Page 423 - Complete Works of Dr. KCV Volume 1

Mind and Body Dr. W. Mc Dougall p-293.ibid p.289.
Dr. Marston in his Emotions of normal people seeks to establish a theory of psychonic impulse contradistinct from a neural impulse. "Motor or affective consciousness is psychonic energy released within the psychonic or connective tissues of the motor synapse of the central nervous system." Defining the 'psychon' he says "the totality of energy generated within the junctional tissue between any two neurones, whenever the junctional membrane is continuously energized, from the emissive pole of one adjacent tissue to the receptive pole of the next intrinsically constitutes consciousness ... The structural unit of psychology is the psychon; any wave of psycho-chemical excitation initiated within the psychon is consciousness."* The above definition, in spite of its chemical explanation of change within the neural and psychonic systems, is a clear statement of the need for understanding the principle and function of consciousness in terms of some theory or hypothesis countering the physiological and purely neural theories. But the theory of psychon whilst useful is done away with in the statement that consciousness is the product of continuous energisation of the membrane of the junctional tissue; and to say that it is the energy so generated, is too neural an explanation.
Rightly does Dr. Mc. Dougall write "many of those who have written upon mental evolution and comparative psychology began their study by looking for indications of mental life in the lowest organisms, and failing to find any such indications of an indisputable kind, proceed to search the scale of life from below upwards ... It is a sounder procedure to attempt to trace mind downwards in the scale from man in whom by common agreement, we have the surest and clearest expressions of mind, endeavouring by analysis of animal behaviour in the height of analogy of human behaviour, to seize every indication of mental life, of purposive activity as far down the scale as impartial observation warrants." Dr. Mc. Dougall's observation is mainly intended to show that consciousness has a mechanism of its own which can best be understood by the study of human consciousness itself and in the measure the brain mechanisms are active in the animals they may be considered to be growing intelligent or conscious animals.