1 
 
 a 
 

 (yL^^'iJ^.Zuy^yn^i^^^ji^ 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
4 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2008 witii funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 littp://www.arcliive.org/details/bodymindinquiryiOOmaudricli 
 
BODY AND MIND: 
 
 AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR CONNECTION AND MUTUAL 
 
 INFLUENCE, SPECIALLY IN REFERENCE 
 
 TO MENTAL DISORDERS. 
 
 GTJLSTONIAN LECTURES FOR 18T0, 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE BOTAL COLLEGE OF PHTSICIANS. 
 
 WITH APPENDIX. 
 
 HENRY MAUDSLEY, M. D., Lond., 
 
 FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS ; 
 
 PKOFESSOR OF MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON ; 
 
 PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION ; 
 
 HONORARY MEMBER OF THE MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS, 
 
 OF THE IMPERIAL SOCIETY OF PHYSICIANS OF VIENNA, AND OF THE SOCIETY FOR THK 
 
 PROMOTION OF PSYCHIATRY AND FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY OF VIENNA, 
 FORMERLY RESIDENT PHYSICIAN OF THK MANCHESTER ROYAL LUNATIC HOSPITAL, ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 r>. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 90, 92 & 94 GEAND STREET. 
 
 1871. 
 
N-- IJ> T ' o I 
 
 
 PKEFACE 
 
 The three lectures forming the first part of this 
 volume were delivered before the Royal College of 
 Physicians of London, to which I had the honor of 
 being appointed Gulstonian Lecturer for this year; 
 the latter part consists of two articles which, having 
 appeared elsewhere, are reprinted here as presenting a 
 completer view of some points that are only touched 
 upon in the lectures ; and the general plan of the 
 whole, as thus constituted, may be described as being 
 to bring man, both in his physical and mental rela- 
 tions, as much as possible within the scope of scientific 
 inquiry. 
 
 The first lecture is devoted to a general survey of 
 the Physiology of Mind — to an exposition of the phys- 
 ical conditions of mental function in health. In the 
 second lecture are sketched the features of some forms 
 of degeneracy of mind, as exhibited in morbid varieties 
 of the human kind, with the purpose of bringing 
 prominently into notice the operation of physical 
 
 M31S904 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 causes from generation to generation, and the rela- 
 tionship of mental to other disorders of the nervous 
 system. In the third lecture, which contains a gen- 
 eral survey of the pathology of mind, are displayed 
 the relations of morbid states of the body to disor- 
 dered mental function. I would fain believe the gen- 
 eral result to be a well-warranted conclusion that, 
 whatever theories may be held concerning mind and 
 the best method of its study, it is vain to expect, and 
 a folly to attempt, to rear a stable fabric of mental 
 science, without taking faithful account of physiologi- 
 cal and pathological inquiries into its phenomena. 
 
 In the criticism of the " Limits of Philosophical 
 Inquiry," which follows the lectures, will be found 
 reasons why no attempt has been made to discuss the 
 bearing of the views broaclied in them on any system 
 of philosophy. Neither materialism nor spiritualism 
 are scientific terms, and one need have no concern 
 with them in a scientific inquiry, which, if it be true 
 to its spirit, is bound to have regard only to what lies 
 within its powers and to the truth of its results. It 
 would seem to be full time that vao^ue and barren 
 disputations concerning materialism and spiritualism 
 should end, and that, instead of continuing such fruit- 
 less and unprofitable discussion, men should apply 
 themselves diligently to discover, by direct interroga- 
 tion of Nature, how much matter can do without spir- 
 itual help. Let each investigator pursue the method 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 of research which most suits the bent of his genius, 
 and here, as in other departments of science, let each 
 system be judged by its fruits, which cannot fail in 
 the end to be the best G23onsors and sureties for its 
 truth. But the physiological inquirer into mind may, 
 if he care to do so, justly protest against the easy con- 
 fidence with which some metaphysical psychologists 
 disdain physiological inquiry, and ignore its results, 
 without ever having been at the pains to make them- 
 selves acquainted with what these results are, and 
 with the steps by which they have been reached. Let 
 theory be what it may, there can be no just question 
 of the duty of observing faithfully all the instances 
 which mental phenomena offer for inductive inquiry, 
 and of striving to realize the entirely new aspect 
 which an exact study of the physiology of the nervous 
 system gives to many problems of mental science. 
 One reflection cannot fail to occur forcibly to those 
 who have pursued this study, namely, that it would 
 have been well could the physiological inquirer, after 
 rising step by step from the investigation of life in its 
 lowest forms to that of its highest and most complex 
 manifestations, have entered upon his investigations 
 of mind without being hampered by any philosophi- 
 cal theories concerning it. The very terms of met- 
 aphysical psychology have, instead of helping, op- 
 pressed and hindered him to an extent which it is im- 
 possible to measure: they have been hobgoblins to 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 frighten him from entering on his path of inquiry, 
 phantoms to lead him astray at every turn after he 
 has entered upon it, deceivers lurking to betray him 
 under the guise of seeming friends tendering help. 
 Let him take all the pains in the world, he cannot ex- 
 press adequately and exactly what he would — neither 
 more nor less — ^for he must use words which have al- 
 ready meanings of a metaphysical kind attached to 
 them, and which, when used, are therefore for him 
 more or less a misinterpretation. He is thus forced 
 into an apparent encroachment on questions which he 
 does not in the least degree wish to meddle with, and 
 provokes an antagonism without ever designing it; 
 and so one cannot but think it would have been well 
 if he could have had his own words exactly fitting his 
 facts, and free from the vagueness and ambiguity of a 
 former metaphysical use. 
 
 The article on the " Theory of Vitality," which ap- 
 peared in 1863, is now reprinted, with a few, mainly 
 verbal, alterations. The aspect of some of the ques- 
 tions discussed in it has been somewhat changed by 
 the progress of inquiry and thought since that time, 
 but it appears to the Author that, great as discussion 
 has been, there are yet considerations respecting vitali- 
 ty that have not been duly weighed. Whether living 
 matter was formed originally, or is now being formed, 
 from non-living matter, by the operation of physical 
 causes and natural laws, are questions which, notwith- 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 Standing the lively and vigorous handling which they 
 have had, are far from being settled. Exact experi- 
 ment can alone put an end to this dispute : the one 
 conclusive experiment, indeed, in proof of the origin 
 of living from dead matter, will be to make life. 
 Meanwhile, as the subject is still in the region of dis- 
 cussion, it is permissible to set forth the reflections 
 which the facts seem to warrant, and to endeavor to 
 indicate the direction of scientific development which 
 seems to be foretokened by, or to exist potentially in, 
 the knowledge which we have thus far acquired. This 
 much may be said : that those who oppose the doc- 
 trine of so-called spontaneous generation, not on the 
 ground of the absence of conclusive evidence of its 
 occurrence, which they might justly do, but on the 
 ground of what they consider special characteristics 
 of living matter, would do well to look with more in- 
 sight into the phenomena of non-living Nature, and to 
 consider more deeply what they see, in order to dis- 
 cover whether the characteristic properties of life 
 are quite so special and exclusive as they imagine 
 them to be. Having done that, they might go on to 
 consider whether, even if their premises were grant- 
 ed, any conclusion regarding the mode of origin of life 
 would legitimately follow; whether in fact it would 
 not be entirely gratuitous and unwarrantable to con- 
 clude thence the impossibility of the origin of living 
 matter from non-living matter. The etymological im- 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 port of the words physics and physiology is notably 
 the same ; and it may be that, as has been suggested, 
 in the difference of their application lies a hidden 
 irony at the assumption on which the division is 
 grounded. 
 
