28o BRAINS OF RATS AND MEN 



and the accompanying sentimental thrills and emo- 

 tional outbursts seem like the natural workings of an 

 apparatus which is acted upon by certain external 

 stimuli; they are, in short, functions of the body. 



The following passage is quoted from my Intro- 

 duction to Neurology (1922, p. 332): 



The dynamic view of consciousness here adopted makes such 

 expressions as "the unconscious mind" impossible contradictions. 

 Either the mental functions are in process or they are not, and 

 unconscious cerebration is not consciousness. This is, of course, 

 not incompatible with a dissociation of consciousness into mul- 

 tiple or co-conscious units, as Dr. Morton Prince so forcibly 

 illustrates (The Unconscious, p. 249), though how far in normal 

 men this dissociation may be carried is an open question. 



In my life as viewed by an outside observer there is continu- 

 ity of process, but not necessarily continuity of consciousness. In 

 my own experience consciousness appears to be continuous, of 

 course, because the periods of unconsciousness (as in coma, deep 

 sleep, etc.) do not appear in consciousness; that is, they do not 

 exist for me except as I learn of them by an indirection. In a 

 water mill the function of grinding corn may go on intermittently, 

 though the mechanism is there all the time and the energy is 

 there; but if the water passes from the mill race out over the dam 

 instead of through the water wheel the grinding function ceases. 

 While the mill is at rest changes may be made in the machinery 

 which will modify the character of the grinding when it is re- 

 sumed, but these changes are not grinding. So in the brain the 

 mechanism of consciousness and the structural memory vestiges 

 of past experience may be present continuously; indeed, these 

 vestigeal traces may be linked up in new ways by intercurrent 

 physiological processes. But these things do not constitute 

 consciousness. In fact, a large amount of unconscious cerebra- 

 tion may go on, the end result of which alone becomes conscious. 



