,Herrick,- The Seat of Consciousness-. 225 



concerted and mutually modifying action of more or less of this 

 continuance as the physiological basis of consciousness. Any 

 attempt at the location of a physical centre becomes involved in 

 absurdities. Is some one cell capable of such coordination as 

 our concept of consciousness requires? If not, why should any 

 number or group of cells serve this purpose better than the 

 whole functioning and interdependent structure. The super- 

 added coordinating complex adds nothing to the solution and 

 we find no physiological or pathological support for the assump- 

 tion. The fact that the cellular structure of the striata is ob- 

 scure is no reason for assigning to it such a doubtful function. 

 Still again, the unity discovered by all psychologists in 

 consciousness is not like any physiological unity we know of. 

 It has for its peculiarity that which separates it toto ccelo from all 

 physical processes in its intimate and conditioning relation to 

 our own existence. This same peculiarity likewise removes it 

 to a large degree from the field of possible investigation. We 

 may push our refined analysis as far as we may but no such analy- 

 sis helps us at all in our study of a fact of immediate apprehension 

 — a state through which alone all knowledge is reached. This 

 felt unity of consiousness has then no necessary relation to any 

 obsetved physiological unity and the selection of an organ be- 

 comes a superfluity. The most we can at present say is that 

 the highest and last thing we observe physically after an exci- 

 tation of the receiving nervous mechanism is an exceedingly 

 complex set of reactions in a system which forms the anatomical 

 terminus of the various apparent nerve paths. The cerebral 

 cortex is such a mechanism with a curious composition of 

 disparate localizable "centers" with inter-communicating tracts 

 and substituting subordinating centers. The contention for 

 localizing is born out by facts and so is the opposite idea of 

 a unit cortex. In fact the localization appears to be more 

 functionally than anatomically conditioned and coordinations be- 

 tween the most distant regions are provided for. On the other 

 hand, the first psychological element is a state of consciousness, 

 a thing which is essentially dynamic — an activity, not a 

 "state," as one often employs the word. Feeling may be em- 



