganglionic and 

 other nerve-tissue, we now simply maintain that the components and 

 not the resultant alone ought to be considered as elements entering into 

 the composition of mind. And, similarly, we would make the sum 

 total of the seats of these molecular changes the whole Nervous Sys- 

 temrather than the seats of the resulting conscious states alone, con- 

 stitute the organ of Mind as now understood.' And again, in Nature 

 (vol. i. No. 12, p. 311): 'Cognition or intellectual action may take 



