PHYSIOLOGY 



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to see how consciousness can act as a cause of nervous ac- 

 tivity, any more than can the heat given off in such ac- 

 tivity react to produce itself. The physiologist sees that 

 nervous systems, with all their functions, have undergone 

 an evolution; he recognizes orders of consciousness — a 

 low, simple, gradual beginning, he knows not where, a 

 progressive increase in complexity as nervous systems 

 complicate, and the final culmination in self-conscious 

 man. The relations of consciousness in its simplest form 

 to the nervous system seem to be the same in kind as in 

 the human being. For the physiologist, looking at the 

 matter in this light, Huxley has probably formulated the 

 best working hypothesis in his famous essay, "On the 

 Hypothesis that Animals are Automata." After a lucid 

 analysis of the actions of animals lower than man, he 



Objection after objection has been raised to the autom- 

 aton hypothesis. It has been dialectically disproved 

 many times. Its upholders have been charged with all 

 the sins against logic, common sense, lucubration, spiritu- 

 ality and orthodoxy. And yet it will not down, for of all 

 hypotheses it seems to accord most closely with the facts 



