262 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



* 

 system, in airy individual man; and when we ask this question we 



find ourselves bound to acknowledge our dense ignorance. It is easy 



to speak of the ' integration ' of these systems ; but difficult to explain 



in what this ' integration ' consists. All that we are able to assert is 



that the minor systems are contiguous, and so connected that together 



they act as a unit. But evidently this contiguity and connectedness 



within the neural systems of individual men are of various grades, 



as the unification of the activity between the several minor systems 



is of different grades. 



We are led to note furthermore that when, for instance, any of us 

 touches the hand of a fellow man, the nerve terminals of his neural 

 system are contiguous with, and active at the same time with, the cor- 

 responding nerve terminals of that fellow man; and that his neural 

 system and his neighbor's neural system at such a moment form in a 

 sense one still more complex neural system, in which there are two 

 great minor systems in either of which may occur the inception of 

 changes in grade of activity, but in which this inception of activity 

 must affect both parts of, that is the whole of, what we may call the 

 duplex system. No action in the nervous system of one (A) of the 

 two men (A and B), under such conditions of contact, can be without 

 some effect upon the activity of the nervous system of the other man 

 (B) ; nor can this action in the one man (A) fail to be influenced by 

 the existing conditions of activity in the nervous system of that other 

 man (B). 



Taking one step further we note that the nervous systems of two 

 or more individuals living in the same physical environment may be 

 connected by common stimulations the most important of which are 

 those of ocular, or of aural, nerve terminals — and by those signs 

 and symbols in language, spoken and written, which are substituted 

 for these stimulations — just as well as by the common stimulations of 

 touch nerve terminals of which we have just spoken; and we are 

 thus led to see that after all it is not at all impossible to surmise that 

 the individuals of social groups who are similarly constituted, and who 

 are affected at the same time by the same stimuli from the environment, 

 may be organically interrelated elements of a social body to which 

 must be coincident a social consciousness. 



We find then that our consciousnesses may not improbably be minor 

 psychic systems which are parts of a greater social psychic system; 

 that we are warranted in assuming that there may be social conscious- 

 nesses of which our individual consciousnesses are elementary parts. 

 But we can not accept such a position without making certain reserva- 

 tions to avoid misunderstanding.* 



* For a fuller discussion of this subject confer my ' Instinct and Reason,' 

 p. 189 ff. 



