PHYSIOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 229 



admitted that the problems connected with it were im- 

 possible, or unlikely, to be solved. A very slight study 

 of the history of science reveals, however, that the prob- 

 lems which are incapable of solution frequently receive it 

 before the ink of the incredulous is dry, or, at least, before 

 it fades. 



There is no need to go into the work done on cerebral 

 organization and construction. The names of Hunter, 

 Willis, Horsley, Hughlings Jackson, Gaskell, Head, and 

 Ferrier, to speak of but few, are sufficient witnesses 

 to the labour bestowed upon the brain. With regard, 

 however, to the special phenomena lumped together by 

 the use of the word " consciousness," it may, perhaps, be 

 admitted that Pavlov did, at the very least, just as useful 

 work. He reduced such obscurities as " states of con- 

 sciousness " into multiplex, or conditioned, reflexes, and 

 showed that the nomenclature of most psychologists was 

 at once otiose and misleading. It is too seldom observed 

 that the mysteries of " mind " are no more than the result 

 of ignoring physiology and the almost ineradicable in- 

 stinct of man to consider that a word represents a simple 

 thing. As soon, however, as " mental states " are resolved 

 into reflexes among some of the 10,000,000,000 cortical 

 neurons it becomes obvious that the word " mind " is no 

 more than shorthand for neuronal action and interaction 

 when influenced from the outside or by internal stimuli. 

 There is no such thing known in " consciousness " as the 

 brain acting as a whole. The cells may be, and probably 

 are always, in a state of tone, for they would otherwise 

 degenerate ; but very few of them can produce motor 

 reactions, of any kind, at the same time. Those reflexes 

 result in action, even the action of " thought," which are 

 stimulated to discharge, or at the least, excited to a state 



