e memory by a process in the vegetative apparatus, so
as to maintain the equilibrium within itself which is reflected in
consciousness as comfort.

The unconscious, in short, consists of the buried associations among
the parts of the vegetative apparatus and the brain cells. We seem to
be much nearer to grasping the nature of the unconscious, when we look
upon it as a historical continuum, a compound or emulsion of different
and various states of intravisceral pressure and tone, in the
vegetative apparatus, dependent upon the balance between the
endocrines, as well as upon past experiences of the viscera in the
way of stimulation or depression. We forget that which is held down,
literally, in the vegetative apparatus. This explanation of forgetting
tells, too, why the forgotten (stored in the sub-brain, the
endocrine-vegetative system) continually projects itself into and
interferes with the regular flow of consciousness, e.g., in slips
of the tongue, mistakes of spelling, and so on: because the energy
bottled in the vegetative system tends to erupt into the consciousness
into which it would ordinarily flow.

In the evolution of the mind, there have been elaborated devices
to protect it against the vegetative apparatus. Consciousness, or
awareness, must be accepted as a fundamental, primal fact, like
protoplasm. Consciousness and protoplasm may be the complementary
sides of the same coin. Whatever the truth, the fact stands out
that the oldest, deepest, most potent consciousness is that of the
traditionally despised lowest organs, the vegetative organs, the heart
and lungs, stomach and intestines, the kidneys and the liver, and so
on, their nerves, e.g., the solar plexus, and the glands of internal
secretion. They invented and elaborated muscle, bone and brain to
carry out their will. Evolution has been in the direction of a
greater perfection of the methods of carrying out their will. Their
consciousness, working upon the growing and multiplying brain cells,
has created what we call self-conscious mind.

Mind, reacting upon its creator, has, in a sense, come to dominate
them, because it has become the meeting ground of all the
energy-influences seething and bubbling in the organism, and
so developed into the organ of handling them as a whole, their
Integrating-Executive. But just the same and all the time, the
underlying consciousness of the viscera and their accessories stand as
the powers behind the throne, but a