THE AUTOMATON-THEORY. 129 



But such an admission as this the physiologist is reluctant 

 to make. It would violate all his beliefs, * No psychosis 

 without neurosis,' is one form which the principle of con- 

 tinuity takes in his mind. 



But this principle forces the physiologist to make still 

 another step. If neural action is as complicated as mind ; 

 and if in the sympathetic system and lower spinal cord we 

 see what, so far as we know, is unconscious neural action 

 executing deeds that to all outward intent may be called 

 intelligent ; what is there to hinder us from supjjosing that 

 even where we know consciousness to be there, the still 

 more complicated neural action which we believe to be its 

 inseparable companion is alone and of itself the real agent 

 of whatever intelligent deeds may appear ? ' As actions of 

 a certain degree of complexity are brought about by mere 

 mechanism, why may not actions of a still greater degree of 

 complexity be the result of a more refined mechanism ?" 

 The conception of reflex action is surely one of the best 

 conquests of physiological theory ; why not be radical with 

 it '? Why not say that just as the sj^inal cord is a machine 

 with few reflexes, so the hemispheres are a machine with 

 many, and that that is all the diiference ? The principle of 

 continuity would press us to accept this view. 



But what on this view could be the function of the con- 

 sciousness itself ? Mechanical function it would have none. 

 The sense-organs would awaken the brain-cells ; these 

 would awaken each other in rational and orderly sequence, 

 until the time for action came ; and then the last brain- 

 vibration would discharge downward into the motor tracts. 

 But this would be a quite autonomous chain of occur- 

 rences, and whatever mind went with it would be there 

 only as an * epiphenomenon,' an inert spectator, a sort of 

 * foam, aura, or melody ' as Mr. Hodgson says, whose oppo- 

 sition or whose furtherance would be alike powerless over 

 the occurrences themselves. When talking, some time ago, 

 we ought not, accordingly, as physiologists, to have said any- 

 thing about ' considerations ' as guiding the animal. We 

 ought to have said ' paths left in the hemispherical cortex 

 by former currents,' and nothing more. 



Now so simple and attractive is this conception from the 