 9, Hanover Square, W. 
 November 5, 1870. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. — On the Physical Condition of Mental Function in • 
 
 Health . . . . . .11 
 
 II._On Certain Forms of Degeneracy of Mind, their 
 Causation, and their Relations to other Dis- 
 orders of the Nervous System . . . 41 
 
 III. — On the Relations of Morbid Bodily States to Dis- 
 ordered Mental Functions . . . .10 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I. — The Limits of Philosophical Inquiry . . 98 
 
 II. — The Theory of Vitality . . . . .120 
 
BODY AND MIND: 
 
 AN INQUIKY INTO THEIR CONNECTION AND 
 
 MUTUAL INFLUENCE, SPECIALLY IN EEFERENCE TO 
 
 MENTAL DISOEDEES. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Gentlemex: The relations of mind and body in health 
 and in disease I have chosen as the subject of these lectures, 
 not with the hope of doing full justice to so complex and 
 difficult an inquiry, but because it has for some time been 
 my special work, and there was no other subject on -which I 
 should have felt myself equally justified in addressing you. 
 No one can be more deeply sensible than I am how little 
 exact our knowledge is of the bodily conditions of mental 
 functions, and how much of that which we think we know 
 is vague, uncertain, and fluctuating. But the time has como 
 when the immediate business which lies before any one who 
 would advance our know^ledge of mind unquestionably is a 
 close and searching scrutiny of the bodily conditions of its 
 manifestations -in health and disease. It is most necessary 
 now to make use of the results of the study of mind in 
 health to light and guide our researches into its morbid phe- 
 nomena, and in like manner to bring the instructive in- 
 stances presented by unsound mind to bear upon the inter- 
 pretation of its healthy functions. The physiology and the 
 pathology of mind are two branches of one science ; and he 
 
12 BODY AXD MIXD. 
 
 who studies the one must, if he would work wisely and wel], 
 studj the other also. My aim will he to promote the recon- 
 ciliation hetween them, and in doing so I shall embrace the 
 occasion, whenever it offers itself, to indicate the principles 
 which should guide our efforts for what must always be the 
 highest object of medical science and art — the production 
 and preservation of a sound mind in a sound body. Act- 
 ually to accomplish much of this purpose will not lie in 
 my power, but I may bring together fragmentary observa- 
 tions, point out the bearing of them on one another and on 
 received opinions, thus unfold their meaning, and mark 
 broadly the lines which future research must take. 
 
 "Within the memory of men now living insanity was such 
 a spet-ial study, and its treatment such a special art, that it 
 stood quite aloof from general medicine in a mysterious and 
 mischievous isolation ; owing little or nothing to the results 
 of progress in other branches of medicine, and contributing 
 nothing to their progress. The reason of this it is not hard 
 to discover. The habit of viewing mind as an intangible 
 entity or incorporeal essence, which science inherited from 
 theology, prevented men from subjecting its phenomena to 
 the same method of investigation as other natural phenom- 
 ena; its disorders were thought to be an incomprehensible 
 affliction and, in accordance with the theological notion, due 
 to the presence of an evil spirit in the sufferer, or to the en- 
 slavement of the soul by sin, or to any thing but their true 
 cause — bodily disease. Consequently, the treatment of the 
 insane was not in the hands of intelligent physicians, who 
 aimed to apply the resources of medicine to the alleviation 
 or cure of bodily illness, but was given up to' coarse and ig- 
 norant jailers, whose savage cruelties will for all time to 
 come be a great and ugly blot upon the enlightenment of the 
 age which tolerated them. 
 
 Matters are happily changed now. On all hands it is ad- 
 mitted that the manifestations of mind take place through 
 the nervous system; and'that its derangements arc the result 
 
ORGAN AND FUNCTION. 13 
 
 of nervous disease, amenable to the same method of investi- 
 gation as other nervous diseases. Insanity has accordingly 
 become a strictly medical study, and its treatment a branch 
 of medical practice. Still, it is all too true that, notwith- 
 standing we know much, and are day by day learning more, 
 of the physiology of the nervous system, we are only on the 
 threshold of the study of it as an instrument subserving men- 
 tal function. We know little more positively than that it 
 has such function ; we know nothing whatever of the physics 
 and of the chemistry of thought. The conception of mind as a 
 mysterious entity, diiferent essentially from, and vastly supe- 
 rior to, the body which it inhabits and uses as its earthly tene- 
 ment, but from which its noblest aspirations are thought to 
 be to get free, still works openly or in a latent way to ob- 
 struct the study of its functions by the methods of physical 
 research. Without speculating at all concerning the nature 
 of mind — v»^hich, let me distinctly declare at the outset, is a 
 question which science cannot touch, and I do not dream of 
 attempting to touch — I do not shrink from saying that we 
 shall make no progress toward a mental science if we begin 
 by depreciating the body : not by disdaining it, as metaphy- 
 sicians, religious ascetics, and maniacs have done, but by 
 laboring in an earnest and inquiring spirit to understand 
 it, shall we make any step forward; and when we have 
 fully comprehended its functions, when we know how to 
 estimate fitly this highest, most complex, and wonderful 
 achievement of organized skill, it will be quite time, if 
 there be then the inclination, to look down upon it with 
 contempt. 
 
