THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 

 By C. L. Herrick. 



I take pleasure in acknowledging the kindness of Dr. Cams 

 who, at my request, has placed before our readers his views 

 upon this most interesting question in extenso. All that Dr. 

 Carus writes is suggestive and the little excursus into neurology 

 is especially so. It has been suggested from several quarters that 

 it would be profitable to indicate how the view advocated by 

 the editor of the "Monist " stands related to the psycho-physical 

 suggestions occasionally indicated in the "Journal." This it is 

 the object of the present article to attempt. 



First of all, questions of definition must be met. It is 

 most unfortunate that in psychology terms have no value until 

 their connotation is independently established. As a psycholo- 

 gist Dr. Carus is, of course, at liberty to coin such terms as may 

 seem appropriate or necessary but the laity may feel agrieved 

 to encounter familiar words with wholly unfamiliar meanings. 

 Now in the paper before us 1 the key to the whole matter lies in 

 the use of the word feeling. Our readers will doubtless be ac- 

 customed to an almost universal usage which makes of feeling 

 an affectation or state of consciousness. Varied and conflicting 

 as the usage has been (and one need only glance through Mar- 

 shall's admirable work on pleasure-pain to discover how contra- 

 dictory they are) it will be hard to find outside of Hartmann's 

 Philosophy of the Unconscious any exception to the usage 

 which employs feelings (whether as sensations or emotions or 

 elements of one or other or both) as modifications of conscious- 

 ness. Professor Ziehen who represents an extreme in the 

 physiological tendency of modern psychology comments on the 

 absurdity of speaking of unconscious feeling. But our author 



Journ. Comp. Neurol. IV, Sept., 1894. 



