From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



* There are no psycho-physiological localisations ; 

 localisation is purely fantastic. 



* And if it is impossible to localise the least 

 sensation, it is much more so to assign determinate 

 areas in the cerebral cortex to what used to be termed 

 "faculties"; abstraction, will, sensation, imagina- 

 tion, and memory.' 



Therefore the materialist hypotheses which made 

 thought a secretion of the brain, and would assign 

 centres to mental faculties, are erroneous. 



* There are no special nervous centres, one 

 presiding over abstraction, another over the emotions, 

 another over memory, another over imagination. 

 This cerebral mythology is given up; our spiritual 

 activity does not obey local divinities erected by 

 credulous scientists in the different corners of their 

 cerebral schemes.' 



Further, it seems really impossible * to explain 

 mental by cerebral activity, and to reduce the former 

 to the latter.' In fact, ' each time that the thinking 

 being is not limited to repetition, but acquires some 

 new thing, he transcends the mechanism resident in 

 him . . . the effort goes beyond the acquirement; 

 he combines what has already been acquired with 

 the new impressions; and this implies an increase 

 of activity on his part. The cerebral mechanism lags 

 behind the intelligence. ... In this activity, which 

 is really progressive and characteristic of human 

 effort, there is a synthesis perpetually renewed which 

 is not a repetition of what has already been acquired. 

 This effort, which is proper to mental life, is to be 

 observed among animals also, when, being placed 

 in unusual conditions, they modify their habits and 

 adapt themselves to the altered circumstances. . . .' 



82 



