48 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 
a view of the case go far enough? Does it ac¬ 
tually explain the facts of consciousness? 
The important factor about consciousness is 
that it has, for us, a particular significance or 
meaning. Can “meaning” be accounted for on 
the theory that mental activities are nothing 
more than specific nervous currents? Professor 
William McDougall, in his work “Body and 
Mind,” has contended that meaning cannot be 
thus accounted for. It is something over and 
above the physical content, so to say, of the 
specific nervous current involved. The “mean¬ 
ing” of a thought, he contends, cannot be ac¬ 
counted for on purely physico-chemical terms. 
And, judging from certain obvious analogies, 
this is in fact the case. 
Thus, if you were to receive two telegrams, 
one of which read “Our son is dead,” and the 
second “Your son is dead”, the thoughts and 
emotions aroused in consequence would be of 
an entirely different character. Yet there is 
only one letter (y) different in these two mes¬ 
sages. The physical stimulus on the brain re¬ 
sultant from reading both telegrams must be 
very nearly identical. Yet the internal results 
are very dissimilar. These internal results are 
due to the fact that the significance or “mean¬ 
ing” of the message, to the living consciousness 
is so very different, yet the physical stimuli, 
in the two cases, are almost identical. 
This example'brings home to us the great im¬ 
portance of the inner meaning of thought. 
When we read the printed page of a book, we 
do not only receive certain nervous impulses, 
resulting in turn from light-waves striking the 
