458 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



WERE THE EARLIEST ORGANIC MOVEMENTS CON- 

 SCIOUS OR UNCONSCIOUS? 



By Professor E. B. TITCHENER, 

 cornell university. 



rriHERE are now current two general theories of tlie place of mind in 

 -L nature. The one of these, and the one which it is easier to state 

 in precise terms, regards the processes of the material universe (includ- 

 ing those of the physical organism) as a closed chain of cause and 

 effect, which is altogether removed from any psychical influence. 

 Mental process is a concomitant of certain highly complex material 

 processes, but not anything that affects these processes themselves. 

 Whether or not it is a constant concomitant, and thus a valid index 

 or symptom of the nature of the underlying material processes, is a 

 question which science must settle by appeal to the facts. Modern psy- 

 chology answers it in the affirmative, though she offers no explanation — 

 cannot, in the nature of the case, offer an explanation — of the 'why' 

 of the connection. Mind exists; mental processes run their course in 

 constant parallelism to bodily processes ; they never interfere with these 

 processes. This is the first view, and the view which I myself, at the 

 present time, consider to be the more tenable. 



The alternative theory regards mind as capable of causal interaction 

 with body. Mind and body have developed together, and it stands to 

 reason that they mutually influence each other. This is a common 

 sense point of view; it seems, at first sight, to have everything in its 

 favor, and to be just as intelligible as the other. 



We must, however, go a little deeper. And, in order to keep things 

 clear, let us give the theory of interaction a more concrete form. One 

 of the strongest arguments in support of the theory, or perhaps we 

 might rather say one of its necessary implications, which appears to 

 many psychologists to be borne out by the facts, is that 'consciousness' 

 has a 'survival value,' that mind is a factor in organic evolution. Now 

 we must sharply distinguish between two different uses of the term 

 •'consciousness,' which are oftentimes confused by the advocates of 

 interaction. Consciousness may mean knowledge or awareness, our 

 acquaintance with the world about us, or it may mean simply (as on 

 the first theory it always must mean) a complex of mental processes. 

 In the former meaning, it covers the great functions of cognition, 

 memory, reasoning, imagination, etc. And this is the point at which 

 confusion enters. Cognition, memory, and the rest, are not purely 



