140 PSYCHOLOGY. 



fashion can be uotliing but a law of caprice. I do not see 

 liow one could reasonably expect from it any certain pursu- 

 ance of useful lines of reaction, such as the few and fatally 

 determined performances of the lower centres constitute 

 within their narrow sphere. The dilemma in regard to tlie 

 nervous system seems, in short, to be of the following kind. 

 We may construct one which will react infallibly and cer- 

 tainly, but it will then be capable of reacting to very few 

 ciianges in the environment — it will fail to be adapted to all 

 the rest. We may, on the other hand, construct a nervous 

 system potentially adapted to respond to an infinite variety 

 of minute features in the situation ; but its fallibility will 

 then be as great as its elaboration. W^e can never be sure 

 that its equilibrium will be upset in the approj)riate direc- 

 tion. In short, a high brain may do many things, and may 

 do each of them at a very slight hint. But its hair-trigger 

 organization makes of it a happy-go-lucky, hit-or-miss 

 affair. It is as likely to do the crazy as the sane thing at 

 any given moment. A low brain does few things, and in 

 doing them perfectly forfeits all other use. The perform- 

 ances of a high brain are like dice thrown forever on a 

 table. Unless they be loaded, what chance is there that 

 the highest number will turn up oftener than the lowest ? 



All this is said of the brain as a physical machine pure 

 and simple. Can consciousness increase its efficiency by 

 loading its dice ? Such is the problem. 



Loading its dice would mean bringing a more or less 

 constant pressure to bear in favor of those of its perform- 

 ances which make for the most permanent inteiestc of the 

 brain's owner ; it would mean a constant inhibition of the 

 tendencies to stray aside. 



Well, just such pressure and such inhibition are what 

 consciousness seems to be exerting all the Vvdiile. And the 

 interests in whose favor it seems to exert them are its inter- 

 ests and its alone, interests which it creates, and which, 

 but for it, would have no status in the realm of being what- 

 ever. We talk, it is true, when we are darwinizing, as if 

 the mere body that owns the brain had interests ; we speak 

 about the utilities of its various organs and how they help 

 or hinder the body's survival ; and we treat the survival aa 



