PSYCHOLOGICAL COROLLARIES OF MODERN 

 NEUROLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 



By C. L. Herrick. 



An Organ of Consciousness. The search for the organ of 

 consciousness has remained unfruitful by reason of the total 

 disparity between the conscious and any conceivable form of 

 purely neural activity. Nevertheless it is plain that some sort 

 of neurosis does, in every case, form the immediate prelimin- 

 ary to consciousness, and it is equally clear that not every sort 

 of nervous excitation is an adequate occasion for the emergence 

 of consciousness. The metaphysical nature as well as the pe- 

 culiar unity and continuity of consciousness has militated 

 against the idea of localizing this power and has disposed to a 

 dynamic view, viz., that the condition of consciousness is not 

 topographical but consists in the form of activity. 



It is plain that, in the nature of the case, it is impossible 

 to discover a specific portion or a definite kind of matter in 

 which consciousness resides, for no complexity of the material 

 unit could make intelligible the diversity in consciousness, while 

 any complexity destroys the objective grounds of unity. It is 

 equally hard to discover any physiological basis for the contin- 

 uity of consciousness. The idea of consciousness as a property 

 is accordingly abandoned and it remains to conceive of it as a 

 form of energy. Pure energy with the attribute of spontaneity 

 it could only be if it were in the mode of absolute equilibrium, 

 in which its activities should be wholly reflected into themselves. 

 This can only be predicated of infinite essence and it is neces- 

 sary to substitute the conditions of relative equilibrium in a 

 sphere of interfering activities. The last few years have re- 

 vealed in the cerebrum a mechanism of neural equiUbration of 

 unsuspected complexity, and all that we have recently learned 

 of the physiology of the nerve stimulus only emphasizes the 



