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MIND AND BRAIN.

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2010 with funding from

Open Knowledge Commons and Harvard Medical School

http://www.archive.org/details/humanmindinitsreOOnobl

TEE

HUMAN MIND

IN ITS BELATIONS WITH

THE BKAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM.

By DANIEL NOBLE, M.D.

VISITING PHYSICIAN TO THE CLIFTON HALL RETREAT 5

CONSULTING PHYSICIAN TO THE MANCHESTER EAR INSTITUTION;

ETC. ETC.

LONDON:
JOHN CHURCHILL, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.

MDCCCLVIII.

LONDON:

SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PKINTEBS, CHANDOS S1BEET,

COVENT GABDEN.

TO

WILLIAM B. CABPENTEB, ESQ., M.D., F.E.S.,

F.G.S., F.L.S.

My Dear Dr. Carpenter, —

Whether I have regard to your eminent
position as a man of science, to your special
attainments as a physiologist, or to your private
worth, I know of no one to whom I can inscribe
this little work with so much propriety and with
such gratification to my own feelings, as to
yourself.

Although, in the course of independent thought,
I have been led to conclusions not altogether
in unison with some of those at which you have
yourself arrived, I am not the less conscious that
I am indebted to you and to your writings for
most of the fundamental doctrines expounded
in the ensuing pages.

yi DEDICATION.

For all these reasons, then, I beg you to
accept of the dedication of this volume, with
my earnest wish that science may long number
you amongst its devoted followers, and physio-
logical investigation amongst its distinguished
and successful cultivators.

Believe me,

My dear Dr. Carpenter,

Ever most faithfully yours,

Daniel Noble.

Manchesteb, March 10th, 1858.

PEEFACE.

The substance of the following pages was made
to form one of the earlier chapters in the Author's
work on Psychological Medicine, the second edi-
tion of which was published about three years
ago. He was prevented upon that occasion
from giving that development to his views, and
that expansion to his argument, which he would
willingly have done, by a desire to maintain
what he deemed to be an appropriate sym-
metry and correspondence among the separate
parts of his treatise. Moreover, the Author found
that many readers who took but little interest
in the pathological and other practical portions
of the volume, felt very differently as to all that
concerned the correlation of psychology and
physiology. Influenced by the considerations
arising out of these circumstances, he has been

Vlll PREFACE.

induced to give to his views a somewhat fuller
exposition than they have hitherto received, and
to mate them the subject of a separate pub-
lication.

He would state, in conclusion, that his aim
has been rather to treat the several divisions of
his subject with succinctness and lucidity, than
to engage in extended, and what many would
consider to be tedious discussion, as to any one
of them ; hoping, by this means, to interest and
in some measure to instruct the amateur and the
general student.

CONTENTS,

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

PAGE

The Mind is the Conscious Principle .... 1

Its Unity 1

The Brain and higher portions of the Nervous

System subserve the Mental Operations . . 2

Difficulties of the Subject 3

Speculations concerning the relations of Psy-
chical phenomena to the Physical Organiza-
tion 5

Consciousness has its seat in the Encephalon . . 6

Evidence of this proposition 6

CHAPTER II.

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

The Principle of Consciousness may vary its Mode

of being 9

Sketch of Psychological Opinions 11

Labours of Physiological Psychologists .... 14

X CONTENTS.

PAGE

Dr. Gall's Phrenology 20

Cranioscopy of Dr. Carus 26

Dr. Carpenter's Physiology of the Encephalon . 32

CHAPTER III.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

The Nervous Tissue divisible into the Gray and

the White 35

Correlative with difference of Function ... 36

Principles of investigation 37

Sympathetic System 37

Excito-motory System . . 42

The Externa Senses 46

Olfactory Nerves 47

Gustatory Nerves 47

Auditory Nerves 48

Optic Nerves 48

Nerves of Common Sensation 48

The Muscular Sense 51

Consensual Actions 57

The Physical Appetites 58

CHAPTER IV.

THE EMOTIONAL SENSIBILITY AND ITS ENCEPHALIC

SITE.

The Csensesthesis 60

Conditions of the Emotional Sensibility ... 60

CONTENTS. XI

PAGE

Distinct from Common Sensation 62

Its Encephalic Site 65

Evidence from Comparative Anatomy . . . . 65

From Experiment by Vivisection 67

From Morbid Anatomy 68

Differences in Nations and in the Sexes ... 76

Emotional Reactions 76

Fundamental Distinctness of Sensation and Emo-
tion correlative with separateness of their

Ganglionic Centres 78

CHAPTER Y.

THE INTELLIGENCE AND ITS ORGANIC REGION.

Thought physiologically dependent on Organiza-
tion 80

The Hemispherical Ganglia, its Organic Region . 81
Ideas distinct from Sensory Impressions . . . 82
Some Analysis of the Intellectual Consciousness 83
Correspondent Organic Divisions not Demon-
strable 84

CHAPTER VI.

THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

Are the Sensory Ganglia the exclusive seat of

Consciousness 1 86

Arguments in the Affirmative inconclusive and

unsatisfactory 87

xii CONTENTS.

PAGE

Their enumeration, and an attempted confuta-
tion of them 87

Unconscious Cerebration 93

The Functional Divisibility of the Encephalon

into Hemispheres and Sensory Ganglia . .103

CHAPTER VII.

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS.

Keflex Functions of the Brain 107

Automatic agency of ideas in Mesmerism, and in

irregular kinds of Sleep 109

Hypnotic Phenomena Ill

Immediate cause of Motor Activity in the Sen-

sorium 112

Influence of Ideas in modifying the physiological

action of medicines 114

Their influence upon Muscular Action, Sensation,

and Consciousness 116

Moral influence of Special Ideas 124

CHAPTER VIII.

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION.

The Emotions comprise elements of Thought and

Feeling 127

Correlated Anatomy and Physiology . . . .129
Analysis of Emotional States 131

CONTENTS. Xlii

PAGE

Particular emotions, as Feeling, may exist without

the correspondent Thought 134

Functional Divisibility of the Ganglia of Emo-
tional Sensibility 138

Corresponding Divisibility of the Hemispherical

Ganglia 139

Anatomical Divisions and Systems of Psychology 139

CHAPTER IX.

THE WILL.

The Will located in no special Ganglionic struc-
ture 149

Conditions of an exercise of the Will . . . .150

Voluntary Selection 151

Moral consequences of Will 152

CHAPTEE X

CONCLUSION.

Estimate of the value of preceding doctrines . .154

Uses of Hypothesis 154

Physiological Psychology not suggestive of Mate-
rialism .... 157

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

The human mind is the conscious principle in
man. The investigation of its attributes, its ca-
pacities and powers, constitutes what is called
Psychology; and, when the inquiry is prosecuted
with reference to the functions of the brain and
nerves, the result is denominated Physiological
Psychology.

The existence within us which sees, hears, and
touches, is unmistakeably one with that which
forms ideas, and groups them for reproduction by
memory ; it is obviously the same entity which
performs the highest intellectual operations, and
which loves, fears, and hopes, — one in the midst
of multiplicity, identical in diversity, and perma-
nent in succession. It is the same simple prin-
ciple which turns in upon and takes cognizance
of itself, which controls its own state, which exer-
cises WILL.

In all scientific psychology, we must accept this

B

2 INTRODUCTION.

simplicity of consciousness as a first principle.
It is a postulate which in philosophical discus-
sion of the subject should always be made the
foundation-fact. It is one of those truths which
is neither demonstrable, nor to be made clearer
by ratiocination; it is one which is felt and
admitted in obedience to the primary laws of
thought.

Metaphysical inquiry, concerning itself with
the manifold states of the simple consciousness,
has produced numerous systems of pure psy-
chology ; one, however, that shall be strictly and
thoroughly scientific, should only be attempted
on the basis of physiology. And. certainly, the
practical application in medicine of any doctrine
of mind can only have place when the subject is
thus dealt with, so intimate is the correlation of
psychology and physiology.

There is probably no proposition more firmly
established in the science of life, than that which
affirms the brain and higher portions of the
nervous system to be subservient to the mental
onerations ; so that whenever unequivocal signs
of consciousness are observed in any being, there
may be inferred the presence of a brain and
nervous system. Consciousness, indeed, in the

INTRODUCTION. 3

natural order, would appear to be universally
manifested through the instrumentality of brain ;
the higher class of nerves being for the establish-
ment of communication with the world without.

But it is obvious that physiological psychology
cannot be expected to have that deiinitiveness
which is characteristic of the more physical de-
partments of philosophical investigation. The
connexion of mind and brain can never, pro-
bably, be determined with complete scientific
precision ; for, whilst our researches into purely
physical conditions will educe facts and circum-
stances that strike observers in a certain exact
and uniform manner, mental phenomena can be
apprehended but imperfectly. And even when
these latter are sufficiently clear and distinct to
admit of notation and record, their significance
with different inquirers is very unequal. Thus,
whilst general science, including the inferior
branches of physiology, has of late years pro-
gressed with giant strides, a physiology of the
brain and a philosophy of mind commanding
universal acquiescence have scarcely been ap-
proached.

In order that a system of analytical psychology
should be attained, standing in true scientific rela-

B 2

4 INTRODUCTION.

tion with our knowledge of the brain, we ought
to be able to appreciate the varying phases of
consciousness, in watching their outward mani-
festation, with some of that readiness and ac-
curacy wherewith we can estimate physical con-
ditions. Were this within our power, consider-
able advances might be made towards a correct
and detailed psychology, duly associated with our
information concerning the structures within the
head. But the inevitable absence of objective
standards by which to measure the value of
mental facts, materially reduces their compara-
bility among themselves and with other facts ; on
this account, psychical phenomena do not admit
of any natural or perfect system of classification,
neither do they allow themselves to be linked-on
to physical facts with anything like philoso-
phical exactitude. Yet, of course, scientific in-
duction demands very distinct recognition of the
comparable worth of all the circumstances which
lead to it.

It happens, then, that most of the materials
obtainable for conclusions regarding mental phe-
nomena, consist of external manifestations which
do not always suggest a sure interpretation ; and
thus we have to speculate concerning them,

INTRODUCTION. 5

whether occurring in man or animals, by aid of
the analogies gained in self-introspection. And
it is in this way that we are led to estimate the
significance of many of those facts, which show
that varieties exist in the several forms which
consciousness assumes.

The absolute connecting link between matter
and mind must always remain — as it is — inscru-
table to scientific investigation ; and hence, if we
should attempt, even hypotheticaily, to trace the
sequence of phenomena involving their related
action, we must inevitably be arrested on attain-
ing that final change in molecular disposition
which immediately and causatively precedes in-
choate consciousness ; there being an inestimably
wide breach between the ultimate physical con-
dition and the primary psychical state.

And yet these difficulties, which are inherent in
the subject, have not prevented inquisitive spirits,
in all ages, from hazarding speculations concern-
ing the relations of psychical phenomena to the
physical organization. In a very early stage of
physiological inquiry, the seat of the Soul, or
Conscious Principle, was a theme of elaborate
and ingenious hypothesis. Hippocrates and
Hierophylus placed it in the fibres of the brain ;

6 INTRODUCTION.

Democritus, in the region of the temples ; Strabo,
in the space between the eyebrows ; Epicurus
allocated it in the breast ; Diogenes, in the left
ventricle of the heart; the Stoics, with Chrysippus,
in the whole heart ; Empedocles placed it in the
blood ; Plato and Aristotle, with the more ele-
vated schools of philosophy, connected the soul
with the whole body ; and Galen suggested that
each part of the body had its particular soul.* In
later times, however, conclusions have been at-
tained with regard to the functions of the Ence-
phalon — the structures within the head — which
leave no reasonable doubt that the conscious
principle has its special seat in that region ; con-
clusions abundantly sustained by evidence from
all sources.

At the foot of the animal scale, where the pre-
sence of consciousness is doubtful, but feeble
traces of nerve structure, and sometimes none at
all, are discoverable ; a little higher, insects
and the mollusca have so simple a development
of the nervous system, that some physiologists
have doubted their possession of its crowning
constituent — a brain ; but, if they have any con-

* See Morley's Life of Cornelius Agrippa.

INTRODUCTION. 7

scious principle, it must certainly manifest itself
through the instrumentality of nerve substance;
and whatever be its form or locality, it must be
regarded, because of its function, as at least a
rudimentary brain. In ascending the scale, and
coming to fishes, we observe a decided advance
in the encephalic organization ; for, whilst in the
Invertebrata the brain or its analogue is hardly
distinguishable from the ganglionic centres of
the nerves of sense ; in fishes, with which the
vertebrated series commences, masses corre-
sponding to the Cerebrum proper, or Hemi-
spheres, and to the Cerebellum, in mammals,
become apparent ; and with these coincide more
striking and obvious displays of consciousness.
The yet higher degree of this endowment, and
the more varied states in which it exhibits itself
in birds, correspond with increased and more
complex development of the encephalon. In
the mammalia, the advance which is made in the
structures within the head is remarkable ; their
magnitude, both absolutely and relatively to the
rest of the body, greatly exceeds that which
obtains in the inferior tribes ; and the cerebral
hemispheres begin to assume a convoluted ap-
pearance. And, indeed, throughout the whole

8 INTRODUCTION.

animal series, commencing with the very lowest
creatures and ascending till we culminate in man,
it is found that the loftier and the more varied
the psychical manifestations, the more highly
organized are the nervous masses constituting
the encephalon.

But, in point of fact, we instinctively localize con-
sciousness within the head. The popular phrase-
ology of all nations uses the terms head and brain
to express and denote the capacity of thought.
Amongst ourselves it is said, in familiar converse,
when we would characterize a weak-minded per-
son, he has got no head, no brains ; and, in an
opposite sense, he is possessed of a strong head,
or a powerful brain. The poets and dramatists
of every epoch and clime, falling in with the
language of daily experience, constantly speak
of the mind, or conscious principle, under the
designations head and brain.

CHAPTER II.

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

The very fact of consciousness involves the
simplicity of its principle ; a consciousness that
is divided in its genetic origin, cannot be con-
ceived. More especially is the notion of unity
inseparable from ^//"-consciousness, wherein the
mind looks inward and realizes objectively the
intuition expressed by the first personal pronoun.
The idea of self — the il/<?-ity — irresistibly sug-
gests the conviction of an existence that is indi-
visibly one.

But yet, however simple the conscious principle
is in its essence, it may vary its mode of being,
and experience changes of state, according to
the objects and conditions by which it is called
into activity and with which it may engage itself.
Thus light, shade, and figure, present as out-
standing realities, place this inward principle of
consciousness in the state of seeing, ordinarily
succeeded by the state of knowing; this latter may

10 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

be followed by a state of thinking, or of loving,
or of fearing, or of some other such affection.
These various modes of consciousness will some-
times, either from the fact being so, or from their
rapid succession, appear to have simultaneous
existence — a wonderful simplicity underlying the
most remarkable complexity. These several
forms of mental existence and activity are com-
monly dealt with as separate and distinct faculties
of the mind ; and so, in a certain sense, they are.
But the terms and the phraseology in which
psychological expositions and explanations are
usually made, suggest but too frequently to the
inexperienced student, that the Mind is a con-
geries of particular entities, rather than, as it is,
a principle that is undivided and indivisible.

Psychological systems are, for the most part,
made up of classifications which their authors
institute, of the several psychical states ; and
such systems, moreover, concern themselves with
the particular laws which seem to regulate their
various modes of manifestation. The pure psycho-
logist simply investigates the facts of conscious-
ness, whilst the physiological psychologist labours
to discover the organic conditions under which
the different mental phenomena have place.

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 11

Philosophers of the former class have usually
indicated certain prominent and striking charac-
teristics of the mind's action, and have laboured
to prove their origin in certain fundamental dis-
positions, tendencies, and capabilities ; these
have been then so arranged, and otherwise dealt
with, as to make up the particular systems of
abstract teaching. This proceeding of the pure
psychologist will be more intelligible, if I exem-
plify it by a brief illustration of some of the
results professedly obtained. The Sexual Instinct
has very generally been regarded as a distinct
and primitive disposition ; Dugald Stewart, in
his " Outlines," so regards it. Love of the Young
and Helpless, as something apart from ordinary
attachment, is recognised, as being in a like cate-
gory, both by Reid and Stewart. A Desire of
Society is described by Stewart very much as
the Appetite for Society is set forth by Henry
Home, of Karnes. A like disposition is dis-
cussed as a , special tendency by Dr. Thomas
Brown. The existence of a primitive instinct of
Sudden Resentment is taught by Reid and
Stewart, and by Thomas Brown as Instant Anger.
Lord Karnes refers to this disposition as Courage.
Brown recognises a Principle of Malevolence,

12 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

identical in some respects with the Appetite for
Hunting, of Karnes. This last-mentioned philo-
sopher discusses as fundamental the Sense of
Property and an Appetite for Storing-up Things
of Use ; whilst Brown disputes the existence of
Acquisitiveness, as an independent feeling. A
Disposition for Concealment, Lord Bacon minutely
describes in his Essay on Cunning. Reid and
Stewart treat of a Desire for Power. Brown
regards Pride as an elementary disposition, de-
fining it as " that feeling of vivid pleasure which
attends the consciousness of our own excellence ;"
Karnes discusses this sort of feeling, as a Sense
of Dignity. Reid and Stewart treat of the Desire
of Esteem, mentioned by Brown as the Desire of
Glory ; Karnes calls it the Appetite for Praise.
Brown ranks Melancholy among the primitive
tendencies of mind ; Karnes so regards Fear.
Reid, Stewart, and Brown adduce Benevolence.
Karnes treats of a Sense of Deity; the Devo-
tional Sense, as a human characteristic, is very
generally recognised, although not adverted to
either by Reid, Stewart, or Brown, as a funda-
mental disposition. Hope, as a primitive feeling,
is cited by Stewart ; and, certainly, as one. that
" springs eternally in the human breast," it is

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 13

recognised by all the world. A sense of Grace
and Taste is brought in by Lord Karnes, corre-
sponding in most respects with Brown's Original
Emotion of Beauty. A sentiment of Wonder is
noticed by Adam Smith ; Brown treats it as a
primitive disposition of the mind, and Karnes
mentions it with the same significance. Most
metaphysicians and moral philosophers, including
Cudworth, Hutcheson, Reid, Stewart, and Brown,
admit a moral sense. Firmness, Perseverance,
Obstinacy are regarded by many authors as funda-
mental dispositions.

The faculties more purely intellectual are also
divided and classified in various ways. We have
Perception, Conception, Memory, and Judgment.
A division into the powers of Will, Memory, and
Understanding, is very old. Knowing faculties
and reflective faculties are often distinctively
regarded. The faculty of Language is usually
recognised as primitive. Reasoning engages itself
with the relations of cause and effect, and, more-
over, traces the analogies subsisting among things
essentially unconnected ; a twofold action of
the reasoning powers which is generally acknow-
ledged by mental philosophers, including Bacon,
Malebranche, Karnes, Locke, and others. The

14 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

phrenological school indicates these two methods
of exercising the reason, in describing the so-
called faculties of Causality and Comparison.

The physiological psychologist, in attempting
to trace the connexion which the brain and
nervous system maintain with the mind and its
various manifestations, avails himself largely of
the fact so general in physiological anatomy, that
size, or amount of nervous tissue, constitutes an
element of functional energy, — a fact strikingly
exemplified by the circumstance that a very small
human brain, indicated by a head of decidedly
inferior dimensions, is always accompanied with
mental imbecility. This relation, indeed, between
size of structure and vigour of function has sup-
plied the guiding thread to most investigators
who have striven, by the aid of anatomy and phy-
siology, to elucidate or advance either the psy-
chology of man or that of the Animal Kingdom
at large. In particular, the correspondence be-
tween mental power and encephalic characteristics
has, in this way, been sought for. Thus, Aristotle,
Pliny, and Galen, as well as certain modern
writers, have laid it down that the human species
owes its mental superiority over the rest of the
visible creation to the possession of an encephalon,

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 15

the magnitude of which exceeds that of other
creatures ; a proposition, however, that cannot be
sustained by ample evidence. Although to a cur-
sory observer the fact may appear to be as stated,
and the notion upon superficial consideration may
seem plausible enough, the rule encounters
numerous exceptions, and cannot, therefore, sup-
ply the basis of any natural law. The elephant
and certain cetaceous animals have a larger
development of the encephalon than man. Again,
the dog and the monkey have smaller brains than
the horse, the ox, or the ass ; and yet these latter
are below the former in point of psychical acute-
ness and strength. Indeed, in whatever way
the proposition may be tested, its fallacy will be
seen upon any attempt at extended application.

