THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 



By Dr. Paul Carus. 



The late Professor Meynert considers the nervous mechan- 

 ism of man as a hierarchy of three superordinated systems of pro- 

 jection, the highest of which terminates through the corona ra- 

 diata in the gray cells of the hemispheres ; and these hemis- 

 pheres are commonly held to be the seat of consciousness. 

 This view is at present so generally accepted that it is often re- 

 peated with the assurance of an established truth which has been 

 verified by science beyond the least shadow of a doubt. But I 

 make bold to say, first, that the theory stands in contradiction 

 to several important and unequivocal facts, and secondly, that 

 we have good reasons to regard the striate body, that great 

 ganglion situated in the very centre of the hemispheres, as the 

 true seat of consciousness. I shall present my arguments as 

 concisely as possible in the hope of stimulating some specialist 

 of the physiology of the brain either to refute or to confirm my 

 proposition. 



Consciousness is very often confounded with intelligence, 

 and this is perhaps the main reason why many physiologists 

 consider the hemispheres as the seat of consciousness. Con- 

 sciousness, however, is very different from intelligence. 



Under normal conditions, it is true, all conscious actions 

 are simultaneously acts of intelligence ; yet vice versa not all 

 acts of intelligence are conscious. On the contrary, the uncon- 

 scious cerebration of intelligent thought is very extensive, and 

 there is no question about the fact that a very small part only 

 of our intelligent thoughts is illuminated by consciousness. The 

 experiments of the Professors Goltz, Exner, Hitzig, Munk and 

 others, prove that only one interpretation can be made of the 

 function of the hemispheres; they prove that the hemispheres are, 



