THE WORLD'S CONSERVATION PROBLEM 165 



establishment of bases or centers for the consideration of plans for 

 acquiring additional facts to be used in winning the future battles 

 against ignorance; and it is to this second plan of campaign, the dis- 

 cussion of methods for acquiring information, that attention is to be 

 briefly directed. 



In order to understand the methods employed in the study of the 

 brain and nervous system attention must be directed to certain funda- 

 mental laws which are applicable to all forms of living organisms. Life 

 will continue to be a subject of increasing interest to mankind, and the 

 values of all forms of knowledge will be estimated by the better under- 

 standing that they give us of vital phenomena. During his early devel- 

 opment man's interest in biology was chiefly limited to interpreting the 

 phenomena of more common occurrence in his own life history, and 

 to-day we observe the same egoism in savage races. Gradually educated 

 people have awakened to a realization of the fact that the vital phe- 

 nomena of plant and animal life vary in degree but not in kind from 

 those observed in the human species. As a result of a limited horizon 

 and a centripetalizing thought process man was led to assume a place 

 of unique grandeur in the universe for himself, and this anthropo- 

 centric point of view not only dominated but seriously interfered with 

 the actual progress made in the study of the brain. The concepts of 

 this false philosophical system unfortunately limited the study of the 

 nervous system to the human subject, whose nervous system represents 

 the most complicated series of organs in the animal series. But more 

 unfortunate than the establishment of false standards by which man's 

 relative importance in nature was measured was the consequent diver- 

 sion of human interest from the consideration of problems of the most 

 vital importance to humanity. This was one of the penalties paid for 

 assuming that the human brain had definite and specific functions not 

 represented in other animals. The egoism of mankind is reflected in 

 our present superstitions and ignorant attitude in regard to the ques- 

 tions connected with the cure and prevention of insanity. Attempting 

 to conceal our defects by clamorously referring to our position of 

 splendid isolation in the universe, we have failed to plan a rational 

 system of education, and have been content to try to drive all who 

 applied across the intellectual tight rope without any effort being made 

 to determine the capacity of the individual nervous system to maintain 

 its equilibrium while under strain or to restore it if disturbed. The 

 results of these sins of omission afford excellent examples of the prac- 

 tical cruelties to which humanity is, as Anatole France has said, so 

 often subjected by the sickly sentimentality that periodically is a blight 

 upon our intelligence. Physicians compelled by the exigencies of 

 practise too often confined their studies of anatomy and physiology to 

 the organs of the human individual and thus unconsciously sanctioned 