Physiologists perceiving the error involved in
the foregoing suggestion, and yet feeling cer-
tain that size of the encephalon had some con-
cern with mental energy, next proposed to
estimate the intelligence of creatures by noticing
the proportion in bulk which the encephalon
bore to the rest of the body. And here, as before,
the scheme appeared to hold good so long as
general results only were contemplated, whilst
at the same time some of the difficulties attaching

1 6 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

to the former proposal seemed to be got rid of;
in the case of the elephant, for example,
although this quadruped does possess an encepha-
lon that is absolutely larger than that of man, it
is yet smaller in relation to the size of the body.
But, unhappily for this view, it was soon dis-
covered that the sparrow, the redbreast, the wren,
the canary, and some species of monkeys, had the
structures within the head much larger in pro-
portion to the rest of the body than man himself.

Sommering, followed by some other physiolo-
gists, saw the insufficiency of the last-mentioned
rule, and advanced another scheme. He sug-
gested that the volume of brain, proportionate
to that of the nerves and spinal cord, would
furnish a measure of the intelligence of creatures ;
but here, again, failure ensued, when an impartial
appeal to facts was made. It was observable
that, although for the most part man has advan-
tage over the lower animals in predominance of
the encephalon, so considered, the fact is not
universal ; it was found that in this respect the
monkey, the dolphin, and many birds, exceed
man.

Cuvier and some others conceived that the
magnitude, relative to the nerves, of the cranio-

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. J 7

spinal axis — encephalon and spinal cord — might
furnish a guide for determining the psychical
energy of species ; but Cuvier himself soon
discovered exceptions, and cited the dolphin
as one.

Another method of determining the physical
conditions of the intelligence was proposed, or
at least adopted, by Richerand. It consisted in
estimating the relative size of the head and face ;
the degree in which the former preponderated
being supposed to furnish the index of mental
power. It was suggested, in illustration, that
whilst man was at the top of the scale, ferocious
and stupid animals, with enormous jaws and
small brains, were low down; and that this fact
arose from the circumstance of their whole exis-
tence being so largely concentrated in the exercise
of the senses of smell and taste. But this
plausible notion will not harmonize with constant
experience. Not to go beyond our own species,
the inadequacy of the scheme is revealed. Leo
the Tenth, Montaigne, Racine, Mirabeau, and
Franklin had both large heads and large faces ;
whilst Bossuer, Kant, and Voltaire had small
faces, though large brains. And certainly there
is no evidence to show that, in the first-named

c

18 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

personages, the facial magnitude was any detri-
ment to their intelligence ; or that, in the last-
mentioned, the exalted powers of mind displayed
were in any way connected with the smallness of
visage.

Camper's celebrated facial angle took its origin
in attempts to make out the physical conditions
of psychical endowment. This angle, it is well
known, is formed by drawing one line from the
incisor teeth in the anterior part of the upper
jaw to the meatus auditoruis, and by prolonging
another from this part to the most elevated portion
of the forehead. According to Camper's theory,
the more nearly the angle formed by union of
the two lines approaches to a right angle, the
higher will be the degree of intelligence. Lavater,
admitting such a gauge of intellectual excellence,
arranged an imaginary series, commencing with
the Frog, and progressively ascending to the Apollo
Belvidere. Camper's notion has always received
considerable attention, even from anatomists and
physiologists of the highest reputation ; Cuvier
supplied a long list of animals to exemplify its
validity. But although the method prescribed
by Camper may lead, in many instances, to results
apparently satisfactory, it will not endure any

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 19

rigorous test. The angle itself, indeed, yields no
accurate measure either of the encephalon itself
or of any of its parts ; and yet it was upon some
admitted connexion between size of brain and
psychical power that it seems to have rested its
claims to consideration. A little close attention
to the subject will exhibit the fallaciousness of
Camper's scheme. Let us suppose the case of
two individuals with a like form and magnitude of
the encephalon, and, moreover, with a somewhat
equal development of the intelligence ; it may
happen in such circumstances that one has a large
projecting upper jaw, and the other a small and
somewhat receding one ; in this state of things, the
respective facial angles will indicate a difference of
ten, fifteen, or even twenty degrees. It is not difficult
to meet with illustrations of such a fact. Regard-
ing this view with reference to the lower creation,
Blumenbach states that three-fourths of the ani-
mals known to man have an identical facial angle
with every possible variation, so far as can be
determined, in the kind and degree of psychical
endowment. Further, it should be remembered
that in many animals the outer table of the skull
is so far removed from the internal, as in the
elephant, for example, that the angle in question

c 2

20 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

can afford no possible index to the size or con-
figuration of the encephalon.

It may be noticed that all the foregoing pro-
positions have been advanced by their authors
rather asBules of art for obtaining a measure of the
intelligence, than as Principles of science deduced
from comprehensive analysis of the mind, in con-
nexion with systematic investigation of the brain
and nervous system. Of late years, however, a
more scientific proceeding has taken their place,
and various efforts have been made to correlate
mental philosophy with anatomy and physiology.
The celebrated Dr. Gall, towards the close of the
last century, first distinctly enunciated the doc-
trine, that different parts of the encephalic mass
fulfil different functions. From this doctrine was
very soon developed a system of physiological
psychology, identical in principle with the doc-
trine which teaches that particular nerves fulfil
particular functions.

From the remotest periods, indeed, of physiolo-
gical speculation, the brain and nervous system
have been regarded as having some special con-
nexion with conscious life. So early as the Greek
civilization, there were philosophers who main-
tained even the distinctness of the nerves of

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 21

movement and feeling. But, although such views
were obscurely entertained by the ancients, they
received neither scientific form nor systematic
development. It has been reserved for modern
science to achieve positive results. The intuitive
genius of Unzer, in the last century, anticipated
in a striking manner many recent doctrines, as
also the reasonings employed to corroborate and
illustrate them. Referring to the transmission of
external impressions, as sensations, to the mind,
and to the spontaneous conceptions w7hich issue
in voluntary motion, he asks, " How could it be
possible to explain these two classes of phe-
nomena if the existence of difference in the fibrils
of the same nerve be not admitted?"* Sir
Charles Bell, by his vivisections, gave to the
notion involved in this interrogation, that pre-
cision and certainty which experimental demon-
stration alone can furnish in such cases.

And so with regard to the encephalon. Long
before the time of Gall, speculative physiologists
had 'suggested the probability of its separate parts

* The Principles of Physiology. By John Augustus
Unzer. Translated from the German by Dr. Layoock, for
the Sydenham Society, pp. 68, 69.

22 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

subserving distinct functions. Only a few years
prior to the publication of Gall's doctrine, it was
observed by Prochaska, " Since the brain, as well
as the cerebellum, is composed of many parts,
variously figured, it is probable that nature, which
never works in vain, has destined those parts to
various uses ; so that the various faculties of the
mind seem to require different portions of the
cerebrum and cerebellum for their production."*
It was Gall, however, who gave vividness to this
idea, and a certain scientific shape. This de-
servedly eminent man pursued, in the building
up of his system, a strictly physiognomic — or
rather cranioscopic — method of observation, and
claimed a scientific character for the results, on
the ground that the magnitude and configuration
of the cranium coincided very generally with the
size and form of its contents — a coincidence
which obtains for all ordinary estimates, though
not with mathematical precision. He compared
the prominences distinguishing particular regions
of the head, with what he deemed to be some
energetic manifestation of psychical peculiarity;

* Dr. Laycock's translation from the original Latin, ap-
pended to his translation of Unzer, p. 446.

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 23

and, from the correspondences noted, he was led
to deduce a natural connexion, and to regard the
underlying portion of brain as the organic con-
dition of an associated faculty, just as we con-
sider a particular nervous apparatus of sense to
be the anatomical condition of such sense. In
this way, Gall constructed Phrenology. Of this
system, its most distinguished advocates say, that
it supplies the best solution of all difficulties in
psychology, in metaphysics, and in moral philo-
sophy ; and, above all, that it, and it alone, can
disentangle the knotty points that attach to
psychological medicine. The system places in
some thirty-five or thirty-six categories remark-
able states of mind as faculties , which, it is main-
tained, can be so watched in their operation as to
yield material for reasoning and deduction, with
substantially the same accuracy as the five ex-
ternal senses ; and thus that human character, in
particular individuals, can be predicated by
studying the relative proportion in which the
so-called organs of the faculties are developed,
with the aid of an estimate of outward circum-
stances upon the combination in which the par-
ticular developments occur.

Any sketch of phrenological details would be

24 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

superfluous ; they are well known. As a system,
phrenology would not appear to have received
that confirmation, from extended investigation,
anticipated in its earlier history by many able
physiologists. If, indeed, innate personal en-
dowment of intellect and moral disposition were
something readily ascertainable ; if the influence
of inherent aptitudes and tendencies were deter-
minable, from external actions, with anything like
moderate exactness ; if, at the same time, the size
of separate portions of the encephalon could be
verified to a corresponding extent ; and if mul-
tiplied observations led actually to uniform
results, it must be admitted that Gall's physiology
of the brain would have been established as a
fact, however inconclusive or vicious should be
the reasonings and deductions of individual
phrenologists. Coincidences in many cases are
undoubtedly noticeable between form of the head
and peculiarity of mind ; but a sufficiently wide
observation and collection of instances never fail
to exhibit discrepancies that completely overthrow
the pretensions of systematic phrenology. It
must still be admitted, I think, that phrenology,
like every other honest extravagance, has some

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 25

portion of truth underlying it; for, unquestionably,
there is much reality in many of Gall's cranioscopic
observations. Any one remarking, with an ordi-
nary degree of attention, the form and dimensions
of different heads, will very soon perceive that an
excessively diminutive one never displays either
intelligence or any other force of character ; that a
small, receding forehead is never the possession
of persons eminent for their thinking power, but
that usually a capacious front and vigorous intellect
go together: that a head very high and broad in
the sincipital region, is commonly associated with
great natural morality ; and that, on the contrary,
a low, contracted head is most ordinarily found
upon the shoulders of depraved criminals; and,
again, that a large occipital and basilar develop-
ment is generally found in persons of strong
animal propensities. More particular corre-
spondences, indeed, may be noted ; but the fore-
going illustrations will sufficiently exemplify the
facts that may be verified without difficulty. But
concerning phrenology in detail, as a scientific
system, I conceive that the evidence furnished by
our more advanced knowledge of the brain and
nervous system, alike in man and animals, will

26 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

not sustain the particular theory of separate
organs for distinct mental faculties.*

In the year 1841, Dr. Carus, who for many
years was physician in ordinary to the late King
of Saxony, and who has long enjoyed a great
reputation throughout Europe as an anatomist and
physiologist, published a small volume, containing
the principles of a new and scientifically-based

* The reputation of Gall, however, is of an abiding cha-
racter, quite irrespective of the particular physiology of the
brain which he believed himself to have discovered. N"o
investigator of his time did more, if so much, to advance a
knowledge, not only of the brain, but of the nervous system
at large, throughout the animal kingdom. He was probably
the first to insist upon there being an essential distinction
between the gray and white nervous matter ; and certainly
he was the first to show that the relations between the two
kinds yield the surest guide to just anatomical descrip-
tions. He was the first to point out that the ventral cord of
nervous matter characterising the Articulata forms the
analogue, not of the sympathetic system, but of the
spinal cord of the Yertebrata. He threw great light upon
the analogies subsisting between the instinctive actions of
animals, and certain acts and habits which correspond to them
in man. And there are many views upon medical p}xschology,
ph}"sical education, and other such subjects, which he did
much to establish, if not always to originate. Altogether,
science and philosophy are deeply indebted to Gall, whatever
becomes of phrenology.

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 27

cranioscopy.* In this work, Dr. Cams makes a
threefold division of the encephalon, taking that
of fishes as furnishing the rudimentary type. " In
fishes," says he, " the middle portion (the corpora
quadrigemina), which in man is so inconsiderable,
is the most important and the most largely
developed, whilst, in the higher order of animals,
the anterior mass (the hemispheres) and the
posterior mass (the cerebellum) are the most con-
spicuous. In man the characteristic feature is
the enormous development of the hemispheres.
Further, I have shown that these three cerebral
masses, which appear almost in the same rela-
tions in the early human embryo as in fishes
(that is to say, the middle cerebral mass is the
largest), are always to be recognised as endowed
with separate and peculiar functions. The
posterior cerebral mass is the centre of the
primitive fibres of the muscular nerves, and of
those of sex. In the middle cerebral portion the
primitive fibres of the reparative organs are
collected, whilst, in the anterior cerebral mass

* G-rundzilge einer neuen und wissenscJiaftlicJi-begriin-
deten Cranioscopie. Yon Carl August Carus. Stuttgart,
1841.

28 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

essentially, we find the primitive fibres of the
organs of sense, through the medium of which we
derive our ideas of sensible objects, and in a
higher degree our knowledge. In short, the three
cerebral masses stand in relation to the following
psychical qualities: —

"1. The anterior cerebral mass (or the hemi-
spheres) is related to the power of representing
ideas, to that of recognising and distinguishing
them, and to that of the imagination.

"2. The middle cerebral mass (corpora quadri-
gemina) is related to the sense of the state of
organic life (general sensibility — gemeingefuhl),
and to sentiment, or to the feelings which result
from the combined action of all our moral
faculties.

"3. The posterior cerebral mass (cerebellum)
is related to the will, desire, and the instinct of
generation.

"As the fundamental elements of mental life
are only three — to know, to feel, and to will — so
are these three masses the essential portions of
the cerebral structure. From these three proceed
the three important nerves of sense, those of
smell, vision, and hearing, which again correspond
to the three great regions of the cranial structures

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 29

— the forehead, the middle-head, and the hinder-
head."

This " scientific cranioscopy" of Dr. Cams has
never received much attention in this country.
Its vices and defects, indeed, are numerous and
striking, although it would seem to comprise the
germs of certain more recent and now largely
accepted teachings. Dr. Cams, in his estimate
of the fish's brain, deems the " middle cerebral
mass" to be the analogue of the corpora quadri-
gemina in the human subject, whereas, by the
great weight of authority, it is regarded rather as
representing (with the exception of the cere-
bellum) the great bulk of nervous matter which
underlies the hemispheres. Moreover, the pro-
positions generally which this cranioscopy in-
volves, are, I apprehend, not only inconclusive,
but, in many respects, incongruous, and the
proposed analysis of the psychical principle I
take to be most meagre, gratuitous, and unsatis-
factory.

Dr. Cams, in the course of his work, maintains
the influence of structural size upon functional
vigour, representing that a large forehead, for the
proper estimate of which he gives minute direc-
tions, is the cranioscopic indication of elevated

30 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

intelligence; and he appeals for illustration to
well-known personages, who are considered to
furnish proof of this statement. His analysis of
the intelligence comprises the faculties of Concep-
tion (Vorstellen), Perception (Erkenuen), and
Imagination (Einbildang) ; and he virtually holds
that these correspond in strength and activity
with the magnitude of the cerebral hemispheres.
Yet, with what consistency can it be maintained
that the size of the frontal region, the declared
index of intellectual power, furnishes, in any of
the higher classes of animals, a measure of the
volume of the hemispheres ? If we advance to the
next conclusion attained by Dr. Carus, that Feel-
ing— in what precise significance, very imperfectly
explained — resides in the corpora quadrigemina,
and that these bodies are developed according to
the " dominance of the vegetative life, and of the
individual feelings, without enlightenment by
knowledge, and without force of will," we discover
nothing that is properly to the point; for, in
giving cranioscopic directions, he says that the
capacity of the region enclosed by the parietal
bones must be ascertained, as a means of deter-
mining the degree in which the qualities exist
that are allocated in the corpora quadrigemina.

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 31

Yet it is sufficiently obvious that it is not these
latter structures, but the middle lobes of the
hemispheres, that fashion this portion of the
cranium. But, probably, the least plausible
hypothesis of all is that which assigns to the
cerebellum such contrary offices as the sexual
instinct, desire in general, and the will ; a propo-
sition, I conceive, which is sustainable neither by
physical evidence nor metaphysical credibility.
Its author, however, maintains that an energetic
will and strong desires are systematically asso-
ciated with a large occipital region, and that
this coincides with the volume of the cerebellum.
But are the facts as stated ? Limiting the inquiry
to our own species, have men strong determina-
tion and resoluteness of purpose, always, or even
generally, in proportion to the magnitude of the
cerebellum ? And what evidence is there to show
that Desire — the felt requirement of individuals
— is associated specially with this structure, or is
any way coincident with strength of will} And
then, again, however the cerebellum may influence
the development of the basilar portion of the
occipital bone, it is rather the posterior division
of the cerebrum that determines the volume of the
occipital region at large.

32 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

And yet, however vague, premature, and un-
satisfactory may have been the generalizations of
Cams, in his attempts to construct a new physio-
logy of the encephalon, to serve as the basis of a
scientifically valid cranioscopy, it cannot be
doubted that, in appealing as he has done for his
chief support to the animal kingdom generally,
and to the laws of embryonic development,
he has exemplified a method which can alone
reach to conclusions that even approximate phi-
losophical certainty ; and, for reasons already
stated, it may be for a long time — perhaps for
ever — impossible to present the results of this
difficult investigation with much higher preten-
sions.

In the year 1846, Dr. Carpenter propounded a
physiology of the encephalon, which, however
incomplete, is likely to constitute the basis of
all future attempts of this description. In an
able paper, this distinguished physiologist re-
viewed the whole state of our knowledge of the
brain and nervous system, and, at the same time,
indicated the method by which the subject might
be most successfully prosecuted; he brought
together the scattered facts of this department
of science, and gave to them a certain precision

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 33

and unity, with rare sagacity and skill.* In
more recent publications he has still further
elaborated his views, and has so marked out and
denned our best established knowledge, and indi-
cated the most probable opinions, that important
results are exhibited and suggested when they
cannot be distinctly affirmed.

The more closely, indeed, Dr. Carpenter's
views are examined, the more clearly does the
correlation of psychology and physiology reveal
itself. But he himself would not claim for his
doctrines all the fulness and perfection which
they may be expected to attain. It is but right,
however, that physiologists and psychologists
(and they are not few) who avail themselves of
his thought as their starting-point, should can-
didly and honourably acknowledge the fact, even
when it may not receive a development from

* The paper mentioned in the text appeared in the British
and Foreign Medical Review for October, 1846. It was an
anonymous article, written editorially; but its authorship
was never disguised. It was professedly a controversial
review of a work by the present writer, in which he advocated
the phrenological system. It was principally owing to the
facts and arguments advanced in the paper in question, that
he was led to his present conviction that phrenology, as a
system, is unsound.

D

34 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

them altogether identical with that which it has
obtained from himself.

Dr. Carpenter's chief propositions are, that the
Cerebral Hemispheres supply the organic con-
ditions of all psychical action which involves
Ideas ; and that the Nervous Masses situated
above and in advance of the medulla oblongata,
and underneath the cerebrum proper, constitute
the encephalic centres of the various kinds of
Sensation. And, certainly, there is noticeable
in the consciousness as obvious a distinction
between thought and feeling, as in the anatomy
between the cerebral hemispheres and the under-
lying structures.

But I shall bring out Dr. Carpenter's views
most clearly in the ensuing summary of what I
deem to be the probable, and the more than pro-
bable, physiology of the nervous system and the
various portions of the encephalon, pointing out
the correspondence in some detail between it
and the more prominent facts of psychology. In
pursuing this design, however, I shall exhibit
some difference of opinion with Dr. Carpenter,
on grounds which I shall state as I proceed.

