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Dr. Symonds opens his Presidential Address to the Section of Psychiatry by a brief survey of Sherington's work on excitation and inhibition in the nervous system and goes on to illustrate its working by the control of micturition. He denies the existence of the unconscious mind and equates all unconscious activity with physiological activity. Dr. Symonds discusses 'central pain', as known to the neurologist, under three headings: 'thalamic', 'causalgia' and 'phantom-limb'. He regards them as variants of the same theme, i.e. 'central derangement', which occurred as a result of excessive physiological stimulus and persists after cessation of the stimulus. (He does not discuss the pathology.) He then draws a comparison between these states of pain and states of fear. Continuing in the same theme, he maintains that a 'central disturbance of feeling' covers the whole field of affective disorder, extending from psychotic conditions, such as manic-depressive insanity, to the psychoneurotic conditions manifesting fear and anxiety. He considers that such conditions as giddiness and a sense of insecurity indicate a disturbance in the labyrinth and that disorders of sleep are similarly due to disorders of the sleep centre in the hypothalamus. In concluding, Dr. Symonds appreciates the value of the Freudian method of approach in cases of hysteria, but denies that unconscious 'motivation' may play any part in the ætiology of other neuroses.