 The truth is, that in inquiries concerning mind, as was 
 once the case in speculations concerning other natural phe- 
 nomena of forces, it has been the practice to begin where the 
 inquiry should have ended. Just as the laws of physical ac- 
 tions were evoked out of the depths of human consciousness, 
 and the relations of bodies to one another attributed to sym- 
 pathies and antipathies, attractions and abhorrences, instead 
 
14 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 of being acquired by patient observation and careful generaliza- 
 tion, so has a fabric of mental philosophy been reared on the 
 doubtful revelations of self-consciousness, in entire disregard 
 of the more tedious and less attractive duty of observation 
 of facts, and induction from them. Surely it is time we 
 put seriously to ourselves the question whether the inductive 
 method, which has proved its worth by its abundant fruit- 
 fulness wherever it has been faithfully applied, should not 
 be as rigidly used in the investigation of mind as in the 
 investigation of other natural phenomena. If so, we ought 
 certainly to begin our inquiry with the observation of the 
 simplest instances — with its physiological manifestations in 
 animals, in children, in idiots, in savages, mounting by de- 
 grees to the highest and most recondite facts of consciousness, 
 the interpretation or the misinterpretation of which consti- 
 tutes what has hitherto claimed to be mental philosophy. The 
 inductions which we get by observing the simple may be used 
 with success to disentangle the phenomena of the complex ; 
 but the endeavor to apply the complex and obscure to the 
 interpretation of the simple is sure to end in confusion and 
 error. The higher mental faculties are formed by evolution 
 from the more simple and elementary, just as the more spe- 
 cial and complex structure proceeds from the more simple and 
 general ; and in the one case as in the other we must, if 
 we would truly learn, follow the order of development. Not 
 that it is within my present purpose to trace the plan of 
 development of our mental faculties, but the facts and argu- 
 ments which I shall bring forward will prove how vain 
 and futile it is to strive to rear a sound fabric of mental sci- 
 ence on any other foundation. 
 
 To begin the study of mind, then, with the observation 
 of its humblest bodily manifestations is a strictly scientific 
 method. When we come to inquire what these are, it is far 
 from easy to fix the point at which mental function begins. 
 Without doubt most of the actions of man, and many of 
 those of the higher animals, do evince the operation of mind, 
 
REFLEX ACTION. 15 
 
 but whereabouts in the animal kingdom it first appears, and 
 what part it has in the lower nerve-functions of man, arc 
 questions not easily answered. The more closely the matter 
 is looked into, the more clearly it appears that we habitually 
 embrace in our conception of mind different nervous func- 
 tions, some of which proceed from different nerve-centres, 
 and the more necessary it becomes to analyze these functions, 
 to separate tlie more simple and elementary, and to discover 
 in the concrete as much as possible of the meaning of the 
 abstraction. Is the brain the exclusive organ of mind? If 
 it be so, to what category of functions shall we refer the re- 
 flex acts of the spinal cord, which take place independently 
 of the brain, and which often achieve as definite an end, and 
 seem to display as intelligent an aim, as any conscious act of 
 volition? It needs not to illustrate in detail the nature and 
 extent of reflex action, which is familiar enough, but I may 
 select a striking example in order to serve as a text for the 
 reflections which I wish to bring forward. One simple fact, 
 rightly understood and truly interpreted, will teach as much 
 as a thousand facts of the same kind, but the thousand must 
 have been previously observed in order to understand truly 
 the one ; for it is certainly true that, to apprehend the fidl 
 meaning of common things, it is necessary to study a great 
 many uncommon things. This, however, has been done in 
 this instance by the distinguished physiologists whose labors 
 have fixed on a tolerably firm basis the doctrine of reflex 
 action ; we may, therefore, take, as our starting-point, the 
 accepted results of their labors. 
 
 It is well known that, if the hind-foot of a frog that has 
 had its head cut off be pinched, it is withdrawn from the ir- 
 ritation. The stimulus to the afferent nerve reaches the gray 
 matter of the spinal cord, and sets free a force which excites 
 to action the corresponding motor nerves of the same side. 
 When the foot is pinched more strongly, the force liberated 
 by the stimulus passes across the cord to the motor nerves 
 of the opposite side, and there is a simultaneous withdrawal 
 
16 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 of both limbs; and, if tbe excitation be stronger still, there 
 is a wider irradiation of the effects of the stimulus in the 
 gray matter, and a movement of all four limbs follows, the 
 frog jumping away. These movements of the decapitated 
 frog, which it is plain effect the definite purpose of getting it 
 out of the way of harm, we believe to be analogous to the 
 violent coughing by which food that has gone the wrong way 
 is expelled from the human larynx, or to the vomiting by 
 which offending matter is ejected from the stomach. Inde- 
 pendently of consciousness and of will, an organism plainly 
 has the power — call it intelligent or call it Avhat we will — of 
 feeling and eschewing what is hurtful to it, as well as of feel- 
 ing and ensuing what is beneficial to it. 
 
 But the experiment on the frog may be made more striking 
 and instructive. Touch with acetic acid the thigh of a de- 
 capitated frog over the internal condyle, and the animal rubs 
 it off with the dorsal surface of the foot of the same side ; 
 cut off the foot, and apply the acid to the same spot, and the 
 animal tries to get at it again with its foot, but, of course, 
 having lost it, cannot. After some fruitless efforts, therefore, 
 it gives up trying in that way, seems restless, as though, says 
 Pfltiger, it was seeking some other way; and at last it makes 
 use of the foot of the other leg, and succeeds in rubbing off 
 the acid. ITotably we have here not merely contractions of 
 muscles, but combined and harmonized contractions in due 
 sequence for a special purpose. There are actions that have 
 all the appearance of being guided by intelligence and insti- 
 gated by will in an animal the recognized organ of whose in- 
 telligence and will has been removed. 
 
 What are we to say in explanation of movements that have 
 such a look of adaptation? Are they mental, or are they 
 only physical? If they are mental, it is plain that we must 
 much enlarge and modify our conception of mind, and of the 
 seat of mind ; if physical, it is plain that we must subtract 
 from mind functions that are essential to its full function, and 
 properties that are the very foundations of its development 
 
PURPOSIVE ACTS. 17 
 
 in the higher centres. Some eminent pliysiologists now 
 maintain, on tlife strength of these experiments, that tlie ac- 
 ceptod doctrine of reflex action is quite untenable, and that 
 the spinal cord is really endowed with sensation and volition; 
 and certainly these adapted actions seem to give us all the 
 signs of being felt and willed, except telling us that they are 
 so. Before accepting, however, this explanation of the ob- 
 scure by something more obscure still, it were well to I'ealize 
 distinctly how dangerous a practice it usually is to apply de- 
 ductively to the interpretation of simple phenomena ideas 
 pertaining to the more complex, and how essential a princi- 
 ple of the method of induction it is to follow the order of 
 evolution, and to ascend from the interpretation of the sim- 
 ple to that of the complex. The explanation savors of the 
 old and evil tendency which has done so much harm in phi- 
 losophy, the tendency to explain the facts of ISTature by what 
 we feel to go on in our minds ; because we know that most of 
 our actions take place consciously and voluntarily,we can hard- 
 ly help thinking that it must be the same in the frog. Might 
 we not, however, as well suppose and hold that positive at- 
 tracts negative and repels positive electricity consciously and 
 voluntarily, or that in the double decomposition of chemical 
 salts one acid chooses voluntarily the other base? It is most 
 necessary to be on our guard against the danger of misapply- 
 ing ideas derived from internal observation of the functions 
 of mind-centres to the interpretation of the functions of 
 lower nerve-centres, and so of misinterpreting them. As- 
 suredly we have sad experience enough to warn us against 
 involving the latter in the metaphysical haze Avhich still 
 hangs over the functions of the supreme centres. 
 
