94 
C. L, Herrick 
When we think of the law that thought is a function of the brain, we 
are not required to think of productive function only; we are entitled 
also to consider 'perniissive or transmissive function. 
Our brains may be transparent spots in the surface veil of 
phenomena, hiding and keeping back the world of genuine 
realities. The brain might be an 'independent variable, the mind 
would vary with it. 
Consciousness does not have to be generated de novo in a vast number 
of places. It exists already, behind the scenes coeval wdth the world. 
One argument which seems to have more weight with Pro- 
fessor James than he may care to admit, is the supposed value 
of such a theory in explaining or permitting a belief in the occult, 
to which he stands committed. This theory is like the Sweden- 
borgian idea of ^Tnflux’’ and may be acceptable in theological 
circles as consistent with the activities of ^^The Spirit.’’ The 
question here is whether the theory is consistent with itself. 
Let us examine it more closely. Consciousness is assumed as 
coeval with the world. Consciousness is, let us say, somehow 
a product or rather a general mode of all energy or, at least, of 
universal energy. But this state of complete spontaneity or 
universality cannot be assumed to have any specific consciousness 
until limitations are imposed upon it. This limitation must 
be from within or from without. If universal energy be restrained 
from without, there is other energy not comprised in the universal 
energy and we are confronted bj^ the logical fallacy of a divided 
universe. The limitation is then a self-limitation and conse- 
quently teleological. 
The existence of modes of consciousness results from the limi- 
tations of energy which thus in certain specific forms manifests 
itself as sensations and the like — in short, in thought. If the 
brain is the name given to the sum of the limiting conditions or 
determinants of energy by which modes of consciousness arise, 
then the brain produces thought just as truly as anything can be 
produced. It is not permissive or transmissive in the sense that 
sundry thoughts exist behind the veil and some of these filter 
through, but it acts in the sense that the water-wheel generates 
forces. It does not create energy but it does create the mode of 
energy. Creation is, after all, but the self-limitation of energ}". 
