Page:Medicine and the church.djvu/292

 forms of consciousness similar to those which accompany the growth of the plant or the life of the animal; and that this residual consciousness, however much we may discard or disown it, continues to live and work, and does things which the proud intellect is unable to do. On the other hand, we must not forget that these forms of feeling and instinct, of perception and reaction, which we regard as our heritage from lower grades of life, are enormously modified by their juxtaposition with a rational intellect. The unity of nature which comprehends both the intellect and them, makes itself felt; this lower form of mentality is still the mentality of a rational being; and the general position may be described by saying that there exists a decentralised consciousness, diffused through the organism, 'irrational, but capable of sharing in reason, and of listening to it,' as Aristotle would say, and manifesting itself in a power of receiving impressions, manipulating them, and reacting upon them, which in our present state of ignorance we describe by the convenient word 'abnormal.'

(2) Because the residual consciousness is thus diffused throughout the body, it can exercise control over the various parts of the body, just as the central intellect exercises control over the body as a whole. As the