 All the conclusion w^hich the facts warrant is that actions 
 for a definite end, having indeed the semblance of predesign- 
 ing consciousness and will, may be quite unconscious and auto- 
 matic ; that the movements of the decapitated frog, adapted 
 as they are to secure its well-being, are no more evidence of 
 intelligence and will than are the movements of coughing, 
 
18 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 sneezing, and swallowing in man. In the constitution of the 
 animal's spinal cord are implanted the faculties of such move- 
 ments for self-preservation, which it has inherited as a part 
 of its nature, and without which it could hardly live a day ; 
 accordingly it acts necessarily and blindly ; though it has lost 
 its foot, it endeavors vainly to act as if its foot was still there, 
 and only when the irritation continues unaffected by its futile 
 efforts makes, in answer to it, those further reflex movements 
 which are the physiological sequences of the unsuccessful 
 movements: it supplements one series of reflex actions by 
 another.* But, although these purposive movements are not 
 evidence of intelligence and volition in the spinal cord, it is 
 another question whether they do not evince the same physi- 
 ological properties and the operation of the same laws of 
 evolution as govern the development of intelligence and will 
 in the higher centres. 
 
 I have taken the experiment on the frog to exemplify the 
 proposition that designed actions may be unconscious and 
 automatic, because the phenomena are more simple in it than 
 in man, and more easy therefore to be understood ; but the 
 proposition is equally true of his spinal cord. In its case, 
 however, we have to bear in mind that faculties are not in- 
 nate to the same degree and extent as in the lower animals, 
 but have to be acquired by education — to be organized, in 
 fact, after birth. It must be taught, just as the brain must, 
 before it can perform its functions as an organ of animal life ; 
 and, being much more under the control of the more highly- 
 developed brain, feeling and volition commonly mingle largely 
 in its functions, and its independent action cannot be so 
 plainly exhibited. But, when its motor centres have been 
 taught, when they have gained by education the power of 
 executing what are called secondary automatic acts, it is cer- 
 
 * Wisely or unwisely, as the case may be ; for reflex movements which 
 commonly effect a useful end may, under the changed circumstances of dis- 
 ease, do great mischief, becoming even the occasion of violent suffering 
 and of a most painful death. 
 
SECONDARY AUTOMATIC ACTS. 19 
 
 tain that it can and does habitually execute them indepen- 
 dently of consciousness and of will. They become as purely 
 automatic as are the primitive reflex acts of the frog. To the 
 statement, then, that actions bearing the semblance of design 
 may be unconscious and automatic we have now to add a 
 second and most weighty proposition — namely, that acts con- 
 sciously designed at first may, by repetition, become uncon- 
 scious and automatic, the faculties of them being organized 
 in the constitution of the nerve-centres, and they being then 
 performed as reflex effects of an external stimulus. This law, 
 by which the education of the spinal cord takes place, is, as 
 we shall hereafter see, a most important law in the develop- 
 ment of the higher nerve-centres. 
 
 Let us now go a step further. The automatic acts, whether 
 primary or secondary, in the frog or in the man, which are 
 excited by tlie suitable external stimulus, may also be excited 
 by an act of will, by an impulse coming downward from the 
 brain. "When this happens, it should be clearly apprehended 
 that the immediate agency of the movements is the same ; it 
 is in the motor centres of the spinal cord; the Avill does not 
 and cannot act upon the nerve-fibres of each muscle individu- 
 ally, but simply gives the order which sets in motion the or- 
 ganized machinery of the movements in the proper motor 
 centres. This is a consideration of the utmost importance, 
 for it exhibits how great a part of our voluntary acts is really 
 the automatic action of the spinal cord. The same move- 
 ments are effected by the same agency in answer to dififerent 
 stimuli — in the one case to an external stimulus, in the other 
 case to an impulse of will ; and in both cases the mind is alike 
 ignorant of the immediate agency by which they are done. 
 But while the automatic acts take place independently of 
 will, the will is absolutely dependent on the organized expe- 
 rience in the cord for the accomplishment of its acts ; with- 
 out this it would be impotent to do a voluntary act. TThen, 
 therefore, we have taken out of a voluntary act the large 
 part which is due to the automatic agency of the motor cen- 
 
20 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 tres, it clearly appears that we have subtracted no small 
 proportion from what we are in the habit of comprising 
 vaguely under mind. We perceive, indeed, how indispensa- 
 ble an exact and faithful observation of the functions of the 
 spinal cord is to a true physiological inquiry into mind, and 
 what an important means of analysis a knowledge of them 
 yields us. Carrying the knowledge so gained into our exami- 
 nation of the functions of the higher nerve-centres, we ob- 
 serve how much of them it will serve to interpret. The re- 
 sult is, that we find a great part of the habitual functions of 
 the higher centres to be similarly automatic, and to admit of 
 a similar physiological interpretation. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the ganglionic nuclei of the 
 senses — the sensorial nuclei — are connected with motor nu- 
 clei ; and that we have in such anatomical arrangement the 
 agency of a number of reflex movements. Most of the in- 
 stinctive acts of animals are of this kind, the faculties being 
 innate in them. In man, however, who is actually the most 
 helpless, though potentially the most powerful, of all living 
 creatures when he comes into the world, the sensory and 
 associated motor nuclei must be educated, just as the spinal 
 centres must. To illustrate this sensori-motor or instinctive 
 action, we may take the results of Flourens's well-known 
 experiment of removing the cerebral hemispheres of a pigeon. 
 What happens ? The pigeon seemingly loses at once all in- 
 telligence and all power of spontaneous action. It appears 
 as if it were asleep ; yet, if thrown into the air, it will fly. 
 If laid on its back, it struggles on to its legs again ; the pupil 
 of the eye contracts to light, and, if the light be very bright, 
 the eyes are shut. It will dress its feathers if they are ruffled, 
 and will sometimes follow with a movement of its head the 
 movement of a candle before it ; and, when a pistol is fired off, 
 it will open its eyes, stretch its neck, raise its head, and then 
 fall back into its former attitude. It is quite evident from 
 this experiment that general sensibility and special sensations 
 are possible after the removal of the hemispheres ; but they 
 
