"As Walter B. Cannon states in the introduc-tion to the first American edition, Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov's Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes is a "series of reports of progress" covering a quarter-century of investigations into the functions of the cerebral cortex. This research was an outgrowth of Pavlov's earlier work on the physiology of digestion and was influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution as well Sechenov's reflexology. What emerged from Pavlov's laboratory was a new branch of physiology that of higher nervous activity-which in turn had a major impact on the mental sciences. 

W. Horsley Gantt, a colleague of Pavlov and a leading proponent of the Pavlovian school in North America, translated these writings from the original Russian. In addition, he contributed to the volume an intimate biography of "this great master of science," which, as he explains in the Translator's Preface, "was includ- ed without the cognisance of the Author." It is fortunate for the reader that Dr. Gantt took the initiative, for the fervor with which Pavlov lived and worked is indeed inspiring."