152 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
The Place of Consciousness. 
A secotd preliminary question is this: Where does consciousness 
dwell and have its being? From the point of view of emergent evolution 
I take it that the answer is: Consciousness is correlated with certain 
physiological and physical events which have place in the organism— 
and there only. 
One has to deal with the relations which obtain in nature at their 
appropriate levels of emergence; and I hold that the proper level 
of spatial (and temporal) relations is that of physical events. But 
since all higher emergent strata depend on this stratum, and would not 
be present in its absence, space-time relations are implied throughout 
the whole series. In further illustration of what I mean, the proper 
level of energy-relations is sub-vital. Vital events, in a system which 
is not only physico-chemical but has also the quality of life, no doubt 
depend on energy-changes at the physico-chemical level. But there 
is no specific ‘ vital energy ’ (still less ‘ psychic energy’) in the same 
sense of the word ‘ energy.’ The word is then used with a different 
connotation. 
Our present concern, however, is with ‘ the place of consciousness ’ 
under some meaning to be attached fo this expression. There is so 
much ambiguity in the question ‘ Where is it?’ and in the answer 
‘Tt is there,’ that a little must be said thereon. 
Suppose that one is dealing with things in one’s room. Each 
thing is interpretable as a group of events with physical substratum. 
May we say, then, that any such given event (spatially related, of 
course, to other such events) has place in the group or system of events 
which is the thing? I take it that in one valid sense ‘it is there.’ 
In this sense a multitude of events—chemical, vital, unconscious, and 
conscious—have place which is dependent on that of the physical events 
in the organism. In this sense they are included in that system of 
events which we call the organism. But the organism is included in 
a larger spatial system. Shall we, for our present purpose, which is 
rather biological and psychological than physical, call this larger whole 
the situation? Now, suppose that my dog leaves the mat, on which 
he has been lying, to bask in a patch of sunshine near the window. He 
alters his place in the room as situation; but the physical, chemical, 
and other events retain their place in him. Whither he goes, thither 
also go all these events. In one sense they are still there—wherever 
he may be. In another sense their place has changed. They were, a 
few minutes ago, on the mat; now, they are near the window. 
And if we ask: Where does the dog behave? I take it that the 
natural answer is: In the environing situation. But the question may 
be taken to mean: Where do his muscles function? Then the natural 
answer would be: In his body wherever it may go under their functional 
action. Let us next ask: Where does the dog perceive? In one sense 
he perceives in the situation, which includes the thing seen and the 
dog that sees it. But in another sense the perception is in him. That 
is where the process of perceiving (or more strictly the physical events 
correlated therewith) may be said to occur and to have place. 