SEXSORI-MOTOR ACTS. 21 
 
 are not then transformed into ideas. The impressions of sense 
 reach and affect the sensory centres, but they are not intel- 
 lectually ^C7'm2;<?<7 ; and the proper movements are excited, 
 but these are reflex or automatic. There are no ideas, there 
 is no true spontaneity ; and the animal would die of hunger 
 before a plateful of food, though it will swallow it when 
 pushed far enough into its mouth to come within the range 
 of the reflex acts of deglutition. Here again, then, we have 
 a surprising variety of adapted actions of which the body is 
 capable without the intervention of intelligence, emotion, and 
 will — without, in fact, mind in its exact sense having any part 
 in them. The pigeon is brought to the level of the inverte- 
 brata, which have no higher nerve-centres than sensory 
 ganglia, no centres of intelligence and will, and Vv-hich exe- 
 cute all their varied and active movements, all their wonder- 
 ful displays of instinct, through sensory and associated motor 
 nuclei. They seek what is good for them, avoid what is 
 hurtful to them, provide for the propagation of their kind — 
 perform, indeed, all the functions of a very active life without 
 Icnowing that they are doing so, not otherwise than as our 
 pupils contract to light, or as our eyes accommodate them- 
 selves to vision at different distances, without consciousness 
 on our part. The highest specializations of this kind of 
 nerve-function are displayed by the ant and the bee ; their 
 wonderful instinctive arts show to what a degree of special 
 perfection sensori-motor action may be brought.* 
 
 * I do not say that the ant and the hee are entirely destitute of any power 
 of adaptation to new experiences in their lives— that theyare, in fact, purely 
 organized machines, acting always with unvarying regularity; it would 
 appear, indeed, from close observation, that these creatures do sometimes 
 discover in their actions traces of a sensibility to strange experiences, and 
 of corresponding adaptation of movements. We cannot, moreover, con- 
 ceive how the remarkable instincts which they manifest can have been 
 acquired originally, except by virtue of some such power. But the power 
 in them now is evidently of a radimentary kind, and must remain so while 
 they have not those higher nerve-centres in which the sensations are com- 
 bined into ideas, and perceptions of the relations of things are acquired. 
 Granting, however, that the bee or ant has these traces of adaptive action, 
 
22 BODY AXD MIND. 
 
 Unlike the Dee and the ant, man must slowly learn -the 
 use of his senses and their respondent movements. This he 
 does by virtue of the fundamental property of nerve-centres, 
 whereby they react in a definite way to suitable impressions, 
 organically register their experience, and so acquire by edu- 
 cation their special faculties. Thus it is that many of the 
 daily actions of our life, which directly follow impressions 
 on the senses, take place in answer to sensations that are not 
 perceived — become, so to speak, instinctive ; some of them 
 being not a whit less automatic than the instinctive acts of 
 the bee, or the acts of the pigeon deprived of its hemispheres. 
 "When we move about in a room with the objects in which 
 we are quite familiar, we direct our steps so as to avoid them, 
 without being conscious what they are, or what we are do- 
 ing ; we see them, as we easily discover if we try to move 
 about in the same way with our eyes shut, but we do not 
 perceive them, the mind being fully occupied with some train 
 of thought. In like manner, when we go through a series 
 of familiar acts, as in dressing or undressing ourselves, the 
 operations are really automatic ; once begun, we continue 
 them in a mechanical order, while the mind is thinking of 
 other things ; and if we afterward reflect upon what we have 
 done, in order to call to mind whether we did or did not omit 
 something, as for instance to wind up our watch, we cannot 
 satisfy ourselves except by trial, even though we had actually 
 done what we were in doubt about. It is evident, indeed, 
 that in a state of profound reverie or abstraction a person 
 may, as a somnambulist sometimes does, see without know- 
 it must be allowed that they are truly nidiments of functions, which in the 
 supreme nerve-centres we designate as reason and volition. Such a con- 
 fession might be a trouble to a metaphysical physiologist, who would there- 
 upon find it necessary to place a metaphysical entity behind the so-called 
 instincts of the bee, but can be no trouble to the inductive physiologist ; he 
 simply recognizes an illustration of a physiological difl'usion of properties, 
 and of the physical conditions of primitive volition, and traces in the evo- 
 lution of mind and its organs, as jn the evolution of other functions and 
 their organs, a progressive specialization and increasing complexity. 
 
SUPREME NERVE-CEXTIIES. 23 
 
 ing that he sees, hear without knowing that he hears, and go 
 through a series of acts scarcely, if at all, conscious of them 
 at the time, and not remembering them afterward. For the 
 most distinct display of sensori-motor action in man, it is 
 necessary that his cerebral hemispheres, which are so largely 
 developed, and intervene much in the functions of the subor- 
 dinate centres, should be deeply engaged in their own func- 
 tions, or that these should be suspended. This appears to 
 be the case in those brief attacks of epileptic unconsciousness 
 known as the ^;<?^i^ mal^ in which a person will sometimes 
 go on with the work he was engaged in at the time of the 
 attack, utterly unaware of the momentary interruption of 
 his consciousness.* There are many instances of this sort on 
 record, which I cannot stop to relate now ; they prove how 
 large a part sensori-motor functions, which are the highest 
 nerve-functions of so many animals, play in our daily actions. 
 We ought clearly to apprehend the fact that, as with the 
 spinal cord, so here, the movements which take place in an- 
 swer to the stimulus from without may be excited by the 
 stimulus of the will descending from the hemispheres, and 
 that, when they are so excited, the immediate agency of them 
 is the same. The movements that are outwardly manifest 
 are, as it were, contained inwardly in the appropriate motor 
 nuclei ; these have been educated to perform them. Hence 
 it is that, when the left corpus striatum is broken up by dis- 
 ease, the right cannot do its special work ; if it could, a man 
 naight write with his left hand when his right hand was dis- 
 abled by paralysis. 
 
 Thus much, then, concerning our sensori-motor acts. 
 When we have yielded up to the spinal cord all the part in 
 our actions that properly belongs to it, and to th.Q sensory gan- 
 glia and their connected motor nuclei all the part that be- 
 longs to them, we have subtracted no inconsiderable part 
 from the phenomena which we are in the habit of designating 
 
 * For examples, I may refer to my work on " The Physiology and Pa- 
 thology of Mind,'' 2d edition. 
 
