688 PROBLEMS IN REGARD TO LOCALIZATION OF 



can be taken with any chance of success in this direction 

 till the preliminary enquiries to which we have been 

 devoting our attention have been reduced to a more settled 

 condition. The foundations of the subject must clearly 

 be laid before we can begin to rear a superstructure. 



Yet that every higher Intellectual and Moral Process — -just 

 as much as every lower Sensorial or Perceptive Process- 

 involves the activity of certain related cell and-fibre net- 

 works in the Cerebral Cortex, and is absolutely dependent 

 upon tlie functional activity of such networks, the writer 

 firmly believes. He, however, as decidedly rejects the 

 notion which some would associate with such a doctrine, 

 viz., the supposition that Human Beings are mere ' Con- 

 scious Automata.' 



It must be conceded that if Conscious States or Feelings 

 have in reality no bond of kinship with the molecular 

 movements taking place in certain Nerve Centres ; if they 

 are mysteriously appearing phenomena, differing absolutely 

 from, and lying altogether outside, the closed * circuit of 

 motions ' with which they coexist, no way seems open by 

 which such Conscious States could be conceived to affect 

 or alter the course of such Motions. The logic of this 

 seems irresistible. The conclusion can, indeed, only be 

 avoided by a repudiation of the premises : and this the 

 writer does. He altogether jejects the doctrine that there 

 is no kinship between States of Consciousness and Nerve 

 Actions, and consequently would deny the view that the 

 'causes' of Conscious States lie altogether outside the cir- 

 cuits of Nerve Motions. 



Consciousness or Feeling must be a phenomenon having 

 a natural origin, or else it must be a non-natural, non- 

 material entity. For reasons which have been set forth 

 in various parts of the present volume the writer adopts 

 the former of these views. 