35

CHAPTER III.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

I assume that the reader has already some gene-
ral acquaintance with the anatomy of the nervous
masses. He will, then, be aware that, whilst
their structure has everywhere a certain similarity
in appearance and general character, there is yet
an obvious divisibility of it into two distinct
kinds — the gray and the white; a divisibility
which appertains alike to the nerves, the spinal
cord, and the encephalon. The difference in
these nervous substances is not an affair of colour
merely ; it applies also to their intimate structure
and organization. The white matter is made up
of bundles of tubular fibres, whilst the gray is
composed of aggregated cells — now very gene-
rally denominated the vesicular neurine. To col-
lections of this vesicular tissue the term ganglion
is very generally applied, because the knots of
nervous matter which were formerly supposed
to give origin to the nerves, and which are dis-

d 2

36 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

tributed so largely throughout the body, are vesi-
cular in their composition. And thus the identity
in structural constitution has led to the employ-
ment of the word ganglion as a common term.
But the ganglionic or spheroidal form of the mass
is not at all essential, as 'was at one time sup-
posed, to the constitution of what is now called
ganglionic substance.

Physiological and pathological research has
rendered it more than probable that the vesicular
and the fibrous substances have generically dis-
tinct offices in the animal economy. Gall,
noticing the extraordinary vascularity of the
gray tissue, taught that it was the first-formed,
and that it constituted the producer and the
matrix, as he called it, of the white substance ; a
fact which he enunciated as universal in reference
to all the nervous masses. But this theory is
now exploded, and has no hold upon physiologists
of the present day. It is very generally con-
sidered that the functional distinction is this: the
ganglionic structures constitute the seat of pri-
mary change, whilst the fibrous matter is for con-
veying and distributing the influence originating
in the vesicular neurine. Considering these two
substances histologically, there is no reason for

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 37

regarding either of them as having genetic rela
tions with the other.*

In studying the vital characteristics of man
and animals, aided by the lights of anatomy and
physiology, we judge of their sensibility and
psychical endowment generally, by watching the
phenomena which exhibit themselves in move-
ment and other expressions of activity and con-
sciousness ; and, in deducing conclusions con-
cerning the springs and the quality of particular
actions and conduct, we look very properly to the
analysis gained in the introspection of ourselves.
Thus premising, I shall pursue the several pro-
cesses which take place through the instru-
mentality of the nervous structures ; commencing,
in the present chapter, with the more simple mani-
festations of function, and, in succeeding ones,
proceeding by ascent, as it were, until we attain
the more elevated displays of psychical capability.

I shall first make a few remarks upon the
ganglia of the so-called Sympathetic system of
nerves. These ganglia are scattered largely

* In the explicit promulgation of this ganglionic theory,
Mr. Solly shares, probably, in the most eminent degree. See
his work on the Brain, published in 1836.

38 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

throughout the body ; in front of the vertebral
column they form two distinct and regular chains,
the whole being connected by nervous filaments
extending in every direction, and especially ac-
companying the blood-vessels. The precise func-
tion of this portion of the nervous system is
somewhat obscure. Consciousness can hardly
be supposed to have place in its exercise. It
most likely communicates a susceptibility to cer-
tain motions involved in the processes of circula-
tion, nutrition, and secretion ; an influence not
needed for the simple accomplishment of these
functions, but, in the animal economy, required
that they may have relation with, and become in
a manner subordinated to, the higher operations
of the nervous system.

That the functions purely organic are, in some
way or another, under the influence of the
nervous system, in man and the higher classes
of animals, is undoubted ; and that this influence
operates immediately through the sympathetic,
is inferred from the following, amongst other cir-
cumstances:—

The anatomical distribution of this system
affords antecedent probability to such an esti-
mate of its functions ; but numerous facts exist

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 39

which give to this view a much higher character
than that of mere hypothesis. Numerous experi-
ments and pathological facts exhibit the preju-
dicial influence which lesions of the nervous
system exercise upon the various organic func-
tions ; and there is good reason for attributing
such influence immediately to loss or perversion
of the sympathetic activity. According to Ma-
gendie and Longet, the destructive inflammation
of the eye which follows division of the fifth pair
of nerves takes place much more rapidly when
the division has been made anteriorly to the gan-
glion of Gasser, than when it has been made pos-
teriorly to it and near to its encephalic origin ; the
sympathetic filaments which largely exist in this
pair of nerves upon its emergence from the Gasse-
rian ganglion being interrupted only in the former
case on their way to the tissues.* And of a still
more decisive character are the facts brought out
by Dr. Axmann, of Berlin, in the experiments
which he instituted upon frogs, some years ago,
when attempting to elucidate this department of
physiology. Upon dividing the crural nerves at
their origin between the spinal cord and spinal

* Carpenter's Human Physiology. Fifth edition, p. 783.

40 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

ganglion, he found that paralysis of motion and
sensation ensued, without sensible prejudice to
the purely organic processes. On the division,
however, being made between the ganglion and
the communicating branch of the sympathetic,
there resulted, in addition, pallor of the skin,
partial desquamation of the epidermis, softening
and friability of the tissues, minute extravasation
of blood, and oedema. Upon these experiments,
Romberg has the following remarks : — " If the
sciatic nerve is divided below the part at which
the fibres of the communicating branch, or, in
other words, sympathetic elements, are intro-
duced into it, we find disturbances in the circula-
tion, which are distinctly manifested in the web
of the foot. The circulation is rendered indolent
and irregular; the dilated vessels are overcharged
with blood-corpuscles, and in a few vessels the
blood is arrested." *

It is known that certain drugs act upon par-
ticular divisions of the nervous system by a sort
of elective affinity, and it is observed that some
poisonous substances exert their primary in-

* Nervous Diseases of Man. Dr. Sieveking's translation
for the Sydenham Society, vol. i., p. 196.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 41

fluence upon the respiratory movements, which
are mainly under the control of a system of
nerves distinct from the sympathetic ; whilst
others, in the first instance, arrest the heart's
action, presumably from injury directly done to
the sympathetic. " Poisoning with tobacco and
arsenic," says Romberg, "paralyses the cardiac
nerves and arrests the circulation, while respira-
tory movements continue On the other

hand, the West Indian arrow-poison paralyses
the respiratory and voluntary movements, at the
same time that the action of the heart continues,
and may be kept up bya rtificial respiration."*
Chloroform and sulphuric ether, when inspired,
do not exercise their paralysing influence uni-
formly upon the several divisions of the nervous
system. " The functions of the medulla oblongata
and nerves of respiration," says Dr. Snow, " can
be arrested by a smaller dose of the vapour than
that which is required to arrest the functions of
the ganglionic (sympathetic) system of nerves, on
which the contractions of the heart clepend."f
Disorder of the organic functions sometimes

* Ojp. citat., vol. ii., p. 335.

•f Association Medical Journal, April 6th, 1853.

42 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

takes place in but one of the symmetrical halves
of the body, as if from some corresponding per-
version of nervous agency. Sir Henry Holland
has related cases in which copious perspiration
was limited in this way.*

Altogether, the evidence favouring the theory
which assigns to the Sympathetic nervous system
a controlling influence over the processes of cir-
culation, nutrition, and secretion, is, from its
cumulative character, exceedingly strong, although
it may not amount to an actual demonstration.

Whatever may have been the obscure and
speculative anticipations of earlier physiologists
and pathologists, such as Unzer, Prochaska,
Whytt, Cullen, Hunter, and Blane regarding the
physiological agency of the so-called medulla
spinalis, it is undoubtedly true that science is
indebted to the late Dr. Marshall Hall for demon-
strating, alike by experiment and pathological
facts, that this structure is a source of nervous
power, independent of the encephalon, and for
convincing reasons that its influence in the pro-
duction of muscular movements may be exerted
without any attendant consciousness. However

* Chapters on Mental Physiology, p. 178.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 43

much Dr. Carpenter, Mr. Grainger, the late Mr.
Newport, and others may have done for esta-
blishing and systematizing this doctrine of the
spinal cord, the merit of discovery belongs pro-
perly to Dr. Marshall Hall. This branch of
physiology, and the foundations upon which it
rests, may be stated briefly in the following
terms : —

When an irritant impression is made upon the
mucous and cutaneous surfaces, a respondent
movement ensues, unless the restraining influence
of the will, or some other qualifying circumstance,
prevents it; and this movement does not neces-
sarily involve any consciousness whatever. The
impression wrought upon the superficial nervous
substance is conveyed by fibrous filaments to
the vesicular neurine within the spinal cord, in
which a vital change occurs, developing a force
which expends itself in an outward direction,
and, through other filaments, induces muscular
contraction.

Although not actually demonstrated, it is yet a
very rational hypothesis, based upon analogy,
that, distributed largely and very minutely along
the several surfaces, there exists vesicular neu-
rine, forming the peripheral expansion of nervous

44 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

filaments, that may be likened to the structure
of the retina, as it expands itself behind the
vitreous humour.

It is received doctrine that the gray matter
continuous throughout the whole length of the
spinal cord forms the analogue of the ventral
ganglia separate in the articulate/,. If one of
these latter creatures — the centipede, for exam-
ple— be divided into separate parts, each segment
will move upon the application of an outward
stimulus. Amongst vertebrated animals, in which
a coalescence of ganglia in the spine has place,
frogs exhibit such movements very strikingly.
If the skin below the head be irritated, after
detachment of the encephalon from the cord,
motion, the same in its outward character as
that which ordinarily follows upon sensation, will
ensue. The unconscious nature of this phe-
nomenon becomes still more obvious when that
portion of the cord which is immediately above
the origin of the crural nerves is divided ; irritate
the hind legs under such circumstances, and they
are seen to retract in the most lively manner.
Corresponding phenomena may be observed in
the higher classes of animals after decapitation.
Even in man, certain pathological states which

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 45

involve some breach of continuity between the
encephalon and spinal cord, also the quasi-
instinctive actions noticeable in anencephalous
foetus, will show the same thing — involuntary
movements respondent to an impression of
which there is no sensational consciousness.

Movements taking place under the circum-
stances described have been denominated reflex^
excito-motory \ and automatic. None of these
expressions constitute very exact definitions; but
provided the function designated be rightly ap-
preciated, the particular term employed is only
of secondary importance, however desirable in
every branch of science correct nomenclature
may be.

The purpose of the spinal axis and its reflex
function would appear to be the conservation of
the organism, by excitation of the respiratory
acts — in so far as they are involuntary, by go-
vernance of the orifices of ingress and egress,
and by contribution to the integrity of some
other processes in which reflex movements par-
ticipate.

The primary and more simple forms of con-
sciousness show themselves coincidently with the
nerves and ganglia of the senses which consti-

46 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

tute the media through which impressions are
obtained of the physical qualities of objects.
Although, under some circumstances, sensation
may be excited by internal conditions, it ordi-
narily devel opes, in the percipient, a consciousness
of outness as regards the excitant. The external
senses, as in consequence they are called, receive
the impressions of smell, taste, hearing, sight,
and touch ; they are associated with collections
of vesicular ne urine situated above the spinal
cord, protected, in the higher classes of animals,
by the bones of the skull. These sensory ganglia
are — presumably, when not demonstrably — in
direct communication, by white nerve-fibres, with
vesicular neurine expanded on the surfaces form-
ing the special regions of the particular kinds
of sensibility. Upon these surfaces the fitting
influences exert themselves; and, upon the exten-
sion of these latter to the encephalic centres,
consciousness of that subjective change deno-
minated sensation becomes excited, and is com-
monly followed by the recognition of some
agent or force external to the sentient prin-
ciple itself. But it is here — at the very threshold
of physiological psychology — that the demon-
strability of modern doctrines becomes less com-

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 47

plete than in the more physical departments of
the science of life. Such as they are, however, I
proceed to set them forth.

Vesicular neurine distributed upon the lining
membrane of the nostrils possesses a specific
impressibility to odorous matters ; the impression
which these make is conveyed by conducting
fibrous filaments to the bulbi olfactorii, the
ganglionic centres wherein the sense of smell is
exercised.

The vesicular expansion of nervous filaments
upon the lingual surface and the palate are
specifically impressed by sapid particles ; and the
impression being passed along fibrous filaments
to the proper ganglionic centres, induces the con-
sciousness of taste. There is some uncertainty
concerning the nervous apparatus of this sense,
in great measure owing to the mixture of fila-
ments from different nervous trunks on the
gustatory surfaces. But the special character of
taste as a sense, and the distinctness of its nervous
filaments and central ganglia can hardly be
doubted ; a conclusion which upwards of twenty
years ago I was at some pains to establish in the
pages of the London Medical Gazette, resting such
arguments as I could adduce upon certain

48 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

cases of paralysis that had come under my own
notice, showing the abolition of tactile with
persistence of gustatory sensibility in the tongue,
and vice versa.

Vesicular neurine spread largely within the
internal ear receives the vibratory undulations
constituting the external cause of sound ; the
fibrous filaments of the auditory nerve conduct the
influence to certain gray nuclei in the posterior
pyramids of the medulla oblongata that form the
ganglia of hearing.

The retina is largely composed of vesicular
neurine ; visual impressions are carried along the
course of the optic nerves, and attain the corpora
quadrigemina, which there is good reason for
concluding to be the ganglia of sight.

The four modes of consciousness just recounted
being accomplished by distinct nerves and organic
apparatuses, limited to particular regions of the
body, have been denominated the special senses.

But there is developed a sense-consciousness
not limited to any particular organ, but referring
itself more or less to the whole frame — common
sensation. This sense resides principally in the
skin ; it is especially acute at the mucous orifices ;
it exists, however, in the interior tissues, but in a

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 49

degree less intense. It is best illustrated by the
simple notion of resistance. Its modifications
comprise the several impressions essential to
ideas of the hard, the soft, the rough, the smooth,
the hot, the cold, the moist, the dry, and so on.
It is, moreover, through this sensibility, I conceive,
that we appreciate the state of the muscles —
experience the muscular sense.

This fifth sense is, presumably, awakened
through the vesicular extremities — the peripheral
expansion — of fibrous filaments. Whether the
gray substance and white fibres originating and
conducting common sensation be the same as
those which subserve the spinal reflex function is
uncertain. But this much may be admitted,
the communicated impression ascends along the
posterior columns of the spinal cord, and, attaining
gray vesicular centres, produces a consciousness
of common sensation.

Physiologists are not agreed as to the identity
of these ganglionic structures ; they may be ex-
pected, however, like the other sensory ganglia,
to be somewhere at the base of the encephalon ;
and I am, myself, disposed to think that the
vesicular nuclei within the lateral lobes of the
cerebellum — the corpora dentata — constitute the

E

50 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

encephalic site of this sense. Many years ago,
Foville assigned this function to the aggregate
cerebellum ; and others, with great plausibility,
have advocated this opinion. Dr. Carpenter,
however, in his Human Physiology, argues against
it, on the ground that neither ablation of the
organ by operation, nor the destruction of it by
disease, have been found to involve the loss of
any sensorial capacity. But there may be con-
siderable doubt as to whether, in recorded cases
of this kind, the ganglionic extremities of the
upper and posterior portion of the spinal cord —
the cerebellic termination of the so-called
restiform bodies — were actually lost, even though
the lobes and their cortical vesicular investment
should have disappeared. I doubt if the extension
of disease or of experimental excision to structures
so closely contiguous to the medulla oblongata as
these corpora dentata, would be compatible with
the maintenance of functions essential to life ;
although the removal or destruction of the bulk of
the cerebellum, might suggest no such difficulty.
Besides, it is notorious that, in the case of animals,
movements purely reflex will sometimes be mis-
taken for those indicative of common sensation.
But, probably, the cases already observed with

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 51

respect to this point, are too few for any decisive
conclusion.

Dr. Carpenter, in his later editions, admits the
probability of the inferior ganglia of the cerebellum
— the corpora dentata — constituting the encephalic
region of the muscular sense. But is there good
reason for deeming this to be anything else than
common sensation as resident in the muscles ?
That there is, some metaphysicians, and some
physiologists also, appear to think. Dr. Thomas
Brown held that the sense of resistance was
specific, and that the entire muscular frame con-
stituted its external seat and apparatus; and
amongst modern physiologists, Sir Charles Bell,
in language somewhat ambiguous and obscure
however, suggested the same thing. But what,
upon close analysis, is the muscular sense but the
feeling of tension in the muscles ? If we regard
this feeling in its several modifications, it seems
to be identical, in all essential respects, with
variations of sensation in the skin. In its primary
degree, simple cognition of muscular tension is
obtained; as it becomes intensified, fatigue is
experienced, then ache, and, in its last measure,
acute pain may be felt, as in spasm. Thus, I
raise some physical object of moderate weight ;

E 2

52 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

it is pleasant exercise, and the tension felt in the
brachial muscles is grateful. The weight is in-
creased, and fatigue is very soon experienced ;
again, there is an increment of weight, and my
arm aches; cramp finally ensues, and sensational
pain has its seat in the muscles. Have we not
engaged, in such a case, the same sense as that
which is common, more or less, to all the body ?
Any internal estimate, or apprehension, of the
degree of resistance, and consequent amount of
muscular tension, as in determining the gravity of
any object, or the force requisite for moving it, is
obviously a mental operation, not to be con-
founded with any mere sensation.

The anatomical connexion which exists be-
tween the corpora dentata and the posterior
columns of the spinal cord, through the corpora
restiformia, favours the hypothesis which I have
advanced ; and various physiological and patho-
logical facts would appear to strengthen it. The
experiments of Magendie and Longet show that
the slightest touch of the restiform bodies induces
violent pain.* Hutin relates a case in which the
sense of touch was so exalted, that, upon the

* Komberg, Oj>. citat., vol. i., p. 158.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 53

least contact, intolerable pain and restlessness
ensued, with corresponding muscular contractions,
resembling those produced by an electric dis-
charge. The patient ultimately died in the
most terrific convulsions, prostrate and exhausted.
On examination after death, there was found,
amongst other changes, atrophy of the cerebellum.
" Its medullary centre, as compared with that
of another subject, was a third less in size in
either hemisphere. The white substance, which
in the normal condition occupies the centre of
the corpus rhomboidale, had ceased to exist, so
that the fimbriated margins of this portion ap-
proached the centre, and only formed a small
pyriform, very hard, grayish-brown body."*

Mr. Robert Dunn, of London, a very acute
and reflecting practitioner, published a few years
ago an interesting and instructive case of tubercle
in the brain, wherein there was noticed, amongst
other phenomena, imperfect paralysis of the right
arm and leg, consisting in failure of common
sensation. The patient' was a little girl about
two years old. " She could move her arm about,"
says Mr. Dunn, " and could grasp anything firmly

* Ibid., vol. ii., p. 80.

54 THE NEKVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

enough in her right hand, when her eyes and
attention were directed to it; but, if they were
diverted to something else, and the volitional
power withdrawn, she would let the object which
she had been holding fall from her hands, and
without being conscious of the fact.'''' Describing
the post-mortem appearances, Mr. Dunn states,
" On making an incision through the lateral lobes
of the cerebellum on the left side, I found I had
cut through a tubercular deposit, a little to the
outer side of the median line (the site of the
corpus dentatum), in a state of softened degene-
ration."*

In the communication, however, in which these
facts are recorded, Mr. Dunn objects to the view
which I have taken concerning the encephalic
region of tactile sensibility, mainly on the ground
that the amphioxus — a species of fish low down
in the scale — has no cerebellum. No valid argu-
ment, however, can be drawn from such a cir-
cumstance. With such beings as the fish in
question, we can with confidence affirm but little,
either of their sentient endowments or of the
analogies of their nervous structures. What, in

* Association Medical Journal, August 11th, 1854.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 55

fact, can we pronounce regarding the tactile sen-
sibility of a creature like the amphioxus ? But, if
we concede to it such a sense, it may be observed
that it has a spinal cord, at the upper extremity of
which there is, I presume, vesicular neurine ; and
a portion — that which is in direct connexion with
the posterior division — must form the analogue
of the corpora dentata in the mammalian cere-
bellum, even though the cerebellum itself fully
developed should not exist in this fish.