24 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 mental and including under mind. But we still leave un- 
 touched the highest functions of the nervous system — those 
 to which the hemispherical ganglia minister. These are the 
 functions of intelligence, of emotion, and of will ; they are 
 the strictly mental functions. The question at once arises 
 vfhether we have to do in these supreme centres with funda- 
 mentally different properties and different laws of evolution 
 from those which belong to the lower nerve-centres. We 
 have to do with different functions certainly ; but are the 
 organic processes which take place in them essentially differ- 
 ent from, or are they identical with, those of the lower 
 nerve-centres? They appear to be essentially the same: 
 there is a reception of impressions, and there is a reaction to 
 impressions, and there is an organic registration of the effects 
 both of the impressions and of the reactions to them. The ex- 
 ternal stimuli do not, it is true, ascend directly to the supreme 
 centres as they do to the spinal centres and the sensory cen- 
 tres; they are transmitted indirectly through the sensory 
 ganglia ; it is through the senses that we get our ideas. This 
 is in accordance with the anatomical observation — which, 
 however, is disputed — that no sensory fibres go directly 
 through to the hemispheres, and no motor fibres start directly 
 from them ; both sensory and motor fibres stopping at the 
 corpora striata and thalami optici, and new fibres connect- 
 ing these with the hemispheres. But this does not alter the 
 fundamental similarity of the organic processes in the higher 
 centres. The impressions which are made there are the physi- 
 ological conditions of ideas ; the feeling of the ideas is emo- 
 tion — for I hold emotion to mean the special sensibility of 
 the vesicular neurine to ideas — the registration of them is 
 memory; and the reaction to them is volition. Attention 
 is the maintenance of the tension of an idea or a group of 
 ideas — the keeping it before the mind ; and rejlection is the 
 successive transference of energy from one to another of a 
 series of ideas. We know not, and perhaps never shall know, 
 what mind is ; but we are nevertheless bound to investigate. 
 
MEMORY. 25 
 
 in a scientific spirit, the laws of its functions, and to trace 
 the resemblances which undoubtedly exist between them and 
 the functions of lower nerve-centres. 
 
 Take, for example, the so-called faculty of memory, of 
 which metaphysicians have made so much as affording us the 
 knowledge of personal identity. From the way in which 
 they usually treat of it, one would suppose that memory was 
 peculiar to mind, and far beyond the reach of physical ex- 
 I)lanation. But a little reflection will prove that it is noth- 
 ing of the kind. The acquired functions of the spinal cord, 
 and of the sensory ganglia, obviously imply the existence of 
 memory, which is indispensable to their formation and exer- 
 cise. How else could these centres be educated ? The im- 
 pressions made upon them, and the answering movements, 
 both leave their traces behind them, which are capable of 
 being revived on the occasions of similar impressions. A 
 ganglionic centre, v/hether of mind, sensation, or movement, 
 which was without memory, would be an idiotic centre, in- 
 capable of being taught its functions. In every nerve-cell 
 there is memory, and not only so, but there is memory in 
 every organic element of the body. The virus of small-pox 
 or of syphilis makes its mark on the constitution for the rest 
 of life. We may forget it, but it will not forget us, though, 
 like the memory of an old man, it may fade and become faint 
 with advancing age. The manner in which the scar of a cut 
 in a child's finger is perpetuated, and grows as the body grows, 
 evinces, as Mr. Paget has pointed out, that the organic ele- 
 ment of the part remembers the change which it has suffered. 
 Memory is the organic registration of the effects of impres- 
 sions, the organization of experience, and to recollect is to 
 revive this experience — to call the organized residua into 
 functional activity. 
 
 The fact that memory is accompanied by consciousness in 
 
 the supreme centres does not alter the fundamental nature of 
 
 the organic processes that are the condition of it. The more 
 
 sure and perfect, indeed, memory becomes, the more uncon- 
 
 2 
 
26 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 scious it becomes; and, when an idea or mental state has 
 been completely organized, it is revived without conscious- 
 ness, and takes its part automatically in our mental opera- 
 tions, just as an habitual movement does in our bodily activ- 
 ity. "We perceive in operation here the same law of organi- 
 zation of conscious acquisitions as unconscious power, which 
 we observed in the functions of the lower nerve-centres. A 
 child, while learning to speak or read, has to remember the 
 meaning of each word, must tediously exercise its memory ; 
 but which of us finds it necessary to remember the meanings 
 of the common words which we are daily using, as Ave must 
 do those of a foreign language with which we are not very 
 familiar ? "We do remember them, of course, but it is by an 
 unconscious memory. In like manner, a pupil, learning to 
 play the piano-forte, is obliged to call to mind each note: but 
 the skilful player goes through no such process of conscious 
 remembrance ; his ideas, like his movements, are automatic, 
 and both so rapid as to surpass the rapidity of succession of 
 conscious ideas and movements. To my mind, there are in- 
 controvertible reasons to conclude that the organic conditions 
 of memory are the same in the supreme centres of thought 
 as they are in the lower centres of sensation and of reflex 
 action. Accordingly, in a brain that is not disorganized by 
 injury or disease, the organic registrations are never actually 
 forgotten, but endure while life lasts ; no wave of oblivion 
 can efface their characters. Consciousness, it is true, may 
 be impotent to recall them ; but a fever, a blow on the liead, 
 a poison in the blood, a dream, the agony of drowning, the 
 hour of death, rending the veil between our present con- 
 sciousness and these inscriptions, will sometimes call viv- 
 idly back, in a momentary flash, and call back too with all 
 the feelings of the original experience, much that seemed to 
 have vanished from the mind forever. In the deepest and 
 most secret recesses of mind, there is nothing hidden from 
 the individual self, or from others, which may not be thus 
 some time ^accidentally revealed ; so that it might well be 
 
VOLITION. 27 
 
 that, as De Qiiincey surmised, the opening of the book at 
 the day of judgment shall be the unfolding of the everlasting 
 scroll of memory.* 
 
 As it is Avith memory so is it with volition, which is a 
 physiological function of the supreme centres, and which, like 
 memory, becomes more unconscious and automatic the more 
 completely it is organized by repeated practice. It is not 
 man's function in life to think and feel only; his inner life he 
 must express or utter in action of some kind — in word or 
 deed. Eeceiving the impressions from Nature, of which he 
 is a part, he reacts upon l^ature intelligently, modifying it in 
 a variety of ways ; thus Nature passes through human na- 
 ture to a higher evolution. As the spinal cord reacts to its 
 impressions in excito-motor action, and as the sensory centres 
 react to their impressions in sensori-motor action, so, after 
 the complex interworking and combination of ideas in the 
 hemispherical ganglia, there is, in like manner, a reaction or 
 desire of determination of energy outward, in accordance 
 with the fundamental property of organic structure to seek 
 what is beneficial and shun what is hurtful to it. It is this 
 property of tissue that gives the impulse which, when guided 
 by intelligence, we call volition, and it is the abstraction 
 from the particular volitions which metaphysicians personify 
 as the uill, and regard as their determining agent. Physio- 
 logically, we cannot choose but reject tJie will; volition we 
 know, and will we know, but the will., apart from particular 
 acts of volition or will, we cannot know. To interpose such 
 a metaphysical entity between reflection and action there- 
 upon would bring us logically to the necessity of interposing 
 a similar entity between the stimulus ^o the spinal cord and 
 its reaction. Thus, instead of unravelling the complex by 
 help of the more simple, we should obscure the simple by 
 
 * An apt illustration, most true to Nature, of the recurrence of early 
 impressions in the delirium of dying, is afforded by Falstaff. who, as he 
 expires in a London tavern after a life of debauchery, babbles of green 
 fields. 
 
