6o Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology. 



human beings (including their psychical processes, their con- 

 scious acts) will never adequately be understood until we have 

 formulated the laws of the behavior of these simpler types of 

 organisms. 



The value of a study of the animal mind for human psy- 

 chology has been emphasized by various writers. But its full 

 significance, methodologically, has not always been realized. 

 This deeper significance lies in the dynamic conception of con- 

 sciousness, as itself a phase of the ultimate energic system, a bal- 

 ance or tension of forces, admitting, like all other energic phe- 

 nomena, of examination, description and explanation. The 

 conditions of consciousness as represented in the complicated 

 structures of the brain in the higher forms are too intricate to 

 admit of exact statement as yet in scientific terms. Hence the 

 promising ch.iracter of researches upon the lower forms where 

 the conditions are simpler, and where, if anywhere, the precise 

 function of the brain as an organ for the transformation of en- 

 ergy can be determined. Here first may we expect the laws of 

 equilibration or tension of energies which we call conscious to 

 be elucidated. The solution of the deepest problems of psy- 

 chology, there is good reason to believe, lies in the hands of 

 the comparative psychologist. 



ScHULTZ, in a recent article entitled "Gehirn und Seele" 

 (^Zeitschr. f. Psy. u. Physiol, d. Sinncsorg., XXXH, Heft 3 u. 4, 

 pp. 246-7) calls attention to the apparent dilemma in which the 

 comparative psychologist finds himself. It is certainly a safe 

 assumption that the higher, more complicated mental life of 

 man and the higher animals can best be explained by a knowl- 

 edge of the simpler conditions of mental life in the lower forms. 

 On the other hand, it is a general principle that in explanation 

 we should proceed from the known to the unknown. Now my 

 own human individual consciousness is best known to me and 

 most immediately given. We here seem to be under the com- 

 pulsion equally of following what Professor Baldwin has called 

 the "leveling up" and the "leveling down" methods, the mechan- 

 ical and the teleological (or what some would call the anthropo- 

 morphizing) tendencies. 



