122 THE BRAIN OF THE TIGER SALAMANDER 



The objective toward which we are directing our efforts is a better 

 understanding of human hfe and its instrumentation. Our mode of 

 hfe has been achieved througli eons of evolutionary change, during 

 which the conservative and rehitively stable organization of the 

 brain stem has been supplemented and amplified by the addition of 

 cortical apparatus with more labile patterns of action, resulting in 

 greater freedom of adjustment to the exigencies of life. In all be- 

 havior there is a substrate of innate patterns of great antiquity, and 

 in practical adjustments these primitive factors are manipulated and 

 recombined in terms of the individual's personal experience. Memory 

 and learning are pre-eminently cortical functions, but these cortical 

 capacities have not been given to us by magic, and we want to know 

 how they have been developed and the roots from which they have 

 grown. 



The incentives which motivate research in comparative neurology 

 are the same as those of all other science, pure and applied, and of all 

 truly humanistic endeavor in other fields— to find out what is good 

 for humanity and how to get it. This implies, as I have recently ex- 

 horted ('44), that the humanistic values of science must always be 

 acknowledged and cultivated. 



