Analytic functions, typified by reflexes, use stable inherited structures which are organized for adjustments in behavioral space and time. Individually acquired integrative functions, typified by conditioning, symbolism, and reasoning, are wholly internal and may use any nervous tissue not differentiated for other specific activities. They must be defined relati‐vistically. The highest members of both classes are in the cerebral cortex, the first in the relatively stable projection centers, the second in the more labile areas of elaboration where there is no (...) inflexible localization of function. When consciousness emerges within the second class, the mechanism employed probably must be described in accordance with still unknown relativistic principles. (shrink)

“All experience is an arch wherethro’ gleams” an untravell'd world and through which come the joyous adventures of life and also grief and pain. Since all that we know and hope to know and think we know must come through this arch and since the primary task of science is the validation and enlargement of knowledge, science is vitally interested in this experience and its interpretation. This interest stems not from the philosopher's epistemology but it is strictly operational. We want (...) to know what kind of experience yields reliable knowledge when checked against other experience and applied in practical adjustment to things as they are and to prediction of the probable future course of events. In short, the field of natural science embraces everything that comes within the range of human experience. Its specific functions are to codify this mixed experience, to search out those uniformities which yield classification, verification and prediction, and from these observed uniformities to construct by sound reasoning verifiable laws, hypotheses and theories, that is, to find the meaning of the experiences had. First we want to know the facts, but what we are after in the upshot is the interpretation of the facts. (shrink)