THE SUBCONSCIOUS 279 



into nervous impulses, of the nerves to conduct these 

 impulses, of the brain to respond to them in very- 

 complicated ways including the reactivation of asso- 

 ciation centers in patterns long quiescent so that the 

 present excitation sets off a train of associational 

 processes which were established when I first learned 

 of the properties of coal, its commercial value, and 

 the procedures necessary to exploit this value. In just 

 the same way it is a function of the brain to generalize 

 from past and present experiences, to understand how 

 to profit by them, and to determine to do so. 



This is the scientific and the common-sense 

 analysis of the facts as we know them. There are 

 many things in this sequence of events that are be- 

 yond our present understanding. To a savage the 

 location of an earthquake two thousand miles away 

 with a seismograph seems like magic. To some philos- 

 ophers the intelligent recognition of a mineral vein as 

 coal of commercial value and the determination to 

 mine the same also seem like magic, and various 

 magical formulas are still current to "account" for the 

 mystery — parallelism, interactionalism, idealism, ma- 

 terialism, etc. — but to the plain man of science the 

 scientific method (with which he is tolerably fa- 

 miliar) points in the direction that I have indicated. 

 It does not promise an ultimate philosophical ex- 

 planation, for science never attains the ultimate. The 

 intelligent interpretation of the things seen, the re- 

 solve to use these things to gain wealth and renown. 