The hypothesis which I have advanced would
seem to reconcile in some degree the doctrine
of Gall with that of Flourens. Gall taught that
the entire cerebellum was the organ of the sexual
instinct ; and Flourens (supported in his opinion
by many modern physiologists) maintained, many
years ago, that its office was to co-ordinate
muscles acting in combination at the mandate of
volition ; and from this view has been deduced
the idea, that it exercises a special influence in
balancing the body. Now, if the inferior gan-
glion of the cerebellum subserve ordinary feeling
— common sensation — its connexion with the
function imputed to it by Gall is sufficiently
intelligible, without adoption of the phrenolo-
gical doctrine. Numerous facts, certainly, appear

56 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

to indicate some relation between the cerebellum
and the organs of generation ; but such facts re-
ceive an interpretation just as rational by
reference to the exquisite tactile sensibility of
these latter, as by unqualified admission of Gall's
teaching upon the subject. With reference to
Flourens' notion concerning the muscular office
of the cerebellum, the facts appearing to sustain
it receive some probable explanation by admit-
ting the possible influence of what may be called
the superior ganglia of the cerebellum — its
vesicular cortical investment — in determining to
the muscles some action respondent to their
feeling. The experiments of Budge and Valen-
tin demonstrate an apparent influence of this
portion of its structure upon the testes and vasa
deferentia, which were seen to retract when it
was irritated.*

If, indeed, the doctrine be ultimately established
which assigns to the cerebellum the co-ordination
of muscles in voluntary movement, it perfectly
comports with my own view concerning the
ganglia of common, or tactile sensibility; for, as
Dr. Carpenter remarks, " all voluntary move-

# Komberg, Ojp. citat., vol. ii., p 39.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 57

ments require the guidance of sensations, and
most of these are of the tactile kind.'"*

Let the whole case, however, be as it may,
common sensation must have its proper ganglia
somewhere; and it cannot be doubted that these,
through the spinal cord, are in some sort of
nervous connexion with every sentient structure.f

All the sensory ganglia, it may here be noticed,
besides being instrumental in producing the
simpler modes of consciousness, very often cause
reactions in the muscular system, when, through
afferent nerves, they are stimulated from with-
out ; and that, too, in frequent independence of
thought or volition. It would seem that im-
pressions received in a particular ganglion of
sense may in some manner be diffused through a
whole chain of connected ganglia, and so bring
about respondent movements of very varied
character. These Dr. Carpenter designates con-

* British and Foreign Medical Revieiv, vol. xxii.,
p. 510.

f The reader will understand that, with respect to any
hypothesis advanced in this little work, the individual facts
cited in its support are not offered as proof, but simply as
exemplifying the kind of evidence which, by accumulation,
might substantiate it.

58 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

sensual, not in the meaning of consentaneous, but
as occurring with — in some sort of dependence
upon — sense. A young infant, long before dis-
tinct thought can have been awakened, exhibits
restlessness from contiguity to its mother's bosom,
provoked, it is probable, by the odour of the
mammary fluid. An odious taste, simply, may
determine the involuntary act of vomiting. Aloud
and unexpected sound will occasion transient, but
very general and intense, contraction of the muscles,
as in starting. The eye, when dazzled, is rapidly
and instinctively withdrawn from the light ; and
a sudden dash of cold water provokes deep in-
spiration and audible sobbing. These muscular
actions are reflex as to their modes of occurrence,
but they differ from the reflex actions purely
spinal in being essentially dependent upon
conscious states ; and they differ from ordinary
movements in the circumstance that neither
volition, nor ideas, nor mental emotion, properly
speaking, are concerned in their production.

There are other sensibilities which are external
as to their related objects, but which do not form
media of information as to the world without ;
and, on this account, they do not come within
any of the foregoing categories. These comprise

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 59

the physical appetites, including hunger and thirst.
Nothing is made out with respect to any gan-
glionic centres of such affections. If they exist
as distinct nervous masses in the encephalon,
they should be found probably at its base, in
which situation there is much vesicular neurine,
the function of which is not ascertained. But,
upon this subject, conjecture, resting upon ana-
logy, is alone available in the present state of
inquiry.

CO

CHAPTER IV.

THE EMOTIONAL SENSIBILITY AND ITS
ENCEPHALIC SITE.

There is yet a sensibility more elevated in the
psychical scale than either external sensation or
the physical appetites ; I refer to that all-pervad-
ing sense of substantive existence which German
psychologists have named, in some of its phases,
Cancesthesis — general feeling, and sometimes self-
feeling (Selbst-Gefiihl). It connects itself, appa-
rently, with the peripheral termination of sentient
nerves throughout the whole body, but particu-
larly of those supplying the thoracic and abdo-
minal viscera.

Emotional Sensibility, as in the whole of its
modifications it may not be inappropriately de-
signated, is experienced in an especial manner
about the precordial region. Its local intensity,
indeed, would seem to correspond very much
with the prevalence of the vascular system. Un-
der appropriate influences, this sensibility, al-

THE EMOTIONAL SENSIBILITY, ETC. 61

though more or less general, is always most
acutely experienced in the neighbourhood of the
large vessels, and most of all about the centre of
the circulation ; and hence we have the popular
as well as poetic localization of " the feelings "
in the heart. Yet emotional sensibility is not,
like external sensation, of a quasi-physical cha-
racter ; it certainly is not the tactile sensibility of
the vascular tubes, which may be affected by
many causes influencing the circulation, without
there being any resultant effect upon "the spirits"
— another form of popular phraseology which
sufficiently indicates, in certain respects, the vary-
ing states of this so-called csensesthesis.

Under ordinary conditions, this peculiar mode
of consciousness is recognised as tranquil con-
tentment. When it is gratefully exalted, we are
said to be in capital spirits, glad at heart, joyous;
we are ready for anything — in high feather.
When it is painfully depressed, wTe are anxious,
low-spirited, dull and heavy ; we have no heart
for exertion, we are thoroughly down. And, of
course, there are states intermediate, which vary
both in kind and degree. These modifications
may be determined by causes chiefly physical, or
by causes which, in their origin, are altogether

62 THE EMOTIONAL SENSIBILITY AND

psychical. All persons have their spirits more or
less acted upon by conditions of the atmosphere,
and by states of the viscera. Go back in memory
to the damp, foggy days of dark November, and
recal the dispiriting influence of their desolation
and gloom. The relation between visceral con-
ditions and the feelings, is the theme of perpetual
recognition ; witness the importance of a sound
digestion and a healthy state of the liver to the
maintenance of moral contentment. Moreover,
the varying forms of this emotional sensibility
stand in well-noted correspondence with deter-
minate modes of thought. Ideas of loss and
damage, physical or moral, spring up and have
a certain abiding character, so long as the caenses-
thesis experiences depression ; and, on the con-
trary, trains of thought suggestive of personal
advantages arise when this sensibility is pecu-
liarly exalted. And, conversely, physical eleva-
tion and depression ensue under the direct in-
fluence of correlated forms of thought. But this
particular topic will receive more extended con-
sideration in another chapter.

Emotional sensibility has sometimes been re-
garded as simply a mode of common sensation.
But a little reflection upon the peculiarities of the

ITS ENCEPHALIC SITE. 63

respective phenomena will bring out essential
differences. In the first place, emotional sen-
sibility maintains no sort of correspondence with
that which is tactile. On the contrary, when the
former is greatly elevated, the sense of touch is
sometimes abolished, or suspended. Witness
the effects of heroic enthusiasm ; impressions
merely tactile are but little regarded in these
circumstances of emotional exaltation. The ex-
cited warrior, in the thick of battle, feels neither
the sabre's cut nor the cannon's stroke. Again,
the tactile sensibility may be most acutely
awakened in the absence of all emotional ex-
citement ; internal spasm, neuralgia, and certain
cases of local hysteria, show this phenomenon.
Nay, the emotional sensibility, when greatly ex-
alted, may very often be lowered by superinduc-
ing bodily pain — intensifying tactile or common
sensation. In that extraordinary epidemic of the
middle ages, the Dancing Mania, so admirably
described by Hecker, the paroxysms (understood
to have been the re-action ensuing upon some
morbid emotion) were most effectually interrupted
or subdued by blows and kicks ; the operation
of these, it may be presumed, having been to
bring about sensational, and thereby to weaken

64 THE EMOTIONAL SENSIBILITY AND

emotional, sensibility. The patients, at the height
of their excitement, seem to have had the external
senses literally sealed. " While dancing," says
Hecker, " they neither saw nor heard, being in-
sensible to external impressions through the
senses."*

Reil, upwards of sixty years ago, maintained
that the csensesthesis had no physiological
identity either with tactile or any other form of
outward sensibility ; and he went even so far as
to say, that a if an animal could be deprived of
every organ of external sense, such an animal
would yet, by means of the csenaesthesis, have
some sense more or less obscure of its own

existence."f

The action of particular medicines, operating
through the blood upon the ganglionic centres,
suggests both an anatomical and physiological
distinction between the nervous apparatuses of
sensation and emotion. Opium and other such
drugs, whilst they depress tactile sensibility,
exalt very often that which is emotional.

* Epidemics of the Middle Ages. Sydenham Society's
Edition, p. 88.

f Cited in the Annates Medico-Psyclwlogiques, Avril,
1856, p. 250.

ITS ENCEPHALIC SITE. 65

Now, for this more elevated and specific sen-
sibility there must, I apprehend, be proper
ganglia within the encephalon. Dr. Carpenter
refers this function to the sensory ganglia at
large, and particularly to the ganglionic centres
of common sensation ; entertaining the opinion,
with some other physiologists, that the structures
commonly called the optic thalami, are for the
fulfilment of this latter office, and that the con-
tiguous ganglia, the corpora striata, are most
likely the source of movements respondent to
sensation.* Having myself already suggested
that the inferior ganglia of the cerebellum, the
corpora dentata, constitute the centres of tactile
sensibility, I would now submit that the ganglionic
masses forming the floor of the lateral ventricles
— the optic thalami and corpora striata — con-
stitute, in all probability, the ganglia of emotional
sensibility, divisible, it is likely, according to

* The fact of the sensory tract of the medulla oblongata
(shown to be such by the origins of the sensory nerves)
having its chief termination in the thalami optici, has been
regarded as the strongest proof that these ganglionic struc-
tures are the seat of common sensation; but this circum-
stance can only make it likely that they have some sensorial
function, which, on grounds of mere antecedent probability,
we may just as well suppose to be csensesthetic as sensational.

E

66 THE EMOTIONAL SENSIBILITY AND

specific differences, in the manifold forms of this
latter.

Comparative anatomy would seem to favour
this view. In the lower species of vertebrated
creatures, the admitted analogues of the optic
thalami and corpora striata are exceedingly large
in proportion to the rest of the encephalon. In
fishes these structures are voluminous, whilst the
cerebral hemispheres are, in some instances, not
discoverable, and are, in many others, quite rudi-
mentary. And so far as we can reason concern-
ing the psychical endowments of fishes, we should
infer that some inward sensibility, apart from the
sense of touch, principally determined their
numerous movements ; these being mainly sub-
servient to their self-conservation, and having
comparatively but little relation to outward
circumstances. In this state of things we should,
a priori, deem their prominent sensibility to be
csen aesthetic in its nature, rather than tactile ; but,
of course, not to the exclusion of this latter,
though in the watery element there would appear
to be no predominant need for it.

The encephalon of birds does not exhibit quite
so preponderant a size of the ganglia under con-
sideration ; they are still very large, however, in

ITS ENCEPHALIC SITE. 67

proportion to the cerebral hemispheres, which
now become more developed ; and it seems
reasonable to ascribe the instinctive and habitual
movements and actions of the feathered tribe in
a great degree to sensibility of an emotional
character. When we come to the mammalia, and
progressively ascend the scale, we find the whole
conscious life of the different creatures becoming
less and less a mere sensibility, and more and
more an intelligence; the highest forms of which
latter are discovered when we arrive at man.
And, with our own species, emotion, as an inde-
pendent and primary source of action, is notice-
ably at its lowest point, abundant though it
remain.

These facts correspond very generally with the
relation, as to volume, which the hemispheres of
the brain and the presumed emotive ganglia
maintain towards each other throughout the
animal kingdom. The lower we descend in the
scale, the more do these latter masses go to make
up the encephalon, and, in the same correspon-
dence, the more do actions appear to spring from
some instinctive, unintelligent source — most likely
emotional sensibility.

Vivisections practised upon the nervous centres

F 2

68 THE EMOTIONAL SENSIBILITY AND

are of no great value in determining function,
excepting in so far as the results may serve to
corroborate some inference otherwise obtained.
It was found by Dr. Budge that irritation of
the corpora striata and corpora quadrigemina —
these latter being immediately contiguous to the
optic thalami — excited vivid peristaltic move-
ments.* A like result is a very ordinary effect
of sudden and intense emotion.

The evidences of morbid anatomy, as eluci-
dating inquiries of this nature, are also but little
conclusive. Andral's numerous published in-
stances in which there was found extravasation
into the optic thalami do not, however, show any
coincident lesion of tactile sensibility in the
majority of cases : a result which might have been
anticipated, in a large proportion of them at least,
if these masses had been the ganglia of common
sensation. Perversions of the emotional sensi-
bility have had too little account taken of them in
these investigations, for the existing records of
morbid anatomy to be made available, to any
extent, for or against the hypothesis now under
consideration.

* See London Medical Gazette, vol. i., for 1839-40.

ITS ENCEPHALIC SITE. 69

But as exemplifying the kind of evidence from
morbid anatomy that might be brought to bear,
though not decisively, upon an investigation of this
kind, I will cite two or three illustrative cases.

In the autumn of 1853, I assisted at the post-
mortem examination of a case in which, during
life, there had been unusual manifestation of
emotional sensibility, without any intellectual
disturbance. The right corpus striatum alone
afforded signs of morbid change. Notes were
taken at the time by Mr. Walsh, surgeon, of
Manchester, who had attended the patient, and
from these I am favoured with the following
account : — James Connor, aged fifty-six, was a
man of temperate habits, and one who through life
had enjoyed good health and spirits, until within
two years of his death. At this period he became
involved in pecuniary difficulties, and hereupon
low-spirited and somewhat unsocial. He con-
tinued to follow his business, however, as usual.
Two months before his death he embarked the
remains of a small capital in some speculative
undertaking, which issued in complete and imme-
diate failure; a circumstance which very seriously
aggravated his mental depression. A fortnight
after this catastrophe he was seized with slight

70 THE EMOTIONAL SENSIBILITY AND

paralysis of one arm, which, however, disappeared
spontaneously in about a week. But it returned
in a few days with increased severity, general
hemiplegia, indeed, showing itself. The affec-
tion, to some extent, involved both motion and
sensation ; and articulation was very indistinct.
" At this time," says Mr. Walsh, " I was sent for.
I found his general health not bad. Though both
motion and sensation were affected considerably,
neither was abolished ; the tongue appeared to
be the most affected, especially when attempts
were made to converse. There was some im-
pairment of vision, but the pupil showed no
change. The intelligence was undisturbed, and
but little enfeebled. His emotional excitability
was remarkable, the most trifling circumstance
being sufficient to provoke it. When I visited him,
he was literally overjoyed, and when I took leave,
he would grasp my hand and burst into tears. At
my last visit, twenty-six hours before his death,
there was but little change in his general con-
dition, except that he was weaker ; still he was
able to be up and out of bed. When I left him
on this occasion, the emotion displayed was truly
distressing. He rested badly the ensuing night,
moaning much at intervals ; next morning he

ITS ENCEPHALIC SITE. 71

became drowsy, and towards noon was slightly
convulsed. He expired at six p.m., November
18th, 1853. On examining the head, eighteen
hours after death, the vessels of the scalp were
empty ; the superior aspect of the cerebrum was
natural, the convolutions a little flattened pro-
bably. On raising the whole encephalon, a con-
siderable quantity of serum, slightly tinged with
blood, was found at the base. The consistence
of the cerebral substance was good, and, on
slicing it, very few puncta vasculosa were ob-
servable. Fluid similar to that discovered at the
base, occupied also the ventricles in considerable
quantity. The choroid plexuses were not con-
gested, but over the right corpus striatum there
ramified several large vessels. On cutting into
this structure the gray colour was found deepened,
and blood flowed from a number of points, form-
ing in these respects a striking contrast to its
fellow on the opposite side, as indeed to all the
rest of the encephalon. The cerebellum was
quite natural."

The following communication from Dr. Fripp,
of London, comprises particulars of a case very
analogous to the one just related : — " A gentle-
man intimately known to me, one who possessed

72 THE EMOTIONAL SENSIBILITY AND

considerably more than ordinary powers of mind
and attainments, and one whose strength of pur-
pose and firmness were among his most dis-
tinguishing characteristics, was seized, without
previous warning, with forgetfulness of words, in
the midst of a very active career, involving cease-
less occupation of mind and body. Perfect
quietude and gentle medication very speedily
succeeded in restoring this failure, and he ap-
peared well again. But it was impossible to
restrain his ardent desire for activity by the most
explicit announcement of what this symptom in
all probability indicated. In about two months
sudden and complete confusion of memory
occurred, producing the strangest jumbling to-
gether of true and false that I remember ever to
have witnessed. This was followed by partial
paralysis of the left arm and facial muscles ; and,
at the same time, great emotional excitability showed
itself. It is worthy of remark that, apart from the
affection of memory of recent events — which itself
underwent considerable improvement — there was
no impairment of intellect to be recognised. His
conversation upon abstract topics, and on what-
ever appealed to the reasoning powers, was as
clear and forcible as ever ; and his quiet indo-

ITS ENCEPHALIC SITE. 73

mitableness of will showed itself in many charac-
teristic ways. Yet he was at this very time, and
whilst the memory was improving, moved to tears;
— a tiling quite strange to him — by the slightest
occasion of feeling, even by a hind word, and the
sight of a friend. After some considerable appa-
rent amendment, and an amount of re-application
to various objects of former interest and occupa-
tion, which it surprises me now to think of as
possible in such a condition, he suddenly became
apoplectic, and died within ten months of the
very first intimation of disease.

"Besides evidence of some meningo-cephalitis
on the surface, chiefly on the right side, the main
result of the post-mortem inspection was the dis-
closure of a large mass of dirty gray softened
cerebral substance in the central part of the right
hemisphere, on a level with the corpus callosum,
and principally over the posterior part of the
corpus striatum. This -portion of the corpus stria-
tum was itself softened, and as though corroded,
and liquified matter filled the descending corner
of the corresponding lateral ventricle. The
thalamus was sound, as also every other part of
the encephalon appeared to be, after a most
searching examination.

74 THE EMOTIONAL SENSIBILITY AND

"What struck me as a point of connexion
between this case and your views of the functions
of different parts of the encephalon, was, I need
hardly say, the prominent development during
its progress of emotional excitability, and the
damaged corpus striatum, with perfect integrity
of the meso-cephale apparent after death. But
to enable you to judge more fairly how far this
connexion deserves to be regarded as essential, I
have briefly stated all the other leading particulars
of the case."

Certain features in Mr. Dunn's already cited
case, seem to have a pathological significance
similar to that of the instances just adduced. In
describing the psychical symptoms that were
noticeable in his little patient, Mr. Dunn says : —
" She manifested one peculiarity of disposition
with which her parents, who are sensible and
intelligent people, were much struck, and that
was her extreme excitability. They have other
children, and the contrast in this respect between
them and her became a matter of daily observa-
tion. Passing incidents and events, scarcely
noticed by them, would throw her into the excesses
of joyous emotion, or bring tears of distress into
her eyes, so great washer susceptibility to emotion

ITS ENCEPHALIC SITE. 75

and excitement." And further on in his account,
recording her condition a short time before death,
he states that " the mother never got a quiet
night ; she always awoke in trouble and distress ;
she was not an obstinate or self-willed child, but
affectionate in the extreme, and readily soothed
by her parents. When any disagreement had
arisen between them, or with any other member
of the family, she was in great distress of mind
until a reconciliation of the most affectionate
kind was effected. As her weakness increased,
she underwent a change of disposition, and
became greatly depressed. She was at times sub-
ject to great uncomfortableness and depression of
mind ; but her emotional excitability was gone —
she was, on the contrary, lethargic." In an account
of the results of the post-mortem examination in
this case, the subjoined statement is included: —
"On slicing down the hemispheres and exposing
the lateral ventricles, my attention," says Mr.
Dunn, " was instantly arrested by the large size
of the thalamus opticus on the left side : it was
more than twice its normal size, and the contrast
was most striking between it and the adjoining
corpus striatum, and with its fellow on the
opposite side. ... A vertical section through

76 THE EMOTIONAL SENSIBILITY AND

its substance showed that its size was owing to
the presence of a tumour in its interior."

