Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/266

260 This germ cell under these conditions, within the female, and in connection with her body, develops very rapidly into the embryo. It is true that the relation of the embryo to the mother continues to be almost parasitic in its nature during its development up to the time of birth, as it also remains for a considerable time after birth. Nevertheless, it draws its nourishment from, and is in a broad sense systemically related to, her body. For as part of her bodily system no activity in any part of the embryo can be without some direct or indirect effect upon each and every part of the body of the mother; and no activity in any of these parts of the mother can be totally without direct or indirect effect upon it.

The psychic coincidents of the activities in the embryo are thus part and parcel of the mother's consciousness, if this is considered in the broad way presented in the preceding section.

As the embryo grows, within it develops a nervous system of its own, and if our view is correct a minor form of consciousness must exist in connection with the activities of this rudimentary nervous system.

It is true that, so far as we know, the nervous system of the embryo never has a direct connection with the nervous system of the mother: nevertheless as there is a reciprocity of reaction between the physical body of the mother and its embryonic parasite, the relation of the embryonic nervous system to the nervous system of the mother is not very far removed from the relation of the preeminent part of the nervous system of a man to some minor nervous system within his body which is to a marked extent disassociated from the whole neural mass.

Correspondingly then, and within the consciousness of the mother, there develops a new little minor consciousness which, although but lightly integrated with the mass of her consciousness, nevertheless has its part in her consciousness taken as a whole, much as the psychic correspondents of the action of the nerves which govern the secretions of the glands of her body have their part in her consciousness taken as a whole.

It is very much as if the optic ganglia developed fully in themselves, without any closer connection with the rest of the brain than existed at their first appearance. They would form a little complex nervous system almost but not quite apart from the brain system; and it would be difficult to deny them a consciousness of their own; which would indeed form part of the whole consciousness of the individual, but which would be in a measure self-dependent. Should the optic ganglia when fully developed be separated away from the brain; then what was once a minor system within the whole brain system would become a new individual with an optic consciousness all its own.