Literary NoTiCEg. xv 



played in the composite diagram copied in Fig. 8, Plate XI. The state- 

 ments of this author are discussed in connection with the editor's paper 

 on the Brain of Fishes in the present number. 



The Law of Psychogenesis. i 



The following paragraphs, which suffer somewhat from the omission 

 of the context, will serve to throw additional light on the difficult 

 subject discussed by this lucid writer in the last chapter of his "Animal 

 Life and Intelligence" noticed in the February number. 



Is there a law of psychogenesis .'' Is there a common principle which 

 sweeps through the whole range of mental evolution, alike in the indi- 

 vidual and in the race? A principle sufficiently general to cover the whole 

 field of consciousness, and yet not so vague as to be meaningless ? I believe 

 that there is such a principle ; one which applies alike to the simpler 

 inferences of perceptual experience, and to the more complex judgments 

 in matters intellectual, jesthetic, moral. I shall here endeavor to indicate 

 its nature. 



The Role of Consciousness. Without attempting to enter upon such 

 vexed questions as, What is consciousness? and, What is its relation to 

 man as an organism? I think we may say without much fear of con- 

 tradiction that the business (or, shall we say, part of the business?) of 

 consciousness is the control of action. If it be not so, if consciousness has 

 no such guiding and controlling power (however exercised), then it is 

 but a by-product; very beautiful and precious, no doubt, but none the 

 less a by-product, an e]ii-phenomenon, a mere incident aud not a factor 

 in the development of organic life. Then is all organic response and 

 conduct brought down to the level of reflex-action. 

 There is a tendency among certain nerve-physiologists to regard all 

 organic response as of the nature of reflex-action, the differences being 

 only differences of complexity. I strongly suspect, however, that this 

 procedure ought to be reversed, and that we ought more clearly to dis- 

 tinguish between the involuntary reflex-act, properly so called, and a 

 response under voluntary and conscious control. . . . When I say 

 then that the role of consciousness is the control and guidance 

 of action, I do not mean consciousness as dissociated from the living 

 organisation, but consciousness as associated with, and forming the mental 



1. Extracted wish llu' perniissioii of the author from an article in Mind, Ne 

 Serie.'i, Vol. I., No. 1. 



