CONSCIOUSNESS AS A VITAL FUNCTION 301 



MacMillan (1925, p. 96) has written: "Energy it- 

 self is not defined, but it can be measured, and with 

 that measurement we must remain content, for the 

 thing itself escapes us." To this aphorism we might 

 add another: Mind itself is not defined, but it can be 

 experienced and with that experience we must remain 

 content, for the thing itself escapes us. 



If now we assume as a working hypothesis that 

 consciousness or awareness is a function of the body, 

 or a property of particular patterns of matter in mo- 

 tion (for this is what the "functional view" amounts 

 to in the upshot), the objection immediately arises 

 that consciousness is a strictly personal and unique 

 phenomenon so unlike everything else in nature that 

 it cannot be fitted into the natural order at all. To 

 this it may be replied that every other property of 

 matter is similarly unique. Gold is heavy; it is also 

 yellow; and the heaviness and yellowness. seem to be 

 disparate phenomena. We accept them as given in ex- 

 perience. Nevertheless, we do not find it expedient to 

 detach the yellowness from the natural order to which 

 gold and its specific gravity belong and establish for 

 color an independent order of being which runs 

 parallel with our natural order of ponderable things. 

 We are not able to explain the relationship between 

 specific gravity and color as fully as we would like, 

 yet we believe on good scientific grounds that both 

 inhere in the same natural order of phenomena. 



Similarly, consciousness seems to be a function of 

 certain very special structural arrangements of nerv- 