28 ' BODY AND MIND. 
 
 speculations concerning the complex. As physiologists, we 
 have to deal with volition as a function of the supreme cen- 
 tres, following reflection, varying in quantity and quality as 
 its cause varies, strengthened by education and exercise, en- 
 feebled by disuse, decaying with decay of structure, and al- 
 ways needing for its outward expression the educated agency 
 of the subordinate motor centres. We have to deal with 
 will, not as a single undecomposable faculty unaffected by 
 bodily conditions, but as a result of organic changes in the 
 supreme centres, affected as certainly and seriously by dis- 
 order of them as our motor faculties are by disorder of their 
 centres. Loss of power of will is one of the earliest and most 
 characteristic symptoms of mental derangement ; and what- 
 ever may have been thought in times past, we know well 
 now that the loss is not the work of some unclean spirit that 
 has laid its hands upon the will, but the direct effect of 
 physical disease. 
 
 But I must pass on now to other matters, without stop- 
 ping to unfold at length the resemblances between the prop- 
 erties of the supreme centres and those of the lower nerve- 
 centres. We see that the supreme centres are educated, as 
 the other centres are, and the better they are educated the 
 better do they perform their functions of thinking and willing. 
 The development of mind is a gradual process of organization 
 in them. Ideas, as they are successively acquired through 
 the gateways of the senses, are blended and combined and 
 grouped in a complexity that defies analysis, the organic com- 
 binations being the physiological conditions of our highest 
 mental operations — reflection, reasoning, and judgment. Two 
 leading ideas we ought to grasp and hold fast : first, that the 
 complex and more recondite phenomena of mind are formed 
 out of the more simple and elementary by progressive spe- 
 cialization and integration ; and, secondly, that the laws by 
 means of which this formation takes place are not laws of 
 association merely, but laws of organic combination and evo- 
 lution. The growth of mental power mean» an actual addi- 
 
MOTOR INTUITIONS. 29 
 
 tion of structure to tlio intimate constitution of the centres 
 of mind — a mental organization in them ; and mental derange- 
 ment means disorder of them, primary or secondary, func- 
 tional or organic. 
 
 Althougli I have declared the liemisplicrical ganglia to bo 
 preeminently the mind-centres, and although it is in disorder 
 of their functions — in disordered intelligence, in disordered 
 emotion, and in disordered will — that insanity essentially con- 
 sists, it is nevertheless impossible to limit the study of our 
 mental operations to the study of them. They receive im- 
 pressions from every part of the body, and, there is reason to 
 believe, exert an influence on every element of it : there is 
 not an organic motion, sensible or insensible, which does not, 
 consciously or unconsciously, affect them, and which they in 
 turn do not consciously or unconsciously affect. So intimate 
 and essential is the sympathy between all the organic func- 
 tions, of which mind is the crown and consummation, that we 
 may justly say of it, that it sums up and comprehends the 
 bodily life — that every thing which is displayed outwardly is 
 contained secretly in the innermost. We cannot truly under- 
 stand mind -functions without embracing in our inquiry all 
 the bodily functions and, I might perhaps without exaggera- 
 tion say, all the bodily features. 
 
 I have already shown this in respect of motor functions, 
 by exhibiting how entirely dependent for its expression will 
 is upon the organized mechanism of the motor centres — how, 
 in effecting voluntary movements, it presupposes the appro- 
 priate education of the motor centres. Few persons, perhaps, 
 consider what a wonderful art speech is, or even remember 
 that it is an art which we acquire. But it actually costs us a 
 great deal of pains to learn to speak ; all the language which 
 an infant has is a cry ; and it is only because we begin to learn 
 to talk when we are very young, and are constantly prac- 
 tising, that we forget how specially we have had to educate 
 our motor centres of speech. Here, however, we come to 
 another pregnant consideration : the acquired faculty of the 
 
30 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 educated motor centre is not only a necessary agency in^the 
 performance of a voluntary act, but I maintain that it posi- 
 tively enters as a mental element into the composition of the 
 definite volition ; that, in fact, the specific motor faculty not 
 only acts downward upon the motor nerves, thus executing 
 the movement, hut also acts upward upon the mind-centres, 
 thereby giving to consciousness the conception of the suitable 
 movement — the appropriate motor intuition. It is certain 
 that, in order to execute consciously a voluntary act, we must 
 have in the mind a conception of the aim or purpose of the 
 act. The will cannot act upon the separate muscles, it can 
 only determine the result desired ; and thereupon the com- 
 bined contraction, in due force and rapidity, of the separate 
 muscles takes place in a way that we have no consciousness 
 of, and accomplishes the act. The infant directly it is born 
 can suck, certainly not consciously or voluntarily ; on the first 
 occasion, at any rate, it can have no notion of the purpose of 
 its movements ; but the effect of the action is to excite in the 
 mind the special motor intuition, and to lay the foundation 
 of the special volition of it. We cannot do an act voluntarily 
 unless we know what we are going to do, and we cannot 
 Tcnow exactly what we are going to do until we have taught 
 ourselves to do it. This exact knowledge of the aim of the 
 act, which we get by experience, the motor intuition gives us. 
 The essential intervention of the motor intuition, which 
 is, as it were, the abstract of the' movement, in our mental 
 life, is best illustrated by the movements of speech, but is by 
 no means peculiar to them. Each word represents a certain 
 association and succession of muscular acts, and is itself noth- 
 ing more than a conventional sign or symbol to mark the par- 
 ticular muscular expression of a particular idea. The word 
 has not independent vitality ; it difi'ers in different languages ; 
 and those who are deprived of the power of articulate speech 
 must make use of other muscular acts to express their ideas, 
 speaking, as it were, in a dumb discourse. There is no reason 
 on earth, indeed, why a person might not learn to express 
 
