MIND, BRAIN AND BIOCHEMISTRY 393 



greatly to our knowledge of such centers/' We know that 

 definite areas of the temporal cortex when stimulated by a mild 

 electrical current has evoked in certain subjects a detailed 

 record of some past experience. Under certain conditions even 

 present experience can somehow be evaluated in the light of a 

 related past experience. It is possible, too, to evoke an emotion, 

 most frequently fear, but sometimes loneliness or sorrow. The 

 exact significance of these observations must still be determined 

 before further light can be shed on normal and abnormal 

 behavior. 



The philosophical vocabulary of Aristotle and Aquinas has 

 no term corresponding to the modern expression " behavior." 

 Indeed even in current usage the precise meaning of the term 

 must often be determined from the context. In reference to 

 human behavior it is ordinarily conceived as including those 

 operations or actions of men which are considered to proceed 

 from the whole organism or individual. Thus the term is 

 applied not only to deliberate, consciously motivated actions, 

 which may be considered rational acts, but also to those which 

 follow on emotions, or are influenced by infra-conscious factors. 

 Normal behavior, then, is that which fits into a system of public 

 logic and is presumably in contact with the real world. 

 Abnormal behavior, in this context, in some ways offends public 

 logic, although the private logic of the individual may be 

 rigorously observed. As a consequence, the individual, at one 

 or more points, fails to contact the real world. 



The term behavior in the present context, consequently, does 

 not directly connote such isolated phenomena of the autonomic 

 nervous system as heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, 

 perspiration, and so forth. Nevertheless, behavior has physi- 

 ological and biochemical correlates of which any one parameter 

 may precede, accompany, or follow the individual's total res- 

 ponse to a particular environmental situation. A person's 



^' W. Penfield, " The Interpretative Cortex," Science, CXXIX (1959) , 1719-25; 

 W. Penfield and L. Roberts, Speech and Brain Mechanisms (Princeton: Univ. Press, 

 1959). 



