90 



or even to stop it without smashing it up, and if they 

 were started simultaneously with no further instruction 

 than " go as j^ou please," — what sort of pandemonium 

 might we anticipate? Would not the first collective 

 efiort amongst the survivors of chaos be to investigate 

 the machine to whose actions they were committed? 

 We are more dependent on the integrity of our brains 

 than the occupants of those cars would be on their 

 machines, yet of the functions of the most important 

 centres of our brains we know practically nothing ; the 

 number of people who are or ever have been engaged 

 in the investigation of the problem, which is no doubt 

 perfectly soluble, is probably less than is employed in 

 any recognised industr}^ in the world, and a popular 

 lecturer actually told a fashionable audience only the 

 other day that there is no proof that intellectual 

 activity is a function of the brain. Let us hope the 

 new labour members may see the necessity of pro- 

 viding some form of elementary instruction for the 

 upper classes in the intervals of bridge, but for those 

 who can think, is it not time they began to acquire 

 some comprehension of the instrument on whose in- 

 tegrity every interest they possess depends ? Most 

 people might reasonably reply, "It may be important 

 but I cannot assist ; I am no anatomist or physiolo- 

 gist." True — but people who keep birds or other 

 animals have opportunities of assisting ; the careful 

 comparison of intellectual function with brain structure 

 in their more or less elementary forms is ver}^ im- 

 portant, and at present the material available is both 

 scanty and defective. If half the exhibitions of animal 

 intelligence which have been observed had been 

 simply recorded without embellishment or invention. 



