Carus, The Seat of Consciousness. 179 



sufficient vehemence, and is only incapable to refer them and 

 interpret them as normal dogs would do with the assistance of 

 their intelligence, which consists of the systematised memories 

 of former sense-impressions.* 



If the hemispheres are not the seat of consciousness, if 

 they can and do perform work that is unconscious, and if sen- 

 sations can be illumined by a state of awareness without the 

 assistance of the hemispheres, if they can be perceived, as is 

 the case with all lower animals, such as fish, whose hemi- 

 spheres are small or only incipient, and as we could observe in 

 Professor Goltz's brainless dog, where then is the seat of con- 

 sciousness ? 



Before we answer this question let us first consider the na- 

 ture of consciousness. 



Anyone who wishes to know what is to be understood by 

 consciousness must be referred to his own experience ; there he 

 finds it in all its immediate and unequivocal reality. When the 

 unsophisticated Gothamites in a merry-making were so huddled 

 together that they were unable to distinguish their own feet, 

 they requested a stranger who happened to pass by to assist 

 them in their dilemma. The wag resorted to the directest 

 method by using a cudgel, and the success was wonderful. He 

 who felt the pain abandoned all doubt as to the ownership of the 

 foot that was hit, and the process which took place is what we 

 call an act of consciousness. The brain of everyone of the 

 Gothamites contains sentient images of a number of feet, but the 

 consciousness ' ' these are my feet and those are the feet of my 

 comrades " can only originate by a co-ordination of two feelings : 

 the sight of the cudgel falling upon one of the feet is connected 

 with the pain that is simultaneously felt. Consciousness is a 

 feeling, but not every feeling is conscious. The spinal ganglion 

 of the decapitated frog, as we said above, may very well be 

 supposed to be possesesd of feeling, but it remains a local irri- 



*Prof. Goltz sent the brain of his famous dog, after the creature's death 

 to the well known authority on nervous anatomy, Dr. Ludwig Edinger of 

 Frankfort, on the Main, Germany, whose investigation showed that very few 

 traces only of gray substance had been left. 



