310 BRAINS OF RATS AND MEN 



matter of direct observation on the biological plane. 

 Human organisms, one of whom I know to be con- 

 scious and others of whom I have valid scientific evi- 

 dence for so regarding, manifest types of behavior not 

 possible except as expressions of conscious processes. 

 They predict eclipses, write poems, invent machines, 

 and dig canals, which profoundly affect the subse- 

 quent course of biological and even of inorganic 

 events. And these processes are functions of their 

 bodily organization in the same sense as are their 

 respiration and locomotion, with definitely assignable 

 anatomical organs in each case. 



This conception of cortical function is thoroughly 

 mechanistic. Every cortical activity is knit in with 

 other bodily processes in causal sequence. At no point 

 are non-mechanistic or mystical agencies admitted. 

 The cortical functions are exceedingly diversified. Of 

 some of these functions we have as yet no knowledge 

 at all; others are open to objective study by the 

 ordinary physiological methods now at our disposal; 

 and some are characterized by an awareness of some 

 sort while the functional process is in action. The re- 

 lation between the second and third of these types of 

 function has not yet been clarified. But the scientific 

 evidence is adequate and unambiguous that the intro- 

 spectively known activities are functions of the brain 

 that articulate in causal sequence with other bodily 

 processes. They are not parallel phenomena, by- 

 products, or any other sort of pseudophenomena, and 