Dr. Marshall Hall has recorded a case which
may have some possible bearing upon the view
which I have proposed. " In a gentleman several
epileptic seizures occurred, the effect of fear —
the fear of cholera. After each, a hemiplegic
paralysis of the right side took place ; but this
yielded completely, except that the patient could
never divert his mind from the idea that the feel-
ino- of the affected side was somewhat different
from that of the other. At length, a further
attack proved fatal; and, on a postmortem ex-
amination, the arachnoid was found slightly
opaque, the ventricles containing serum, whilst
in the left corpus striatum there was the remnant
of a small clot of blood in a cyst slightly dis-
coloured. The arachnoid was raised in one part
by serum, resembling a vesicle, and a small
vesicle was attached to the plexus choroides ."*

Certain nations are characterized more than
others by the intensity and vivacity of the emo-
tional sensibility ; the Irish differ largely from
the Scotch, the French from the Spanish. Women

* Synopsis of Cerebral and Spinal Seizures, p. 61.

ITS ENCEPHALIC SITE, 77

are in this respect more remarkable than men.
It might tend to elucidate this question, pro-
bably, to compare the relative development, in
the respective instances, of the ganglia presumed
to be connected with the functions in question.

Emotional sensibility produces its own re-
actions upon the general system, distinct from the
movements which Dr. Carpenter denominates con-
sensual. Its expression through the eye and the
vascular system, indeed, is familiar to experience.
When this sensibility is slightly acted upon, there
ensues a mere feeling that leads to no external
or visible result; the effect remains a simple fact
of consciousness. When it is influenced, how-
ever, in a higher degree, there arises an impulse
to action, whether for the mitigation of some
pain or for the attainment of some pleasure ; but,
apart from all resultant voluntary action, the
effect upon the system, and particularly upon
certain muscles, is rendered sufficiently obvious.
Physiognomical expression, as it is called, indi-
cates to some extent the degree and the kind of
emotion which is felt. The diagnosis and the
prognosis of mental maladies, and, in a less
degree, of other more physical ailments, are
greatly aided by attention to this circumstance.

78 THE EMOTIONAL SENSIBILITY AND

In ordinary life, we constantly witness the influ-
ence which is exercised upon the physical frame
by the emotional sensibility. A cheerful coun-
tenance, with a light, elastic step, denotes its
lively and grateful state ; whilst an opposite con-
dition is evinced by the sorrowing, anxious
aspect, with heavy tread and measured gait.
These phenomena may, and commonly do, show
themselves without participation of the will, or of
any of the forms of sensation — a fact which cer-
tain morbid states amply demonstrate. Muscles
entirely withdrawn from the influence of volition
and of all sensational impressions, as in some
cases of facial paralysis, will frequently, as in
laughter and paroxysmal weeping, exhibit activity
under the influence of emotion.

The independence of sensation which emo-
tional reactions at times display, is well exem-
plified in the account which I subjoin ; premising,
however, that probably the emissio seminis con-
stitutes the most striking and conspicuous phe-
nomenon ordinarily arising in immediate response
to common sensation. A gentleman some years
ago consulted me, in good general health and in
the meridian of life, in consequence of erectile
incapability and absence of the allied local sen-

ITS ENCEPHALIC SITE. 79

sation; yet he had experienced ejaculatio under
the pure influence of emotion, provoked by an
experimental attempt at coitus.

The foregoing facts, anatomical, physiological,
and pathological, certainly constitute no insig-
nificant support to the hypothesis which I have
advanced concerning the fundamental distinct-
ness of sensational and emotional sensibility, and
do not, I think, leave the view which T have pro-
pounded a purely speculative one, — that these
different sensibilities have respectively separate
ganglionic centres in the encephalon.

80

CHAPTER V.

THE INTELLIGENCE, AND ITS ORGANIC REGION.

A form of consciousness, which is higher still in
the psychical scale than either sensation or emo-
tion— thought — is also, in the present sphere of
existence^ dependent upon organization. Impres-
sions received in the sensory and emotive ganglia
influence thinking, and are in some sense essen-
tial to it ; but thought itself is something beyond.
Such impressions constitute the rude material of
ideas, which, arising out of the apprehension of
objects and states of existence, constitute the
basis of all positive knowledge; and which, once
existent in the consciousness, can be recalled in
memory, and thus be rendered available in all
the operations of mind.

It is physiologically certain that the Intelli-
gence, alike in the estimate of things, qualities,
and circumstances, and in the combination and
arrangement of ideas, as in imagination and in
reasoning, has cerebral instrumentality for its

THE INTELLIGENCE AND ITS ORGANIC REGION. 81

exercise ; and evidence from all sources, anato-
mical, physiological, and pathological, points to
the cortical gray matter of the brain — the vesicular
neurine investing the convolutions — as supplying
the requisite organic conditions.* Mr. Solly has
very appropriately designated this structure the
Hemispherical Ganglia.

The progress of an impression from sensation,
through intuition and representation, up to
thought, has supplied to psychologists the oc-
casion of much interesting and ingenious spe-
culation ; but, for physiological ends, we need
not attempt any very detailed analysis of this
operation. For the present purpose it may be
sufficient to cite the fundamental distinction,
universally experienced and acknowledged, be-
tween thought and fee ling, intellect and sensibility,
intelligence and emotion. Poets, dramatists, and
philosophers, alike in their disquisitions and their
illustrations, always recognise this obvious divi-
sibility of the facts of consciousness. Much
of the phraseology of common life, moreover,
rests upon such a duality in our inward expe-

* As the class of facts presumed to establish the function
of the hemispherical ganglia is cited in foregoing pages, the
evidence is not again adduced in the present chapter.

G

82 THE INTELLIGENCE AND ITS ORGANIC REGION.

rience. In correspondence therewith, anatomical
and physiological facts suggest a seat of thought
distinct from that of feeling ; the separate regions
having between them a white central mass.

" What thin partitions sense from thought divide."*

White matter, then, intervenes between the
vesicular neurine forming the sensory and emo-
tive ganglia, and that which forms the con-
voluted surface of the cerebrum ; and impressions
received in the former may be regarded as extend-
ing their influence along the fibres of the central
mass, until the gray summit is attained, when
changes are induced in that region which minister
to the intelligence. Intuition of some existence —
a perception — thus arises, and sensational ideas
are in this way primarily obtained. If we re-
flect upon the processes that go on within the
mind, we shall see that neither a sensation nor
an emotion necessarily involves an idea, and
that an essential difference exists between such
passive subjective states and an intellectual ap-
preciation of their objective significance. How
often, for example, do we find that, notwith-
standing the full consciousness of a sensation,

* Pope's Essay on Man.

THE INTELLIGENCE AND ITS ORGANIC REGION. 83

the idea suggested by it does not arise until
some seconds or even minutes have elapsed?
The utterance of certain words, as sounds, is
heard ; their signification does not, at the moment,
strike the hearer; and yet in a short time, with-
out any external cause, and without any effort
of attention, the meaning will sometimes break
upon the intelligence.

Sensational ideas, so called, originate in the per-
ception of physical objects, whilst abstract ideas,
as they are denominated, spring from contempla-
tion of the qualities and relations of things ; but
whether ideas be abstract or sensational, they seem
by a sort of mental illusion to have, as it were,
an objective existence in themselves, when inti-
mately and closely regarded. " Once formed,"
says M. Delasiauve, " they must be considered as
having an existence of their own, independent of
their source. But, if so, and being recovered
after disappearance, what store-house conceals
them?"* We cannot tell; but we may investi-
gate, with some success, the mode and the condi-
tions of their formation and reproduction. If
ideas obtained primarily in some past time return

* Annates Medico-JPsychologiques. Juillet, 1856.
G 2

84 THE INTELLIGENCE AND ITS ORGANIC REGION.

to the consciousness, the result is Memory ; this
may occur with or without voluntary effort ; in the
former case it is sometimes distinguished as
Recollection, and in the latter as 'Reminiscence.
When varied ideas develope themselves, consti-
tuting a certain unity in definite forms of thought,
we have Conception. That irregular and spon-
taneous evolution of thought which obtains so
habituallv in the absence alike of external ex-
citant and of voluntary effort, we may desig-
nate Imagination. A fixation of thought by the
will constitutes Attention. Comparison and Judg-
ment are operations in which the Mind determines
the resemblances and the relations amongst its
ideas, conformably to realities which they repre-
sent either within itself or in the world with-
out. Now although Dr. Carpenter, more, pro-
bably, than any other physiologist, has col-
lected a mass of evidence in support of the
view which assigns to the hemispherical ganglia
the organic instrumentality of all psychical pro-
cesses which involve ideas, he has not, in the
absence of facts, attempted to show that particular
divisions organically subserve distinct intel-
lectual faculties. And indeed in the failure of
phrenology, there would appear to be no satisfac-

THE INTELLIGENCE AND ITS OEGANIC REGION. 85

tory foundation upon which even a plausible specu-
lation of the kind can rest. Certainly, cranioscopic
facts would suggest that the anterior division of
the cerebrum has some special connexion with
that fertility and orderly regulation of thought
which constitutes intellect par excellence. The
same kind of evidence, moreover, would render it
probable that the upper region of the hemispheres
is, in some way or another, associated with the
development of ideas which tend to give what is
understood by moral elevation of character; as
also that the posterior division has some similar
connexion with affections and propensities com-
mon, for the most part, to man and animals.

86

CHAPTER VI.

THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

Dr. Carpenter regards the special seat of all
Conscious activity to be the Sensory Ganglia at
large; and thus he holds that, although the hemi-
spherical ganglia minister to the intelligence as its
organic region, thought has no actual existence
until correlated physiological changes arise in the
Sensorium.* He maintains this position, it is only
fair to say, by very close and ingenious arguments,

* Dr. Carpenter's views are thus stated by himself in the
latest edition of his Human 'Physiology : — " The cerebrum
is the instrument of all those psychical operations which we

include under the general term intellectual It does

not hence follow, however, that the cerebrum has such a
direct relation to the mind that the consciousness is imme-
diately and necessarily affected by changes taking place in its
own substance ; and, however startling the proposition may
at first sight appear, that the organ of the intellectual opera-
tions is not itself endowed with consciousness, a careful con-
sideration of the relations of the cerebrum to the sensory
ganglia will tend to show that there is no a priori absurdity
in such a notion. For, if the connexion of the vesicular
matter of the cerebral hemispheres with the sensorial centres

THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 87

which, however, to myself seem neither to be
conclusive nor satisfactory. They would appear
to resolve themselves into the following proposi-
tions : —

As the same anatomical connexion subsists be-
tween the hemispherical ganglia and ganglia situ-
ated lower down in the encephalon, as between the
retina and other such peripheral nervous expan-
sions, and vesicular neurine located more internally,
wherein the sensational consciousness is con-
sidered exclusively to dwell ; so it is probable
that a functional analogy exists between the
hemispherical ganglia ministering to ideas, and
structures like the retina ministering to sense, —
the proper consciousness only being awakened

be anatomically the same as that which exists between these
centres and the retina, or any other peripheral expansion of
vesicular matter in an organ of sense, which we have seen
that it is, and if the same kind of change may be excited in
the sensorial centres by an impression from each source,
which has been shown to be a matter of common occurrence, —
it can scarcely be deemed unlikely that the sensorial centres
should be the seat of consciousness, not merely for the im-
pressions transmitted to them by the nerves of the external
senses, but also for the impressions brought to them by the
nerves of the internal senses, as the sagacious Reil desig-
nated the radiating fibres of the cerebral hemispheres." —
p. 545.

88 THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

under circumstances of physiological activity of
the connected ganglia situated more internally.
Next, it is antecedently probable that there is a
single centre of consciousness somewhere ; and
this being so, that the sensory ganglia should be
admitted as that centre. And lastly, certain
phenomena of common observation seem to prove
that an elaboration and perfection of thought
may take place without any consciousness thereof,
excepting in the results; a process which goes on
most probably in the hemispherical ganglia, and
which may be designated Unconscious Cerebration.
Now, before examination of these views, it
may be w7ell to define clearly that which most
physiological psychologists mean by some of the
phraseology which they employ. When mention
is made of consciousness residing in this or in
that structure, it is not intended to signify that
the vesicular neurine either thinks or feels. What
is meant is simply this — that physiological action
occurring in particular ganglia is the direct
correlate, the organic condition, of some corres-
ponding form of thought or feeling ; that, for
example, particular states of the olfactory ganglia
have systematic association with the sensible
consciousness of odour, and so of the optic and

THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 89

other ganglia, up to the hemispherical. And thus
when any of the encephalic ganglia are spoken of
or described as the region of sense, emotion, or
thought, it is only meant that functional activity
of the structures in question is correlative with
corresponding forms of consciousness in the
proper Me-'ity. But in detailed exposition, or in
the philosophical discussion of psychological phy-
siology, it is convenient that phraseology and
methods of expression be made available, which,
without explanation, might receive an interpreta-
tion contrary to the intentions of those who
employ them. We will return, however, to Dr.
Carpenter's reasoning.

It will be conceded that, in our various specu-
lations regarding the physiology of nerve-sub-
stance, the function we assign to particular
structures should at least be conceivable, definite,
and antecedently probable. For the illustration
of my argument, I will cite the circumstances and
the conditions of the visual apparatus and its
offices. Now, if we reflect upon the share which,
physiologically, the retina and the optic ganglia
have respectively in the production of sight, we
shall perceive, I apprehend, that there is no con-
ceivable analogy between the peripheral expan-

90 THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

sion of nerves of sensation and the hemispherical
ganglia as ministering to the intellectual con-
sciousness. It may be admitted that the retina
constitutes the seat of no conscious function ;
and yet it may be that it has a very definite,
intelligible, and even necessary office. The
sensible intuition of external objects demands,
from the very nature of the case, a peripheral
structure physically subservient to the more in-
ternal organization, because the impressions to
be conveyed by the conducting nerve must have
a surface whereupon to be received, and that, too,
as the necessary antecedent to a corresponding
change in the appropriate ganglion within the
encephalon ; and the retina is obviously fitted for
the receipt of such impressions — an office which,
apart from its demonstrability, is conceivable,
definite, and antecedently probable.

But when we come to the origin of ideas, and
their manifold relations one with another, what
imaginable antecedent can there be to the thought
excepting some sensational phenomenon ? In the
genesis of simple ideas, we must certainly admit
a preliminary physical impression — one, however,
which acts upon the organs of sense, and gives
birth to a conscious feeling, receiving definitiveness

THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 91

and distinctiveness only in development of the in-
telligence. Now, what conceivable process of a
psychical character should intervene between the
state of sensation and the springing up of an
idea ? In the suggested analogy afforded by the
office of the retina, the purely physical change
coining between the presentation of an object and
the sensational consciousness provoked by it, is
not only conceivable, but demonstrable; a change
which is brought about in a manner virtually
similar to that which obtains in photography.

That material changes take place in the
hemispherical ganglia coincidently with thought,
is in the highest degree probable; but should
not such material changes be regarded rather as
the physical correlate of the psychical process,
than as an intellectual function, going on without
consciousness?

Dr. Carpenter observes, " There is an a priori
improbability that there should be two seats of
consciousness so far removed from one another
as the sensory ganglia and the vesicular neurine
of the hemispheres."* But the ganglia of the
external senses are separate and distinct, and are

* Human Physiology. Fifth edition, p. 545.

92 THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

just as remote one from another — the olfactory
from the auditory, for example. Still, it will not
be denied that these ganglia are separately the
seats of a proper sensational consciousness. But
Dr. Carpenter would seem to limit his view con-
cerning the oneness of a seat of consciousness,
to sensations and ideas having similitude of
nature, thus : — " If we admit," says he, " that the
sensory ganglia are the seat of the original sen-
sation, we can scarcely but admit that they are
also the seat of that which is reproduced by the
cerebral act,"* referring to the phenomena of
remembered sensations. I would submit, however,
that the memory of a sensation which involves
the idea, constitutes a form of consciousness,
different from sensation itself, and that this latter
is not that which the cerebral act reproduces
when sensory impressions are remembered. A
cerebral act appears to reproduce a sensation in
certain cases of hallucination, when it ensues upon
the vividness or pertinacity of an idea, as if from
some inverted nervous action — a sort of playing
back of the cerebral influence upon the ganglia
of external sensation ; but this is a very difFeren

* Human Physiology. Fifth edition, p. 545.

THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 93

thing from the remembrance of a sensory im-
pression. Indeed, if the argument from a
supposed necessity of a single seat of conscious-
ness were pushed to its legitimate consequences,
should we not go beyond Descartes even, and
contend, not simply for some such structure as the
pineal gland — not for the whole even of a single
cell belonging to some ganglionic aggregate — but
for a mathematical point ?

I now proceed to consider the particular
doctrine of Unconscious Cerebration. " We seem
justified," says Dr. Carpenter, "in affirming that
the cerebrum may act upon impressions trans-
mitted to it, and may elaborate results such as we
might have attained by the purposive direction of
our minds to the subject, without any consciousness
on our parts ; so that we only become aware of
the operation which has taken place when we
compare the result, as it presents itself to our
minds after it has been attained, with the materials
submitted to the process."*

The facts cited in support of the above state-
ment are more or less within the well-recognised
experience of us all. There is the spontaneous

* Human Physiology. Eifth edition, p. 545.

94 THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

reproduction of an idea, voluntarily and design-
edly sought for in vain ; there is the rapid and
seemingly unconscious performance of certain
acts after the institution of habit, although de-
pendent originally upon conscious states; and
lastly, and more decidedly, may be noted the
entirely new development which a subject is
frequently found to have undergone when, after
having for some time ceased to think of it, we
come to it anew — "a development," says Dr.
Carpenter, "which cannot be reasonably ex-
plained in any other mode than by attributing it
to the intermediate activity of the cerebrum,
which has, in this instance, automically evolved
the result without our consciousness."*

It will be conceded that if an explanation of
such phenomena as the above can be given that
is accordant with recognised laws of thought, it
must be accepted rather than one that involves a
more occult agency. " Leges philosophandi vetant
plures causas iingere aut quserere quam quae ad
rem explicandam sufficiant." Now, I conceive
that the particular facts which seem to countenance
the theory of unconscious cerebration, will

* Human Physiology. Fifth edition, p. 545.

THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 95

certainly admit of some more obvious and simple
interpretation than one which renders it necessary
to regard nerve-substance as elaborating and per-
fecting thought without thought; a process, it
appears to myself, which would be not altogether
unlike the production of melody by a notoriously
unmusical instrument without the sensible mani-
festation of sounds.

I would here propose to the reader's attention
a fundamental consideration bearing upon this
question, which is, that the human consciousness,
apart from other analyses of which it is susceptible,
is traceable under the two forms of direct and
reflex. In the former case, ideas are in some
sense automatic, and for the most part transient ;
in the latter, they are in their origin to some
extent voluntary ; or, springing up spontaneously,
they become designedly retained in the conscious-
ness, and constitute the material, so to speak, of
an objective regard In solitary musing, when
there is no intentioned application of mind to any
subject, but rather a passive contentment in our
emotional states, consciousness is mostly of the
direct character ; and, under such circumstances,
thoughts and feelings evolve themselves involun-
tarily— without any sort of effort or purpose.

96 THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

From time to time, however, these mental pro-
ducts are arrested by a reflex act ; and the mind
voluntarily turns in upon its own thoughts and
feelings, thus contemplating not only that which
it knows and feels, but its very self at the same
time as knowing and feeling.

