316 MAN --AN ADAPTIVE MECHANISM 



As daylight and darkness blend into one another 

 by infinitesimal intervals, so that none may say where 

 daylight ends and darkness begins, so consciousness 

 and sleep blend into one another. The brain is the 

 arena in which countless stimuli pass and repass, 

 cross, combine, oppose and interfere, wax and wane 

 in intensity, appear and disappear; now one gains 

 the final common path, now another, thus creating 

 an infinity of kaleidoscopic patterns, in which hopes 

 and fears, desires, sentiments, actions, go to make up 

 the manifold life the consciousness of the individual. 

 Life and adaptation to environment begin and end in 

 unconsciousness. Unconsciousness is the basic state ; 

 consciousness is the evoked state. The sum total of 

 consciousness is the sum total of the adaptive responses 

 made by the kinetic system throughout the span of life. 



And as these adaptive reactions vary widely from 

 species to species, and from individual to individual, 

 so consciousness varies. The newborn individual, 

 like the individual weakened by some hereditary 

 defect or disease, the cretin, the victim of hypothy- 

 roidism or hypopituitarism, cannot reach a useful 

 height of consciousness, cannot attain a large sum 

 total of consciousness. Likewise, the individual whose 

 thresholds are low to only a limited number of stimuli 

 reaches but a limited degree of consciousness within 

 the limited environment which is open to him. The 

 man whose mind is closed to the beauties of nature, 

 music and art has a consciousness limited to an envi- 

 ronment devoid of a number of activating stimuli. 

 The musician, or any specialized worker who responds 

 intensely, and for the most part only, to the stimuli 



