GLANDS AS AN INTERLOCKING DIRECTORATE 105 



untary, with our viscera, and particularly with our internal 

 secretions. Whenever there is thought and feeling, there is move- 

 ment, commotion, precedent and concomitant, among these. 

 They are the oldest seats of feeling, thought and will and con- 

 tinue to function as such. 



Just what evidence is there for this conception? In the first 

 place, there is the fascinating story of the origin of vertebrates 

 from invertebrates of the sea scorpion or spider type. Then there 

 is a whole group of data which demonstrate that the primitive 

 wishes which make up the content of a baby consciousness are 

 determined, settled by states of relaxation or tension in different 

 segments or areas of the vegetative apparatus. According to 

 this, the brain enters as only one of the characters in the play 

 of consciousness. It is just the organ of awareness by the organ- 

 ism of itself as an integer which must adjust itself to the specific 

 condition within the disturbed vegetative apparatus. Conse- 

 quently the brain emerges not as the master tissue, but as merely 

 the servant of the vegetative apparatus. ~ 



Consciousness is a circuit. Swinging around in it are the . 

 wish-feelings generated by the vegetative dynamo. From each 

 viscus, from the stomach and intestine, from the kidneys and 

 bladder, from the liver and spleen, from the blood-vessels, from 

 all the glands of external and internal secretion, there flow along 

 the vegetative nerves, to and from the brain, energies of various 

 qualities and intensities. All the members of the vegetative 

 apparatus are more or less active, and so all our wishes are all 

 more or less active. All our working hours we are aware of 

 hunger, satiety or indifference, of a desire to empty the intestine 

 or bladder, or of a lack of necessity of doing so, of a state of 

 tranquillity of the blood-vessels and sweat glands, or of a per- 

 turbation of them, of a varying tensity of even the muscles that 

 are, as we say, under the control of the will, of the state, in 

 fact, of all the elements of the vegetative complex. The stream 

 of feeling which constitutes the undertow of consciousness 

 originates outside of the brain altogether, and is composed of 

 currents arising from viscera, muscles, blood-vessels and glands. 



Now the component currents are of different sizes and positions 

 and variable degrees of warmth. That is another way of saying 

 that whether or not a current is to become the center of the 

 stream, or to approach it, or whether it is to be hot, cold, or 

 tepid, depends upon the degree of activity of the various parts 

 of the vegetative apparatus. A convenient name for this is 