Now, although we ordinarily remember facts
and mental processes very much in proportion as
they have engaged the attention and a certain
reflex consideration at any time, this rule is by
no means absolute. Ideas and feelings once ex-
perienced may at any time revive in the con-
sciousness, and yet not always be recognised as
having previously had existence ; particularly
when at former periods they have never been
subjected, by attention, to a reflex mental pro-
cess. Undoubtedly, under these latter circum-
stances, numberless thoughts, and reasonings,
and ideas of external occurrences, pass for ever
from the consciousness ; but this is far from being
always the case ; again and again will they
return, without any systematic identification.
And are not most of the phenomena cited by Dr.
Carpenter in support of his theory of unconscious
cerebration explicable by these laws of spon-
taneous thought, according to which our mental

THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 97

operations are frequently unre me inhered when
repeated. " Of the thoughts which occur to us
suddenly, and which seem to us purely spon-
taneous, not a few are reminiscences, more or less
faithful, of what we have before read, heard, or
thought; and consequently they proceed from a
preparatory fact which we do not remember."*

And yet this recovered thinking, when atten-
tively regarded, will sometimes seem to have the
lucidity and perfection of a special revelation,
and may well seem as though it were the pro-
duct of some unconscious operation of the mental
organ. Still, by careful consideration and ex-
amination, we shall at times procure demonstra-
tion of the contrary. In composition, we fre-
quently hit upon an idea, or a word, or the turn
of a phrase ; it strikes us as a happy thought, and
appears to be the spontaneous evolution of our
own minds. We afterwards discover, possibly by
an accident, that we had heard or read it, yet we
had forgotten all about it, and had believed it to
be our own. And can we doubt that, in the same
way, we sometimes recall our past thinking,

* Fundamental Philosophy. By Balmez. American
translation from the original Spanish, by Brownson. A
very profound and interesting work.

H

98 THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

deeming it to be new, because we have no con-
scious remembrance of it ? Through ignorance of
these laws of thought, or inattention to them,
unjust accusations of plagiarism are sometimes
made ; but " a writer is not a plagiarist, although
he makes ideas his own which have originated
with others. But it is often true that man imagines
he creates, when he only recollects."*

In more particular illustration of these pheno-
mena, it may be noted that a book shall be read,
and soon laid aside ; the reader may then pass
on to something else, and in a very brief period
be unable to render any very clear account of
what he has read. Some months afterwards,
when the subject of the work becomes a topic of
conversation, he is probably surprised that he has
derived considerable information from it. How
do we explain facts of this kind ? Why, in many
of such cases, the person situated as supposed in
this illustration will discover, upon attentive self-
examination, that in his passive musings the con-
tents of the book had been in his spontaneous
thoughts ; and that, under such circumstances, an
acquaintance with its subject had been gradually,

* Balmez. Ojp. citat.

THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 99

but still consciously, perfected. This mental
process may probably be with some accuracy
designated involuntary and inattentive thinking,
but not with justice an unconscious action of the
brain. I am decidedly of opinion myself that
the explanation now offered of these well-known
phenomena will more or less cover all the
psychical processes that have been cited to
establish a doctrine of Unconscious Cerebration.
But in whatever way this topic may be rightly
elucidated, the particular mental operation is a
very ordinary fact of experience. Indeed, most
of our habitual actions may have some place in
this category of consciousness without attention or
will; and yet, though adverted to by several
authors as unconscious processes, they will admit,
I think, of another and a more just interpretation,
when closely investigated. " There are various
internal operations," says Lord Karnes, "of which
we have no. consciousness ; and yet that they
have existed is made known by their effects.
Often have I gone to bed with a confused notion
of what I was studying, and have awaked in the
morning completely master of the subject."*

* Sketches of the History of Man. By Henry Home, of
Karnes. Edit, 1807. Vol. iii. pp. 105, 106.

H 2

100 THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

This is a circumstance of a kind occurring to
most persons at some time or another, and one
which receives its explanation, I conceive, in the
renewed vigour of mind procured by a night's
sleep, whereby the facts already in the mind
have their relations and correspondences more
clearly and accurately recognised than was
practicable during the previous evening's fatigue;
just as a problem which is a source of perplexity
and vexation after a luxurious dinner, is readily
soluble and a subject of interest after tea.

The same writer alludes also to the automatic
character of many of our acts, primarily accom-
plished, but afterwards initiated only, by a volun-
tary effort. " Some effects," says he, " require a
train of actions : walking, reading, singing. When
these actions are uniform, as in walking, or nearly
so, as in playing on a musical instrument, an act
of will is only necessary at the commencement;
the train proceeds by habit, without any new act
of the will."*

There is a still more remarkable enunciation
of a doctrine of unconscious mental action made
by Rosmini, a celebrated Italian psychologist,

* Ibid.

THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 101

who observes, in the following passage from his
writings: — "A close attention to our internal
operations, along with induction, gives us this
result, that we even exercise ratiocination, of
which we have no consciousness ; and, generally,
it furnishes us with this marvellous law, that
every operation whatsoever of our mind is un-
known to itself, until a second operation (reflec-
tion) reveals it to us."* But the single word
reflection, introduced by this author parenthe-
tically, would suggest that the explanation of
this law was not, to his own mind, very different
from that just offered in these pages.

Reverting to the more general proposition, that
the sensory ganglia constitute the exclusive
region of consciousness, I would ask, does not
a fundamental vice attach to the whole argument
in its favour ? Whatever may be said regarding
ideas that rest for their support upon sensible

* " L'osservazione piii attenta posta sulle nostre interne
operazioni unita all' induzione ci da questo risultamento, che
noi facciamo de' raziocinii di cui noi abbiamo coscienza alcuna,
e in universale ci somministra quella legge maravigliosa che
' ogni qualsiasi operazione dello spirito nostro e incognita a se
stessa ed ha bisogno d'un'altra operazione (riflessione) che ce
la riveli." — Psicologia, vol. i. p. 196.

102 THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

forms, Intelligence ; in most of its phases, cannot
surely be deemed to be the simple reproduction
of impressions received through the senses. How-
ever plausible may be the reasons by which it is
contended that purely representative thought con-
sists of transformed sensations, according to Con-
dillac's theory, there can be no corresponding
argument sustaining a like theory with reference
to the higher manifestations of mind, including
its more general and abstract operations. Jt has
been seen that the representative sensible faculty
primarily developes ideas, by the presence of an
object acting upon the organs of sense ; and that
these ideas will afterwards spring up independent
of the object, either spontaneously or by some
operation of the will. Still even here, as I have
already maintained, the idea upon close attention
is distinguishable from the sensation itself. And,
however anxious we may be to reduce every
idea to some internal form of a representative
character, we shall find in the depths of our con-
sciousness numerous thoughts which can have no
proper basis in sensible images. What is that
faculty of thinking which seizes upon analogies,
which traces the relations of metaphysical ideas,
which estimates the possible ? Do not the ideas

THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 103

of unity, number, time, space, and causality ex-
press things which are not sensible ? " We may
ask those," says Balmez, " who hold that every
idea is the image of an object, what sort of an
image the idea of not being would form?"* And
yet this sensational theory is an inevitable postu-
late in the argument which limits the seat of con-
sciousness to the sensory ganglia; an argument
which practically nullifies all psychical function
in the admitted organ of the intelligence.

But whatever defect or incompleteness may
characterize the development which Dr. Car-
penter has given to his own doctrine when local-
ising consciousness, the merit and originality of
that physiologist in systematically establishing,
by extensive and careful induction, a division of
the encephalon into hemispheres and sensory
ganglia correlative with the psychological dis-
tinctions of thought and feeling, cannot, I believe,
be disputed. The scientific justice of this divi-
sion may be further corroborated by a class of
facts hitherto not stated, which, however, I shall
briefly cite in completion of the present chapter.

It is well known that extensive disease will

* Op. citat.

104 THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

sometimes interfere with the normal condition of
the hemispherical structures without fatal results,
and occasionally even without seriously affecting
the general health ; displacement of the convolu-
tions from chronic hydrocephalus, softening of their
substance, carcinomatous degeneration, laceration,
and even abstraction of some portion by external
violence, have severally been discovered ; and,
yet, up to a period immediately preceding death,
without consequent derangement of the bodily
functions to any remarkable extent. When,
however, the slightest lesion happens to the
ganglionic tissues underlying the hemispheres,
serious results very speedily exhibit themselves:
convulsions, paralysis, apoplexy and death will
not unfrequently arise in such circumstances.
This relative liability to ulterior physical mischief
consequent upon damage done to the hemi-
spherical and sensory ganglia respectively, very
much corresponds with the comparative dete-
rioration resulting from excessive thought and
overwrought feeling. Studious habits, however
continuous, in themselves operate with but little
prejudice to the system ; when the health of severe
students gives way, the fact is almost always
directly traceable to irregularity of meals, in-

THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 105

adequate sleep, neglect of out-door exercise,
and deprivation of suitable recreation ; let these
be duly attended to, and scarcely any amount of
pure thinking will act injuriously upon the
system, or diminish the prospects of longevity.
The case, however, is very different when, from
any cause, feeling is greatly perturbed, when the
emotional sensibility is habitually excited; then,
more or less, the health constantly suffers ; or-
ganic changes, not unfrequently malignant, are
induced ; and sometimes life is prematurely and
abruptly extinguished. See the perpetually
occurring effects of grief, anxiety, and corroding
care — the wan countenance, the sickly and dingy
complexion, the wasted flesh. Look even at the
results of too much joyous excitement — the sleep-
less nights, the nervous excitability, the fever-
flush. We have none of these phenomena exhibited
by the merely studious man ; by him at least
who is exempt from striving, competitive anxiety,
from ambitious struggles, and other influences
that deteriorate feeling. You will rather notice a
flourishing state of both mental and bodily health.
Longevity, too, notoriously attaches to philoso-
phers and men of science, if they only take
ordinary care of themselves, and do not engage

106 THE SEAT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

too vehemently in the battle of life, which com-
promises the sensibility. When we hear or read
of the calm philosopher and the unimpassioned
sage, we picture to ourselves immediately an old.

man,

" in whose years are seen

A youthful vigour and autumnal green."

107

CHAPTER VII.

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS.

The presumed action and reaction among the
several ganglionic centres have supplied to
physiologists abundant occasion for curious and
ingenious speculation. Dr. Laycock, now the
Profesbor of Medicine in the University of
Edinburgh, published some years ago, in the
British and Foreign Medical Review, a very in-
teresting memoir " On the Reflex Functions of
the Brain,"in which the author proposes a doctrine
of unconscious cerebration (without using the
phraseology), differing from that of Dr. Car-
penter in the circumstance, that it regards the
unconscious reflex agency, generally attributed
by modern physiologists to the spinal cord ex-
clusively, as the supplementary attribute of the
ganglionic centres at large, including the hemi-
spherical. And thus he holds that reactions upon
the muscles and other portions of the organism
may take place from cerebral changes that happen

108 THE PHYSIOLOGICAL TOTENCY OF IDEAS.

without consciousness, changes which he denomi-
nates ideagenous (apt to beget ideas), and kinetic
(productive of movement). This hypothesis
would seem to involve the notion that physical
alterations usually pervading the cerebrum in
correlation with thought, sometimes take place
without thought, producing in their occurrence
motor and other phenomena of the same outward
character as when ideas are concerned in such
alterations. These views may be illustrated by
an example, which Dr. Laycock conceives to be
afforded by the circumstances of the hydrophobic
gasp brought on by attempts to drink. " The
cerebral nerves," says he, " being analogous to
the posterior spinal nerves, and the encephalic
ganglia analogous to the spinal ganglia, the
spectrum of the cup of water will traverse the
optic nerves, and enter the analogue of the pos-
terior gray matter in the brain, causing changes
(ideagenous changes) corresponding to the idea
of water ; thence the series of excited changes
will pass over to the analogue of the anterior gray
matter, exciting another series (kinetic changes),
by which the necessary groups of muscles are
combined in action."

To these views of Professor Laycock there

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OE IDEAS. 109

would appear to be this objection, that it is not
very obvious how the evidence of facts can be
made to corroborate them, or otherwise. And,
moreover, they would seem to involve an anomaly
in physiology, by ignoring or practically denying
all specialty of function in the spinal cord, in
opposition to that presumed law in neurology
which affirms that particular ganglionic masses
have separate and distinct functions. But whether
movements of unconscious origin, and yet of an
adaptive character, may or may not result from
cerebral as well as from spinal action, it is certain
that numerous psychical phenomena are obser-
vable, of a quasi- automatic character, irom the
dominance of particular ideas or trains of thought ;
phenomena resulting very often irrespectively of
what can rightly be called volition, and without
any leading influence either of a sensational or
emotional nature. In such circumstances, it may
probably be correct to regard them as the product
of some sort of reflex action of the hemispherical
ganglia.

Dr. Carpenter has thrown much interesting
light upon this subject, in the examination which
he has bestowed upon the facts of somnambulism
and other such peculiar states of the nervous sys-

1 10 THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS.

tern, especially as exhibited when they are pro-
voked by artificial processes. In the so-called
mesmeric condition, and, indeed, in various kinds
of irregular sleep, the effects are very noticeable,
because in such states there is an accumulation
or concentration of nervous energy in particular
ganglia, producing results which exhibit function
in forms very much intensified. In the ordinary
transition state between sleeping and waking,
there is often great fertility of the imagination,
giving rise to disorderly groups of ideas, which
react very distinctly upon the organism without
governance from the will; muscular movement
and other phenomena frequently showing them-
selves, in consequence of some dominant thought.
An imaginary object of an attractive character
presents itself to the consciousness ; a snatch at
it is made by the half-sleeper. Such an act can-
not be regarded as voluntary, there is no selection
among motives — no will ; the movement is purely
impulsive, originating in the idea.

But it is in those curious conditions of the
system induced by the processes called mesmeric,
that the most striking examples are witnessed of
the potency of particular ideas. In some of these
states the mind can at times be literally played

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS. Ill

upon (to use Dr. Carpenter's expression), so as to
educe movements and actions contrived before-
hand; these being suggested by communication
of the correspondent thought, which the outward
conduct is made to reflect. Mr. Braid of Man-
chester was probably the first to exhibit these
results in a decisive and systematic manner. This
gentleman, in the demonstrations which he deno-
minates hypnotic, tells the sleeper or the sleep-
waker, that he must raise from the floor some
article at his feet; that, however, its weight may
defeat him. The subject of the experiment becomes
dominated by the idea that some very ponderous
substance has to be elevated ; a mistake, for it is
probably a light pocket-handkerchief. In such
circumstances, I have seen muscular effort exer-
cised in vain. The converse of this experiment
is shown by Mr. Braid. A heavy weight, raised
with difficulty by an individual in his normal
state, is swung with the little finger by the same
person hypnotised, when governed by the sug-
gested idea that he has to deal with a light sub-
stance. Again, it is intimated in the hearing of
the subject of experiment, that he has been in-
sulted ; at once the proper sensibility is roused
by the thought, and the head becomes elevated

112 THE PHYSIOLOGICAL TOTENCY OF IDEAS.

in disdain. It is whispered that you are about to
excite his benevolence, and he shows himself
liberal in gifts. A variety of unwonted and as if
automatic movements, Mr. Braid brings out by
variation of the modes of suggestion. Dr. Car-
penter has witnessed and attested the validity of
these experiments. In the later editions of his
Human Physiology he has worked out the whole
subject very thoroughly, and has expressively
designated the muscular actions in question ideo-
motor. Ideo-dynamic is the term which I have
myself suggested, as applicable to a wider range
of phenomena — a term which Mr. Braid has him-
self adopted.

I would here note that it is reasonable to think
that the immediate cause of all motor activity
which is attended with consciousness, resides in
some appropriate state of the emotional or sensa-
tional centres, even when the dynamic influence
primarily issues from the hemispherical ganglia ;
ideas producing, by a downward action, that
change in the sensorium which automatically
accomplishes a result, correspondent with the
thought which in this way receives its outward
expression. " The power of the cerebrum," says
Dr. Carpenter, " to call forth muscular movements

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS. 113

is entirely exerted through the intermediation of
the cranio- spinal axis upon which it is superim-
posed, no motor fibres directly issuing from the
cerebrum itself."* In executing the most compli-
cated movements, we take no heed, nor have
necessarily any knowledge, of the individual
muscles which the processes require ; the then
present idea, the train of thought, or the purpose,
affects the emotional sensibility in an adaptive
manner, and the correlative muscular phenomena
manifest themselves. "Whoever," says Rosmini,
" attentively considers the subject, perceives that
the mandate of the will which moves any member
of the body does not communicate the movement
otherwise than by the intervention of some feel-
ing."! Even in acts the most entirely volitional,
the preceding resolve and the confident expectation
of its realization are in some sense emotions ;
a fact which may be overlooked, in consequence
of the intimate alliance between the initiatory
thought and the resultant feeling.

* Human Physiology. Fifth edition, p. 652.

f "Chi piu attentamente considera rileva, che l'impero
della volonta che muove un membro del corpo non comunica
il movimento senza intervento di alcun sentimento." — Op.
citato vol. i. p. 172.

I

114 THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS.

There are instances of another character than
those already cited, in which peculiar ideas and
trains of thought exert a dynamic influence upon
the organism, under circumstances and with results
of a very surprising nature; instances in which
an effect is produced obviously upon the emotional
sensibility in the first place, and then through
this latter upon particular corporeal functions.

A gentleman some years ago consulted me for
sleepless nights. I formed the opinion that the
ailment was largely attributable to derangement of
the stomach, and prescribed for him some bitter
with an antacid. I thought it advisable, however,
to commence with a free action of the bowels; and,
with this view, prescribed also eight grains of the
compound extract of colocynth and two of calo-
mel, made into pills and directed to be taken at
bed-time. When I again saw the patient, he told
me the pills had given him an excellent night,
for that he had slept beautifully ! " But," I said,
<e did they not purge you ? They were intended
to do so." "Why," he rejoined, " as I had con-
sulted you for sleepless nights, and as the pills
were to be taken at bed-time, I thought they
were to make me sleep, and I did sleep ; I was
not purged at all."

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS. 115

Now, instances of imaginary medicines pro-
ducing the expected effect are common enough;
doubtless this is a circumstance to be considered
in estimating the follies of homoeopathy and other
such delusions of the hour ; but here was a case
in which, further, the ordinary action of powerful
medicines was hindered by the dominance of an
expectant idea.

The following case, having a like significance,
is quoted from Pechlin, by Dr. Crichton, in his
work on Mental Derangement, published more
than half a century ago : — " There was a student
of my acquaintance at Leyden, who, either be-
cause I was too young, or because he wished to
save his money, did not consult me, but took
care of his own health. He had probably heard
medical men say that purgatives were the best
kind of medicines, and that pills were the best
form for giving them. As he had been told that
Fernelius was an author of great reputation, he
borrowed him of me. I sent it to him. He
looked in the index for the word pill ; and, as he
imagined that all pills were purges, he took the
first as the best. These were the Pil. cynoglossi ;
the dose 3j, which he swallowed ; and, after
drinking two or three glasses of warm beer,

12

1 1 6 THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS.

•waited the effect ; and, lo ! it took place agreeably
to the imagination, and he was thus purged by
opium, hyoscyamus, crocus, and other anodynes
and astringents."*

The influence, under some circumstances, of
particular directions of thought in determining
convulsive action, is familiar to all practitioners
who see much of hysterical and other such affec-
tions. On this account, detailed examples in
illustration would be superfluous. " The effect,"
says Romberg, " of the imagination on seeing
spasmodic movements, and even the mere recol-
lection of them, may give rise to convulsions." f

It is interesting to witness the absorbing effects
of dominant ideas in several of the forms of
insanity. Common sensation sometimes appears
to be temporarily abolished. At this time I have
a female patient under my care, who, when deeply
engrossed in her maniacal wanderings, seems
quite insensible to pain. She will inflict upon
herself bodily injury, as if from pure caprice, and
display the most senseless indifference. "I have
applied," says Esquirol, "blisters, setons, moxas,

* An Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Mental
Derangement, vol. ii. p. 445.
■f Op. citat., vol. i. p. 136.

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS. 117

the actual cautery, to individuals strongly in-
clined to suicide, and to other melancholic patients,
for the purpose of trying their sensibility. I have
produced no pain ; and some, after recovery, have
assured me that they experienced no suffering
whatever from these applications."*

The phenomena of mesmeric and spontaneous
somnambulism exhibit in many instances a
parallelism with this state of insensibility, origi-
nating frequently in dominant ideas. In idiots,
with whom ideas under all circumstances have
such little potency, these mesmeric effects cannot
be produced. At any rate, Dr. Guggenbiihl,
distinguished by his successful labours in the
improvement of cretins, has repeatedly tried to
influence these wretched creatures mesmericallv,
but has never succeeded in throwing any of them
into a state of sleep even ; a fact of itself suggest-
ing that many of the witnessed effects of mesme-
rism flow from the dynamism of ideas.

