196 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



subconscious hie would have found traces there of the activities 

 which were all the while affecting the area of greatest vividness. 



Not only is consciousness as a whole thus correlated to a system 

 of physical forces, but we find that its several elements are also re- 

 lated to certain subordinate systems of forces which, while form- 

 ing part of that total, have a certain degree of independence. It is 

 known, for example, that the activities which take place in the 

 occipital or hinder portion of the cortex are accompanied by sen- 

 sations and ideas of color ; those that take place in the temporal 

 region, in the neighborhood of the ear, have to do with sensations 

 and ideas of sound ; those of the Rolandic region, which forms an 

 archlike band passing over the brain from a point a little in front 

 of the ear, are probably the basis of sensations and ideas of move- 

 ments as felt. Since the awakening of these latter tends to pro- 

 duce or sustain the movement in question, and since volition is 

 but another name for the initiation of a movement through an 

 idea representing it or something with which it is associated, this 

 is also a region essential to the performance of voluntary move- 

 ments. And it is probable that all the definite qualities of sensa- 

 tion and the corresponding ideas are related to more or less well 

 defined portions of the cortex. But we know that even our very 

 simple ideas as those of a rose, or a book, or a man involve 

 elements drawn from many of these sources. We must then 

 suppose that the idea of a rose depends upon a co-ordination of 

 processes which, although situated in different portions of the 

 brain, act together in the production of this idea. As my 

 thought flits from the color to the fragrance, to the touch, to 

 the plucking of the rose, so do the pulses of energy pass along the 

 conducting fibers from the region of vision to that of smell, to 

 that of touch, to that of movement. Further, as the rose is to me 

 a relatively stable thing, we must suppose that these physical 

 processes are not merely co-ordinated for the time being, but are 

 organized into a quite permanent system which retains its co- 

 herence and existence as a system as long as the idea of a rose 

 remains to me one and the same idea, although consisting of un- 

 like mental elements. 



I can not undertake to work out in detail many of the more 

 complex organizations or systems which we can detect in mind. 

 To do that would be to write a treatise on psychology, and my 

 only object at present is to make clear the conceptions of co- 

 ordination and organization. Yet to two of these more complex 

 forms and they are unfortunately the most complex of all I 

 must make some reference, since a comprehension of them is pre- 

 supposed in the application of this theory to the curious phe- 

 nomena which we wish to explain. 



I have shown that the state of consciousness at any given mo- 



