216 The Unity of the Organism 



for the sufficient reason that the parts are, finally, non- 

 existent except as derivatives of and dependencies upon the 

 organism, as our whole treatise has abundantly shown. 



Discussion of the Nervous System, the Brain, the Cerebral 

 Cortex, Neurones, Reflexes, the Senses, Responses, Emo- 

 tions, Consciousness, Will, Reason, and so on, as though any 

 of these are now or ever have been or ever will be independent 

 entities, or things to which the organism is subordinate, is 

 from our standpoint one of the deep inadequacies and mis- 

 fortunes of much biological and psychological thinking. To 

 the whole attitude of the zoological naturalist, who by na- 

 tive endowment and by training is imbued with the spirit 

 of his motto "neglect nothing" in the study of animals, this 

 habit of the special sciences of animal life is intolerable. 



The ancient problem of the relation of "Mind" to "Body" 

 is one of those problems which run on endlessly in discussion 

 simply because the partisans of one theory or another never 

 know exactly what they are discussing — never know just 

 where they start from, in what direction they are going, or 

 what the end would be like if they reached it. 



Lest this statement be taken as foreshadowing both a 

 right statement and a "final solution" of the problem, I 

 affirm very positively that it foreshadows nothing of the sort. 

 All I hope to do is to add considerably to a clear statement 

 of the problem, to add a little to our comprehension of 

 whither we are going, and to contribute a bit to the "final 

 solution," whatever that may mean. 



The real problem of psychic integration formulates itself, 

 for us, in a two-parted way: Given any particular act or 

 action-system* which is unquestionably psychical, (1) how 

 many and what parts of the organism are essentially in- 

 volved in it? and (2) does the act or action-system bear such 



* This phrase I borrow from Jennings {Behavior of the Lower Organ- 

 isms, p. 107) and mention incidentally here that we shall find it ex- 

 tremely useful later on. 



