Correlation of Characters 25 



others as well ; but also for those which are remote from 

 one another, as, for example, the internal glands whose 

 secretions are found to be in some obscure way correlated 

 with general conditions of the organism. This principle, 

 when once formulated, will undoubtedly be important; 

 but as yet no exact laws of correlation have been made out. 

 Yet it is quite allowable to say, in the same general sense, 

 that psychological and psychophysical correlations hold. 

 The psychophysical relation is itself a correlation having 

 many special illustrations, such as the correlation between 

 plasticity and intelligence, that between the fixity of ner- 

 vous processes and the corresponding impulses, instincts, 

 etc. Indeed, the psychophysical question, when put in a 

 particular case, is really one of determining the correlation 

 of the characters which consciousness shows with those 

 of the organism as such. And it follows that, wherever 

 a mental character enters into the complete carrying out 

 of a physical function, it must have its place assigned to it, 

 according to what has already been said, in the complete 

 determination of the genetic significance of that function. 

 Furthermore, we may say that no physical character 

 which has mental correlations is completely understood 

 until these latter are exhaustively determined, and also 

 that no mental character escapes physical correlation. 

 Recent research in the psychological and physiological 

 laboratories is establishing many such psychophysical cor- 

 relations : that of emotion with motor processes, of atten- 

 tion, rhythm, and the time-sense with vasomotor changes, 

 that of mental work with nervous fatigue, and so forth 

 through all the main problems of this department. All 

 this affords, in so far, at once illustration and proof of 

 the general formula of psychophysical parallelism. 