The sudden and energetic communication of
some striking thought to the mind of another,
exerts in some cases very singular effects — sus-
pending the power of individual muscles or sets

* Des Maladies Mentales. Paris, 1838. Tom. i. p. 601.

118 THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS.

of muscles, and occasioning temporary abolition
of consciousness. The Abbe Faria, celebrated
in mesmeric history, is said to have put whole
rows of persons into an unconscious state by the
vigour and determination with which he bade
them " sleep !"

A remarkable case is cited by Crichton* from
the "Psychological Magazine, a periodical publica-
tion of the last century ; a case which shows the
paralysing influence of expectant thought, com-
municated as shock. " In Kleische, a small village
in Germany, belonging to Mr. O. T , a maid-
servant of that gentleman's family was sent a
short league from home to buy some meat ; she
executed her order correctly, and, as she was
returning in the evening she thought she suddenly
heard a great noise behind her, like the noise of
many wagons. Upon turning round she observed
a little gray man, not bigger than a child, who
commanded her to go along with him. She did
not, however, return any answer, but continued to
walk on. The little figure accompanied her, and
frequently urged her to go along with him. Upon
reaching the outer gate of her master's residence,

* Op. citat., vol. ii. p. 16.

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS. 119

she was met by the coachman, who asked her
where she had been, to which she returned a very
distinct answer. He did not remark the little
man, but she still continued to do so. As she
was passing the bridge, he summoned her for the
last time, and upon her refusing to answer him,
he told her, with a menacing look, that she should
be four days blind and dumb ; and, having said
so, he disappeared. The girl hastened to her
apartment, and threw herself on the bed, unable
to open her eyes or to pronounce a word. She
appeared to understand all that was said, but
could not make any answer to the questions
which were proposed to her, except by signs.
Everything was tried for her recovery by the
family with whom she lived, but in vain. She
was incapable of swallowing the medicines which
were ordered for her. At last, on the expira-
tion of the fourth day, she arose in tolerably good
health, and narrated what had happened to her."
This may or may not be a true story. And if
we assume its fidelity and accuracy, the " little
gray man" may or may not have been a delusion;
but, whether fact or fancy, the idea of a threaten-
ing figure dominated the girl's mind, and its
potency was shown in the curious result.

120 THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS.

An anecdote, which illustrates the same psycho-
logical principle as that illustrated in the foregoing
narrative, has been communicated to me by my
friend Dr. Whitehead, in these terms : — " The
following is an account of the incident which hap-
pened to my old friend, Mons. Boutibonne, and
which I promised to give you in writing. Mons.
Boutibonne, a man of literary attainments, a
native of Paris, served in Napoleon's army, and
was present at a number of engagements during the
early part of the present century. At the battle of
Wagram, which resulted in a treaty of peace with
Austria, in November, 1809, Mons. Boutibonne
was actively engaged during the whole of the fray,
which lasted, if I rightly remember, from soon
after mid-day until dark. The ranks around him
had been terribly thinned by the enemy's shot, so
that his position at sunset was nearly isolated ;
and while in the act of reloading his musket, he
was shot down by a cannon-ball. The impres-
sion produced upon his mind was that the ball
had passed from left to right, through his legs
below the knees, separating them from his thighs,
as he suddenly sank down, shortened, as he
believed, to the extent of about afoot in measure-
ment, the trunk of the body falling backwards on

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS. 121

the ground, and the senses being completely
paralysed by the shock. In this posture he lay
motionless during the remainder of the night, not
daring to move a muscle, for fear of fatal conse-
quences. He experienced no severe suffering ;
but this immunity from pain he attributed to the
stunning effect produced upon the brain and
nervous system. - My wounded companions,'
said he, i lay groaning in agony on every side,
but I uttered not a word, nor ventured to move,
lest the torn vessels should be roused into action,
and produce fatal haemorrhage, for I had been
made acquainted with the fact that the blood-
vessels, wounded in this way, did not usually
bleed profusely until reaction took place. At
early dawn, on the following morning, I was
aroused from a troubled slumber by one of the
medical staff, who came round to succour the
wounded. " What's the matter with you, my good
fellow?" (Qu'a-t-il, mon camarade?) said he.
il Ah! touchez-moi doncement, je vous prie" I
replied ; " un coup de canon nia emporte les
jambes." He proceeded at once to examine my
legs and thighs, and giving me a good shake,
with a ris de joie, he exclaimed, " Faites-vous levei^
d'abord, vous navez rien de mal" Whereupon I

122 THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS.

sprung up in utter astonishment, and stood firmly
on the legs which I believed had been lost to me
for ever. I felt more thankful than I had ever
done in the whole course of my life before. I
had not a wound about me. I had indeed been
shot down by an immense cannon-ball, but in-
stead of passing through my legs, as I firmly
believed it to have done, the ball had passed
under my feet, and had ploughed away a cavity
in the earth beneath, at least a foot in depth, into
which my feet suddenly sank, giving me the idea
that I had been thus shattered by the separation
of my legs. Voilh ce que se fait-il le pouvoir
d ^ imagination? "

But not only will a certain suspension of con-
sciousness, and a temporary abolition of energy
in particular muscles have place, under the dy-
namic influence of ideas, but, moreover, in some
cases in which there is paralysis of function, an
attentive and expectant thought will lessen for a
time the morbid incompetency. The same in-
fluence, as already exemplified, will notoriously
operate upon the organic functions, and in
certain instances even will excite, as if volitionally,
the action of involuntary muscles. Romberg
relates the case of a patient whose leg and foot

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS. 123

had become quite insensible, and in whom
voluntary motion in those parts was all but
abolished; he states, however, that even in the
absence of all feeling, " the movement of the
toes was facilitated by directing attention to
them."*

There is much parallel experience. I have
seen, as well as heard of, transient improvement
in the hearing, when deaf persons have been
subjected, in all faith and confidence, to mesmeric
and other such unwonted processes of cure. Who
can doubt that the improvement, such as it has
been, has resulted altogether from the idea? And
may not the same thing be affirmed of most of
those ailments which seem to benefit under the
influence of many forms of charlatanry ? And
should we not place in a like category those well-
known cases in which local action is stimulated
or depraved by the bestowal of excessive and
anxious attention to particular organs or struc-
tures ?

Several instances have been reported of the
possession of a voluntary power over contractions
of the iris. Professor Beer, of the University of

* Op. citat., vol. i. p. 3.

124 THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS.

Bonn, is stated to have such a faculty, being able,
in the same light, to contract or dilate his pupil
at will. " This change in the size of the pupil,
however, he brings about only through certain
ideas. When, for example, he thinks of a very
dark space, the pupil dilates. When, on the
contrary, he thinks of a very light place, the pupil
contracts."*

In closing the present chapter, I would just
glance at the potency of ideas, as evinced in their
moral as well as in their quasi-physiological
effects. In the common events of life, how largely
are men governed by mere idea, apart from any
proper exercise of the will. This is the case
alike with communities as with individuals. Look
what happens with nations, suddenly and intensely
impressed with an idea — how it eventuates in
energetic action; witness the moral commotions,
giving distinctiveness and character to particular
epochs ! The whole history of the world testifies
to grave and momentous occurrences thus origi-
nating. See how the idea of liberty has shaken
society to its foundations. Numerous persons in

* British and Foreign Medico- CJiirurgical Review,
Number for October, 1857.

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS. 125

periods of crisis, without either motives of interest
or any very elevated spirit, have sacrificed worldly
comforts of every kind, and even life itself, to
this particular idea. The Crusades afford a
memorable instance of the wonderful force of a
great thought, when rendered dominant; so, in
more modern times, do the remarkable events of
the first French Revolution. In matters more
individual, the favourite idea — the hobby — of
particular persons, will notoriously influence
conduct to an extent vastly disproportionate to
its intrinsic importance. " Affections are strong,"
says a periodical writer;* "but ideas are stronger.
Through them Howard left his only child in a
madhouse, while he carried on his benevolent
reforms in the prisons of distant countries.
They steeled Bernard Palissy to see unmoved his
wife and children perishing, while he tore up the
very boards of his cottage to feed the furnace for
his experiments. They possessed the painter
who stabbed his brother, that he might truly paint
the throes of his death agony. They made
Rousseau, who could take such pains to give
the rules for his idea of education in Emile, leave

* In the Rambler, April, 1857.

126 THE PHYSIOLOGICAL POTENCY OF IDEAS.

his own children to be brought up in a foundling
hospital. They could lead Sterne to neglect a
dying mother, while he indulged in pathos over a
dead donkey. They make the conjugal and
domestic life of (some) great poets, the blots in
their biography, the most painful portion in their
history." In this class of cases, volition cannot
certainly be regarded as absolutely in abeyance,
but it would seem to be sufficiently so for the
present illustration; the whole conduct, in such
instances, being given up, as it were, to the
dominion of some thoroughly unreflective thought.

127

CHAPTER VIII.

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION.

The Emotions of the psychologist are compound
states, involving both a feeling and a thought.
Ideas, singly or in combination, operate upon the
caensesthesis or emotional sensibility, and give
rise to Passion, Affection, and Sentiment, in their
several and manifold phases. For what, indeed,
in the last analysis, are these states — the emotions
— but modifications of consciousness, determined
by the mutual action of thought and feeling ?
When the inward sensibility is powerfully excited,
there is passion; wdien gentler influences move
the feelings, there is brought about an affection ;
and when some general notion, or abstract idea,
acts upon the emotional sensibility, sentiment is
awakened. Propensity is the designation more
especially given to the emotion, when it is largely
mixed up with some of the grosser forces of
physical sensation. Psychologists in analysing
and classifying the so-called Emotions, have

128 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION.

described them for the most part as tendencies
arising out of simple states of mind, constituting
particular and distinct faculties. This proceed-
ing has been exemplified in an earlier chapter.
But let us examine this matter somewhat more
closely. Love of Glory, Self-Esteem, Desire of
Society, Sudden Resentment, Firmness, and
so on, cannot be conceived in all their compre-
hensiveness, without the recognition of both an
intellectual and a sentient element. And if we
look at the question from another point of view,
we shall see that Wishes, Desires, Resolutions,
Aversions, and other such psychical dispositions,
are modes in which intelligence and sensibility
exercise reciprocal influence. Particular ideas
or sets of ideas exert an agency upon the corporeal
self-feeling, and accomplish peculiar changes
therein ; the emotion itself, so far as it is a mere
feeling, being a certain physical perturbation —
caiHEsthetic. The sentient impressions thus
received, react again upon corresponding trains
of thought. Dr. Thomas Brown had some dis-
tinct appreciation of these two elements enter-
ing into the composition of an emotion. " Certain
objects," says he, " are not merely perceived by
us, as forms, colours, or sounds ; the perception

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION. 129

of these forms, and colours, and sounds is followed
by an emotion which is of various nature, accord-
ing to the nature of the object."*

Now if, as I have supposed, the misnamed optic
thalami and the corpora striata constitute the
ganglionic centres of the several kinds of emotional
sensibility, we must in these processes regard
them as acted upon from above — from the region
of intelligence, the hemispherical ganglia — through
the medium of intercommunicating white fibres ;
just as in caensesthetic phenomena dependent
upon more physical states, the same centres are
supposed to be acted upon from below, through
nervous filaments distributed to the organs and
structures very generally. This hypothesis, view,
or doctrine, has called forth the following obser-
vations with regard to it from that distinguished
psychologist and philosophical writer, Mr. Morell:
" It would harmonize extremely well with the
whole observed development of our knowledge,
which, commencing with a physical impulse, ap-
pears next in the form of an incipient mental
sensibility, and then expands into distinct notions
or ideas, which ideas can then, in their turn, react

* On the Philosophy of the Human Mind, lect. li.

K

130 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION.

upon the emotions. The position of the above-
mentioned ganglia at the base of the hemispheres
corresponds exactly with the supposed function.
They lie midway between the sensory ganglia on
the one side, and the cerebral hemispheres on the
other, and have fibres which communicate down-
wards to the one and upwards to the other."*

It may be objected that the ganglia in question
are not simple in their structure, but rather con-
geries of several ganglionic masses ; and, there-
fore, that it is unlikely they should constitute the
organic instruments of one function rather than of
several functions. This objection might have
weight, if all variety in the manifestations of emo-
tional sensibility were in degree only; or if, in
the last analysis-, it was merely pleasure and
pain, as very generally maintained by psycho-
logical writers ; to which latter proposition I
must demur.

The inward feelings called forth, as emotion,
by the agency of thought, may, of course, be
pleasurable or painful ; but any account which
represents the "Emotions" as merely the plea-
sure or the pain which accompanies certain intel-

* Elements of Psychology, p. 102.

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION. J 31

lectual states, constitutes a very incomplete de-
scription. Yet the late Mr. James Mill, the Rev.
Sydney Smith, and many others, would seem to
reduce them to so very simple a character ;
although, in practical and extended discussion,
other views become implied, in disregard of strict
logical consistency. Benevolence, considered in
this way, becomes the pleasure experienced in
contemplation of the happiness of others, and the
pain at witnessing their misery ; and fear, again,
as the pain that ensues upon the expectation of
calamity ; an analysis being thus attainable with
all our emotional states — passions, affections, and
sentiments alike.

Now, I think it will be conceded, upon reflec-
tion, that we must admit the specifically distinct
character of our varying states of consciousness,
as recognised in Hope, Fear, Grief, Pride, Vanity,
Love, and other such inward experiences. " Sen-
timent," says Rosmini, " has various states, plea-
surable and painful, with gradation and variety of
pleasure, and with gradation and variety of pain."*
And, somewhat more explicitly, in another place,

* " II sentimento abbia varj stati piacevoli e dolorosi con
una gradazione e varieta di piacere, e con una gradazione e
varieta di dolore." — Ojo. citat., vol. i., p. 240.

K2

132 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION.

he observes: — " The sentiments correspond with
orders of reflection ; so that there are as many
orders of feeling (pleasurable or painful) to be
noted, as there are orders of reflection exercised
by man, and the number of these is indefinite."*

It is quite certain that we feel in a characteristic
manner under the varying circumstances of our
intellectual states, quite irrespective of the plea-
sure or the pain which may accompany them.
Fear is fear, and need not be exclusively plea-
surable or painful ; love is love, and is only
pleasurable under suitable circumstances ; grief
sometimes is a" silent" luxury, though ordinarily
a poignant suffering. Such psychical states as
Love, Hatred, Desire, Aversion, Joy, Sadness,
Hope, Despaiv-pFear, Audacity, Courage, and so
on in limitless variation, are modifications, I
submit, of the Emotional Sensibility, very gene-
rally provoked by thought, but still separable
from thought; such modifications, moreover,
being distinguishable amongst each other, re-

* "I sentimenti seguono gli ordini delta riflessione, di
modo che si possono distinguere tanti ordini di sentimenti
(piacevoli o dolorosi) quanti sono gli ordini della riflessione
che puo far l'uomo, e ilnumero di questi ordini e indefinite." —
Op. citat., vol. i., p. 167.

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION. 133

garded simply as feeling. So little, indeed, does
emotion consist of mere pleasure or mere pain,
and so obviously does it include numerous and
varied modes of feeling, that, as in the case of
external sensation, several kinds of emotion may
be present to the consciousness at the same time.
"In our mental sequences," says Dr. Thomas
Brown, " the one feeling which precedes and
induces another feeling, does not, on that account,
give place to it ;"* just as with the phenomena of
outward sense, the superinduction of one sensa-
tion by another does not necessarily abolish the
first.

My meaning, however, with respect to varieties
of the emotional sensibility, will be somewhat
plainer, if I cite still more particularly the analysis
afforded by external sensation. Hot and cold, hard
and soft, moist and dry, as sensations, are distin-
guishable conscious experiences, produced by the
qualities of objects, but in themselves subjective
states, pleasurable, painful, or neutral, as the case
may be ; and so with other kinds of sensational
experience. The sense of taste supplies, pro-
bably, the most complete and readily seized

* Op. citat., lect. xl.

134 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION.

analogy to the sensibility which we denominate
emotion. Thus, sweetness is commonly pleasur-
able ; to some persons, however, it is painful ;
and to others, again, it is neither one nor the
other. In some instances it is pleasurable,
painful, and neutral, at different epochs of life ;
but at all times, and under all circumstances,
sweetness is sweetness. In fine, gustatory, like
emotional impressions, are sources of pleasure
and pain ; they have always, however, a very
distinct character about them ; and they would
be but very imperfectly described in being de-
signated the pleasure and the pain resulting from
contact of the tongue and palate with sapid
particles.

In a somewhat analogous manner, I maintain
that emotion, experienced either as sentiment,
affection, or passion, consists, in so far as it is a
feeling, of varying conditions of that inward sen-
sibility which I have described under the de-
signation of csenaesthesis. Particular kinds of
emotion, though usually determined by the pre-
sence of correlative ideas, may yet be conceived,
and indeed be experienced, in their absence, or
prior to them. For example, when a huge
watch-dog loudly and unexpectedly barks, I
start, from an emotion of fear, which distinctly

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION. 135

precedes the idea of danger — the feeling and the
thought being quite separable. " Gratitude," says
Thomas Brown, "is distinguishable from the
mere memory of kindness received." *

In nervous and mental maladies, emotional
states of every kind are frequently witnessed in
the absence of correlative ideas. Hopefulness,
joy, grief, and timidity, are perpetually encoun-
tered under these circumstances, often, indeed,
initiating the particular ailments. " Some melan-
cholic persons," says Esquirol, "are frightened
at everything, and their life is consumed in con-
stantly recurring anguish ; whilst others are ter-
rified by a vague feeling which has no motive.
' I am afraid? say these patients, ' but of what
I don't know; but I am afraid '"\ It is within
the experience of almost every one to have felt
joy, sorrow, and anxiety, as the transient result
of a terminated dream ; the ideas connected with
which have entirely passed from the mind.
" Cheerfulness?'' says Brown, " is that state which,
in every one, remains for some time after any
event of unexpected happiness^ — though the event
itself may not be present to their conception at

* Op. citat., lect. liii.
f Des Maladies Mentales, torn, i., p. 417.

136 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION.

the time. Melancholy is a state of mind which
even the gayest must feel for some time after any
calamity. Without knowing why they should be
sorrowful, they still are sorrowful." * The same
thought is expressed by one of the most recent
German writers on psychology, in the following
passage : — (i There are cases in which almost
nothing but this excitement (emotion) itself, a
certain degree of aise, or malaise, at best a pecu-
liar nuance of the physical or moral tone, makes
its appearance in the consciousness, while a plain
perception of the condition which thus becomes
shared, or of the external impression which
caused it, is totally wanting." f

However speculative to many persons may
appear the mode in which this discussion is
conducted, or the views advanced, the present
doctrine aids in the formation of clearer concep-

# Op. citat., lect. lii.

f " Es gibt Falle, in denen fast nur diese Erregung selbst,
em bestimmter Grrad des Wohl oder Wehe, hochstens erne
eigenthiiniliehe Farbung des korperlichen oder geistigen Stim-
mung in Bewusstseyn auftritt, wahrend eine deutliche Wahr-
nehmung des Zustandes, au dem dieser Antheil genommen
wird, oder des aiissern Eindruckes, der ihn hervorbrachte,
ganzlich fehlt." — MediciniscJie PsycJiologie oder Phy-
siologie der Seele. Von Dr. Rudolph Hermann Lotze,
Professor in Gottingen. p. 233.

