WHAT WE DO WITH OUR BRAINS 13 



board system is automatic. There is no scientific 

 evidence of any little deity who presides at this 

 "central" and receives the incoming calls and plugs 

 them into appropriate outbound circuits with more 

 or less intelligence, more or less accuracy, more or 

 less affability. 



This is our scheme of reflex action and of simple 

 learning by trial-and-error, as mechanically deter- 

 mined as an automatic telephone exchange. It is 

 well authenticated. We do not know as much as we 

 would hke (and hope for) about how the machine 

 works, but that it is a strictly automatic action there 

 is genera] agreement. 



Now, these reflex units can be combined in various 

 degrees of complexity, and it is a popular belief nowa- 

 days that all animal behavior and all human conduct 

 are regulated thus mechanistically by successive 

 hierarchies of reflex circuits. There is no doubt in the 

 minds of most qualified students of the question that 

 this mechanistic conception of reflex is true. But how 

 far can we extend it, and is it an adequate basis for a 

 true understanding of all human behavior.^ We are 

 no nearer to a consensus of opinion on these questions 

 today than were the contemporaries of Solomon when 

 he wrote his Book of Proverbs. . 



One extreme is typified by the president of a 

 college to whom, as a youthful enthusiast, I went 

 many years ago with the suggestion that perhaps it 

 would be helpful if I were to offer a course on the 



