THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY. 



AUGUST, 1902. 



THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN ITS BIOLOG- 

 ICAL ASPECTS.* 



By Professor CHARLES SEDGWICK MINOT, 



HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL. 



OUR Association meets in Pittsburgh for the first time. We are 

 glad to indicate by our assembling here our appreciation of the 

 immense work for the promotion of education and science which has 

 begun in this city and already is of national value. It has been initia- 

 ted with so great wisdom and zeal that we expect it to render services 

 to knowledge of the highest character, and we are glad to be guests of 

 a city and of institutions which are contributing so nobly to the cause 

 of science. 



We may congratulate ourselves on the bright prospects of the Asso- 

 ciation. Our membership has grown rapidly, and ought soon to exceed 

 four thousand. Every member should endeavor to secure new adher- 

 ents. For our next meeting we are to break with the long tradition of 

 summer gatherings and assemble instead at New Year's time, presum- 

 ably at Washington. To render this possible it was necessary to secure 

 the cooperation of our universities, colleges and technical schools, to 

 set aside the week in which the first of January falls, as Convocation 

 Week, for the meeting of learned societies. The plan, owing to the 

 cordial and almost universal support given by the higher educational 

 institutions, has been successfully carried through. For the winter 

 meetings we have further succeeded in securing the cooperation of 

 numerous national societies. The change in our time of meeting is an 



* Address of the President of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science. Pittsburgh Meeting, June 28 to July 3, 1902. 



vol. lxi. — 19. 