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION. 137

tions regarding many pathological as well as
physiological phenomena. When we look upon
the great ganglionic masses placed at the base of
the cerebral hemispheres as an intermediate
sensorium between purely ideal states on the one
side, and sensational impressions on the other,
it becomes intelligible that disordered bodily
health should in many instances, by the laws of
nervous conduction, painfully impress the emo-
tional sensibility — pervert the cssnsesthesis; and
that the influence, ascending still further, should
act upon the development of thought, giving rise
to anxious and distressing ideas. The agency of
visceral mischief in the production of insanity — a
well ascertained fact — thus becomes clearer to
the apprehension. We may trace the process in
reverse order : — painful intelligence, or voluntary
brooding over the ordinary vexations of life,
exercising itself through the hemispherical gan-
glia, exerts a downward action upon the emo-
tional centres ; anxiety, sorrow, settled melan-
choly, ensue ; the influence still descending, along
the course of the sympathetic system we may
suppose, disorder of the circulation and of the
thoracic and abdominal viscera totally deranging
the health, may follow as the consequence.

Certain feelings affect the purely organic func-

138 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION.

tions in methods suggesting various but special
relations between particular structures and the
encephalic centres of emotion, — a circumstance
corresponding with the idea that these latter
may be aggregates of smaller ganglia, having pro-
per functions according to some natural divisibility
in the several forms of cssnsesthetic sensibility.
Such an hypothesis would not be unreasonable ;
its development, in accordance with my own phy-
siological views, would demand an allocation to
distinct portions of the corpora striata and optic
thalami of feelings correspondent with forms of
thought instrumentally evolved by those portions
of the hemispherical ganglia with which the
former structures were particularly in fibrous
communication.* " Fear/' says Dr. Crichton,

* The fibrous communication of the Corpora Striata being
chiefly with the Motor tract of the Medulla Oblongata, it is
probable, on the theory which I have submitted, that the
function of these bodies may have some special relation to
voluntary motion, which — originating in an intellectual
operation — has yet, as we have seen, some emotion of the
compound order for its immediate antecedent. The prin-
cipal communication of the Thalami being with the Sensory
tract, it is in like manner probable that these ganglionic
structures may be more particularly concerned with emotion
as it exhibits itself in purely csBnaasthetic phenomena.

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION. 139

"is apt to occasion a diarrhoea and incontinence
of urine ; anger affects the functions of the liver ;
grief disorders the stomach and affects the lacry-
inal gland ; sudden terror, when without hope,
produces an almost complete palsy ; and hope
itself, when the attainment of the object is near,
affects the organs of respiration, and causes
a quick and powerful distribution of blood
throughout the body."*

It is likely in the highest degree that, however
the general functions of the hemispherical ganglia
may have relation to the intelligence, there may
be some divisibility of the parts, according to
differences in forms of thought or particular pro-
cesses of intellect ; just as the probability has
been suggested that the ganglionic masses sup-
posed to have for their general function the
manifestation of emotional sensibility, may have
corresponding divisions. But, upon this subject,
nothing would as yet appear to be actually
proved.

It might seem, at first sight, that some incom-
patibility existed between well-observed cranio-
scopic facts, and the doctrine which teaches that

* Op. citat., vol. ii., pp. 137, 138.

140 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION.

the region of thought is in the hemispheres at
large, rather than in the anterior division exclu-
sively ; for, indeed, to those who have never had
faith in phrenological details, a peculiar con-
nexion of the forehead with the intellect has
always been deemed more than probable. Yet if
we examine this matter a little more carefully, we
shall see that, to whatever extent it may be
thought necessary, from the state of facts, to
admit some classification of mental faculties in
correspondence with divisions of the cerebral
hemispheres, there is nothing in any such pro-
ceeding at all irreconcilable with my own specu-
lations.

I would here premise that it is by no means an
established truth, that the mind is susceptible of
any such analysis of its modes of being and doing,
as systematic psychologists would imply. Un-
doubtedly, particular mental states arise which
may be rightly enough designated Veneration,
Self-esteem, Love of Glory, Desire of Knowledge,
and so on ; but, then, such distinctions and resul-
tant classifications may be made without limit ;
and each individual psychologist may set forth
his own system with sufficiently plausible recom-
mendations. We may distinguish and classify

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION. 141

sounds, odours, savours, and other forms of out-
ward sense ; but if the result were submitted as
conclusive and final, its fallacy would soon be
demonstrated. External sensation, after the at-
tainment of its five grand divisions, may be
regarded as having an infinite variety in sub-
division, corresponding with the infinitude of the
influences which provoke it. Is not the same
thing true of all our sensibilities and aptitudes ?

Whatever general division and arrangement of
our mental faculties, as active principles, we may
institute, or believe to be fundamental, do we not,
dealing with particular faculties and in the last
analysis, come to the combined and reciprocal
agency of an Idea and an Emotion ? And are
not all our tendencies and powers, as sources of
action and conduct, resolvable into Thought and
Feeling ? Is there not established, so to speak,
a solidarity between certain Classes of Ideas aud
particular Forms of Emotional Sensibility ? And
is it not in this way that we see developed what
we call the Passions, the Affections, and the
Sentiments ?

It is true that we may fix attention upon some
of the more prominent states of the mind for pur-
poses of exposition, elucidation, and illustration ;

142 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION.

I incline myself, however, to the opinion that all
attempts to reduce and limit them to a given
number of definite categories will be seen con-
stantly to fail when the results become subjected
to strict and close examination. " Our emotions,"
says Brown, " exist in innmnerable forms, as
diversified by slight changes of circumstances."*
And, in another place, the same philosophical
writer observes, " If we had not invented any
terms whatever, we should have seen, as it
were, a series of emotions all shadowing into each
other, with differences of tint more or less strong,
and rapidly distinguishable."] And certainly the
causes operating to produce diversity in the forms
of our emotional sensibility, are, in most cases,
differences rather in the excitant thought than in
particular classifiable tendencies. We admire the
useful and revere the virtuous, and thus variety of
feeling is developed according to the idea which
provokes it in the individual case ; and yet we
might speak of Regard for the Good as a funda-
mental faculty, and the phraseology would cover
two such different modes of feeling as those just
adduced. " Our consciousness," says Brown, " if
we appeal to it, will tell us that to admire what is

* Op. citat., lect. lxxii. f Ibid:, lect. lvii.

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION. 143

useful, and to revere what is virtuous, are feelings
as different as any two feelings which are not ab-
solutely opposite."*

The same eminent writer has a passage which
goes to show that even the Intelligence exercising
its so-called faculties , has, in the determination
of its outward activity, an emotional element
mixed up with it; for, considered in itself, the
intelligence is essentially immanent and intransi-
tive. "To sit down to compose," savs he, "is to
have a general notion of some subject which we
are about to treat, with the desire of developing it,
and the expectation, or perhaps the confidence that
we shall be able to develope it more or less fully.
The desire, like every other vivid feeling, has a
degree of permanence which our vivid feelings
only possess, and, by its permanence, tends to
keep the accompanying conception of the subject
which is the object of the desire also permanent
before us ; and while it is thus permanent, the
usual spontaneous suggestions take place ; con-
ception follows conception in rapid but relative
series, and our judgment all the time approving
and rejecting, according to those relations of

* Op, citat., lect. lxxviii.

144 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION.

fitness and unfitness to the subject which it per-
ceives in the parts of the train."*

When we take individual faculties, either those
of the phrenologist or those analytically obtained
by the pure psychologist, we shall find, I think,
that any of them, separately, will admit of decom-
position into elements ideal and emotional. As
an illustration of this statement, I will select three
phrenological faculties, — Eventuality as an In-
tellectual lower, Veneration as a Moral Sentiment,
and Destructiveness as an Animal Propensity. It
will thence be shown that the physiological psy-
chology proposed in these pages is in no way at
variance with some special allocation of the
Intellectual Faculties in the anterior division of
the cerebrum.

Now, Eventuality, according to phrenological
teaching, exercises itself with changing phe-
nomena— events; it procures information, and
reproduces it in memory. This, then, may be
deemed its ideal function — thought ; accomplished,
according to phrenology, through the organic
instrumentality of vesicular neurine investing the
cerebral convolutions placed behind a certain

* Op. citat., lect. xlii.

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION. 145

portion of the frontal bone. But, pending this
exercise, there is curiosity, gratified, excited,
or provoking to action, as the case may be;
and curiosity, in all its modifications and re-
actions, is an emotional state — feeling ; and this
feeling, we might assume, taking phrenological
ground, to be correlated with a physiological
change in that part of the supposed emotive
ganglia in direct fibrous communication with the
vesicular neurine before mentioned.

As regards Veneration, there are persons of s
reverent and devout tendency, who show it rathei
in the direction of their spontaneous and in-
stinctive thinking, as it were, than in any great
amount of devotional sensibility. The ideas of
some individuals are always upon antiquity,
upon great men, and more especially upon the
religious objects of reverence; and that, too, in
cases wherein there is but little manifestation of
feeling. Here we have the ideal, the thought-
characterising display of veneration. In other
instances, we see the excesses of devotional
feeling, without much thought in regard to its
objects. In going to the anatomy, we see that
vesicular neurine is at the central summit of the
cerebral convolutions — regarded by phrenologists

L

146 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION.

as the organ of veneration — and that this has its
root, so to speak, in similar tissue beneath the
hemispheres.

Destructiveness supplies a not less obvious
illustration of my meaning. There is cruelty,
manifesting itself chiefly in the course of thought y
and there is wrath, as a highly-excited feeling.
When deliberate acts of poisoning and of in-
cendiarism are perpetrated, when defenceless
and helpless creatures are gratuitously tortured,
destructiveness is mainly ideal — it is cold-blooded.
When rage and fury show themselves — when,
in this way, there is vivid perturbation of the
caenaesthesis — in deeds of violence, there is de-
structive emotion. The anatomy would suggest,
on phrenological grounds, the same explanation
of this difference as in the previous illustrations.

But phrenologists commonly assume that, apart
from the intellect, all the faculties resolve them-
selves into kinds of feeling, passive in complacency
and dissatisfaction, and active in impulse ; the
share which ideas have in their actual manifesta-
tion being attributable to co-operation of the
intelligence. This, however, was not the teach-
ing of Gall.

I have already noted in the preceding pages,
that ordinary thinking very often goes on quite

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION. 147

automatically, yet intelligently, and independently
of the will ; that, from the recesses of the mind,
there is a spontaneous course of coherent thought,
habitually evolving itself ; and that this course of
thought is quite distinguishable from that which
obtains in direct, active, and voluntary exercise
of the intellect proper, with which the anterior
lobes of the cerebrum may have some special
connexion. This mental spontaneity, so to call it,
constitutes a perpetual spring of the most varied
ideas, a constant source of psychical imagery, and
thence, as before stated, denominated the imagina-
tion ; and this property of the mind may present
results to the consciousness without any sensible
and active emotion. " That there is imagination,"
says Brown, K or new combinations of images
and feelings, unaccompanied with any desire, is as
true as that there is memory without intentional
reminiscence."*

Now Gall himself recognised and appreciated
this general attribute of the mind, as appertaining
to each of the phrenological faculties, and as
giving to them separately a mode of intelligence.
He says, f( I call imagination the action of every

* Op. citat., lect. xlii.

L2

148 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR COMPOSITION.

faculty whatever that has place independently of
the external world. The imagination of the sense
of places creates landscapes. The imagination of
the sense of tones creates music. The imagina-
tion of the sense of numbers creates problems.
This explains how the same man may have a
prompt and sure judgment relative to some sub-
jects, and be almost imbecile in regard to others ;
how he may have a most lively and fertile imagi-
nation for certain matters, and be frozen and
sterile for others.1'*

Dr. Carpenter has recently enunciated a doc-
trine of the emotions substantially similar in its
psychology to that which has been propounded
in the present chapter ; having adopted my own
view, which recognises other forms of emotional
sensibility than those of mere pleasure and pain,
but having precedence not only of myself but of
every other writer, I believe, in decomposing the
emotions, on physiological grounds, into elements
of thought and feeling, and in pointing out the
joint instrumentality of the hemispheric and of
the sensorial ganglia in their production.f

* Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, torn, vi., p. 402.

f Human Physiology, fifth, edition, in which the whole
subject is discussed at great length, and in most instructive
detail.

149

CHAPTER IX.

THE WILL.

What explanation or definition can be given of
the Will — that attribute of human nature which
supplies the basis of moral responsibility, and the
destruction or weakening of which constitutes so
important a feature in mental pathology ? Cer-
tainly, the will regarded as a power, stands apart
from all other faculties, and as a psychical activity
represents a capability altogether proper to itself.
It is so entirely peculiar that, swaying and domi-
nating over mental conditions of every kind, we
cannot conceive it to be mixed up specially with
any particular ganglionic mass. " An act of the
will," says Morell, " embodies the effort of the
whole man, implying at the same time intelli-
gence, feeling, and force ; physiologically speak-
ing, this state of mind will stand in correlation
with the total affection of the nervous system.

We regard it as an expression of the

totality of our organic power, the whole governing

150 THE WILL.

the parts, and directing to the fulfilment of one
purpose."*

The will, indeed, forms in the most striking
and especial manner the active and reactive
faculty of the conscious self, moving the organism
and moved by it ; it initiates functional exercise,
and controls and modifies it when otherwise
provoked. Upon it rests the power to regulate and
determine human conduct; since the will is that
faculty by which, the occasion given and all things
necessary for action, we can act or not act, can
choose to do this thing or to do its opposite.
To a true voluntary action, certain conditions
are needful; there must be two or more terms upon
which the choice can fall, and which, therefore,
constitute the objects of choice ; these terms must
be accurately present to the mind, so that a judg-
ment may be formed concerning them ; there must,
further, be the opportunity for action, so that
choice may be exercised. Strictly speaking, it
cannot be said, as maintained by the advocates
of what is called philosophical necessity, that the
free acts of the will have any absolutely deter-
mining cause, organic or moral; they have in-

* Op. citah, pp. 101, 102.

THE WILL. 151

ducements, they have motives in thought and
feeling, but such inducements and motives, in
their action upon the Me-ity, do not in any way
interfere with a true moral liberty.

Unquestionably, the origination and succession
of psychical states are not altogether under
control of the will. As before stated, ideas and
emotions have some sort of automatic spring;
but when present they are more or less govern-
able by voluntary effort ; and, in healthy states of
the mind, acts and moral conduct — thought and
feeling receiving outward expression — always
result immediately from determinations of the
will; numerous and varied forms of conscious-
ness, under such circumstances, being ever pre-
sent as inducements to action, from among which
the choice may be made. Dr. Carpenter, dis-
cussing the office of this autocrat among the
mental faculties, observes, " It may be stated,
as a fundamental axiom, that the will can originate
nothing; its power being limited to the selection
and intensification of what is actually before the
consciousness."*

The exact relation subsisting between the Me-

* Op. citat., p. 590.

152 THE WILL.

ity, and the various thoughts and feelings which
present themselves to it, as influences leading to
an exercise of the will, is familiarly put by Reid,
in his work on the Intellectual Powers. "We
seem," says he, 6i to treat the thoughts that pre-
sent themselves in crowds, as a great man treats
those that attend his levee. They are all am-
bitious of his attention. He goes round the
circle bestowing a bow upon one, a smile upon
another ; asks a short question of a third, while a
fourth is honoured with a particular conference,
and the greater part have no particular mark of
attention, but go as they came. It is true, he
can give no mark of his attention to those who
are not there ; but he has a sufficient number for
making a choice and distinction."*

May we not, finally, regard the will, in itself
and in its consequences, as distinguishing man to
an incalculable extent from the lower animals?
Is it not by agency of the will that our conscious-
ness becomes its own object ? Is it not by the
same power that we analyse, and exercise control
over our mental states ; that we rise to abstrac-
tions and general notions, realize the thought of

* Essay iv., chapter 4.

THE WILL. 153

causality, discriminate between virtue and vice,
grasp some idea, however obscure, of the Infinite ?
Is it not thus that we are made capable of be-
lieving in a future state, in the immortality of the
soul, in the existence of a Supreme Being, and
made susceptible, at the same time, of the hopes
and the aspirations which these elevated con-
ceptions inspire ?

But I must not pursue so lofty a theme. It is
as much above as beyond the domain of purely
scientific discussion; and it certainly is foreign
to the purpose of the present publication.

154

CHAPTER X.

CONCLUSION.

In propounding the foregoing psychological doc-
trines, I have striven to correlate them with our
best established teachings concerning the brain
and nervous system ; and, where knowledge upon
the subject is defective, with some probable
hypothesis and rational speculation. It would be
too much to say that the physiological psycho-
logy is complete, and to be relied upon in all its
parts, or that it is competent to explain all the
difficult questions which arise in connexion with
this interesting topic. I think, however, that, as
a whole, it is recommended to us by the highest
probability. It rests upon a wide induction of
facts ; and, where its propositions are not demon-
strable, they have, I think, verisimilitude. What-
ever alterations in detail may hereafter become
necessary, as the result of ulterior investigation,
there can be but little doubt, I apprehend, that,
in its essential substance and form, it will main-

CONCLUSION. 155

tain for itself that firm position which, in this
country at least, it has already established.

Certainly, in much that has been advanced,
there is an insufficiency of evidence for proof
of some of the proposed views; and, upon
several points, the attempted generalization may
be premature. But if, in our investigations —
particularly of such entangled questions as the
present — we go on for ever accumulating facts
merely, and never make an effort to determine
the conclusion which they would seem to indicate,
we shall only render the existing perplexity
still more complicated. As well observed by an
able and eminent philosopher of the present
day: — "Although we may often err on the side
of hasty generalization, we may equally err on
the side of mere elaborate collection of observa-
tions, which, though sometimes leading to a
valuable result, yet, when cumulated without a
connecting link, frequently occasion a costly
waste of time, and leave the subject to which
they refer in greater obscurity than that in which
it was involved at their commencement." *

I submit, indeed, that in any attempted corre-

* The Correlation of Physical Forces. By W. E. Grove.
Third edition, p. 214.

156 CONCLUSION.

lation of psychology and physiology, it is impos-
sible, in the present state of positive knowledge,
to avoid speculation ; and, further, that for the
attainment of clear and connected ideas of
psychological pathology and medicine, it is good
and useful to construct rational hypotheses, in
default of complete and absolutely reliable
theories. But, of course, hypotheses must not
have their value or their office misunderstood ;
they cannot rightly form a rest, like an admitted
axiom ; they must always be held ready for
modification or abandonment, when evidence
appears to demand some such proceeding.
Meanwhile, they serve to " colligate facts," and
to fix the attention more inquiringly and search-
ingly upon phenomena that present themselves to
observation or experiment. " There is a period
in knowledge," says Dr. Crichton, " when hypo-
thesis must be indulged in, if we mean to make
any progress. It is that period when the facts
are too numerous to be recollected without ge-
neral principles, and yet where the facts are too
few to constitute a valid theory."*

Before closing this little work, I would once

* Op. citat. Preface, p, xii.

CONCLUSION. 157

more guard such of my readers as are unfamiliar
with discussions of physiological psychology,
against the impression that science suggests the
doctrine of materialism, which any multiplicity in
the substance of the soul would seem to involve.
If there be particular characteristics which more
than others distinguish the conscious Ego from
mere body, these, I conceive, are Spirituality and
Unity of essence. Have we not the same assur-
ance from pure consciousness, that the Me which
thinks, is not material — composed of parts, as
we have from sense consciousness, that body is
extended and an aggregate of atoms ?

Indeed there is nothing in physiological
psychology which ought to suggest even the
approaches of materialism. In the present sphere
of existence, the mind is manifested through
organic intervention; a thousand circumstances
prove the fact. It is yet no more the case that
the material brain is the conscious principle, and
its separate parts divisions of the mind, than
that the music of the lyre inheres in the instru-
ment, and that the melodies which art can elicit
from it are self-produced by the particular strings.

THE END.

\ !

J fy^P

LONDON:

SAYILL AND EDWABDS, PBINTEES, CHAND03 STEEET,

COVENT GABDEN

Recently published, in One Volume, Second Edition,
Svo, cloth, price 10s.,

ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE

BEING

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PEACTICAL STUDY
OF INSANITY.

By DANIEL NOBLE, M.D.,

VISITING PHYSICIAN TO THE CLIETON HALL BETEEAT, CONSULTING
PHYSICIAN TO THE MANCHESTEB EAE INSTITUTION, ETC. ETC.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

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2 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

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