GESTURE LANGUAGE. ;}1 
 
 every thouglit which ho can utter in speech by movements 
 of his fingers, limbs, and body — by the silent language of ges- 
 ture. The movements of articulation have not, then, a special 
 hind of connection with the mind, though tlieir connection is 
 a specially intimate one ; they are simply the most convenient 
 for the expression of our mental states, because they are so 
 numerous, various, delicate, and complex, and because, in con- 
 junction with the muscles of the larynx and the respiratory 
 muscles, they modify sound, and thus make audible language. 
 Having, on this account, been always used as the special in- 
 struments of utterance, their connection with thought is most 
 intimate ; the Greeks, in fact, used the word x6yos to mean 
 both reason and speech. But this does not make the rela- 
 tions of the movements of speech to mind different funda- 
 mentally from the relations of other voluntary movements to 
 mind; and we should be quite ^as much warranted in assign- 
 ing to the mind a special faculty of writing, of walking, or of 
 gesticulating, as in speaking of a special faculty of speech in it. 
 "What is true of the relations of articulate movements to 
 mental states is true of the relations of other movements to 
 mental states : they not only express the thought, but, when 
 otherwise put in action, they can excite the appropriate 
 thought. Speak the word, and the idea of which it is the ex- 
 pression is aroused, though it was not in the mind previously; 
 or put other muscles than those of speech into an attitude 
 which is the normal expression of a certain mental state, and 
 the latter is excited. Most if not all men, when thinking, 
 repeat internally, whisper to themselves, as it were, what they 
 are thinking about; and persons of dull and feeble intel- 
 ligence cannot comprehend w^hat they read, or what is some- 
 times said to them, without calling the actual movement to 
 their aid, and repeating the words in a whisper or aloud. As 
 speech has become the almost exclusive mode of expressing 
 our thoughts, there not being many gestures of the body 
 which are the habitual expressions of simple ideas, we cannot 
 present striking examples of the powers of other movements 
 
32 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 to call up tlie appropriate ideas ; yet the delicate muscular 
 adaptations ■which effect the accommodation of the eye to 
 vision at different distances seem really to give to the mind 
 its ideas of distance and magnitude. No one actually sees 
 distance and magnitude ; he sees only certain signs from 
 which he has learned to judge intuitively of them — the mus- 
 cular adaptations, though he is unconscious of them, impart- 
 ing the suitable intuitions. 
 
 The case is stronger, however, in regard to our emotions. 
 Yisible muscular expression is to passion what language or 
 audible muscular expression is to thought. Bacon rightly, 
 therefore, pointed out the advantage of a study of the forms 
 of expression. "For," he says, "the lineaments of the body 
 do disclose the disposition and inclination of the mind in gen- 
 eral ; but the motions of the countenance and parts do not 
 only so, but do further disclose the present humor and state 
 of the mind or will." The muscles of the countenance are 
 the chief exponents of human feeling, much of the variety of 
 which is due to the action of the orbicular muscles with the 
 system of elevating and depressing muscles. Animals cannot 
 laugh, because, besides being incapable of ludicrous ideas, 
 they do not possess in sufficient development the orbicular 
 muscle of the lips and the straight muscles which act upon 
 them. It is because of the superadded muscles and of their 
 combined actions — not combined contraction merely, but 
 consentaneous action, the relaxation of some accompanying 
 the contraction of others — that the human countenance is 
 capable of expressing a variety of more complex emotions 
 than animals can. Those who would degrade the body, in 
 order, as they imagine, to exalt the mind, should consider 
 more deeply than they do the importance of our muscular 
 expressions of feeling. The manifold shades and kinds of 
 expression which the lips present — tlieir gibes, gambols, and 
 flashes of merriment; the quick language of a quivering 
 nostril; the varied waves and ripples of beautiful emotion 
 which play on the human countenance, with the spasms of 
 
MUSCULAR EXPRESSION. 33 
 
 passion that disfigure it — all wliicli wc take such pains to 
 embody in art — are simply effects of muscular action, and 
 might be produced by electricity or any other stimulus, if we 
 could only apply it in suitable force to the proper muscles. 
 "When the eye is turned upward in rapt devotion, in the 
 ecstasy of supplication, it is for the same reason as it is rolled 
 upward in fainting, in sleep, in the agony of death : it is an 
 involuntary act of the oblique muscles, when the straight 
 muscles cease to act upon it. We perceive, then, in the study 
 of muscular action, the reason why man looks up to heaven 
 in prayer, and why he has placed there the power " whence 
 Cometh his help." A simple property of the body, as Sir C. 
 Bell observes — the fact that the eye in supplication takes 
 what is its natural position when not acted upon by the will 
 — has influenced our conceptions of heaven, our religious ob- 
 servances, and the habitual expression of our highest feelings. 
 "Whether each passion which is special in kind has its 
 special bodily expression, and what is the expression of each, 
 it would take me too long to examine now. Suffice it to say 
 that the special muscular action is not merely the exponent 
 of the passion, but truly an essential part of it. Fix the 
 countenance in the pattern of a particular emotion — in a 
 look of anger, of wonder, or of scorn — and the emotion 
 whose appearance is thus imitated will not fail to be aroused. 
 And if we try, while the features are fixed in the expression 
 of one passion, to call up in the mind a quite different one, 
 we shall find it impossible to do so. This agrees with the 
 experiments of Mr. Braid on persons whom he had put into 
 a state of hypnotism ; for, when the features or the limbs 
 were made by him to assume the expression of a particular 
 emotion, thereupon the emotion was actually felt by the pa- 
 tient, who began to act as if he was under its influence. We 
 perceive then that the muscles are not alone the machinery 
 by which the mind acts upon the world, but that their ac- 
 tions are essential elements in our mental operations. The 
 superiority of the human over the animal mind seems to be 
 
34 BODY AXD MIXD. 
 
 essentially connected with the greater variety of muscular 
 action of which man is capable : were he deprived of the in- 
 finitely-varied movements of hands, tongue, larynx, lips, and 
 face, in which he is so far ahead of the animals, it is prob- 
 able that he would be no better than an idiot, notwithstand- 
 ing he might have a normal development of brain.* 
 
 If these reflections are well grounded, it is obvious that 
 disorder of the motor centres may have, as I believe it has, 
 • no little effect upon the phenomena of mental derangement. 
 In some cases of insanity there are genuine muscular hallu- 
 cinations, just as there are in dreams sometimes, when the 
 muscles are in a constrained attitude ; and, w^here the morbid 
 effects are not so marked, there is good reason to suppose 
 that a searching inquiry along this almost untrodden path 
 will disclose the mode of generation of many delusions that 
 seem now inexplicable. 
 
 But we cannot limit a complete study of mind even by a 
 full knowledge of the functions of the nervous and muscular 
 systems. The organic system has most certainly an essential 
 part in the constitution and the functions of mind. In the 
 great mental revolution caused by the development of the 
 sexual system at puberty we have the most striking example 
 of the intimate and essential sympathy between the brain as 
 a mental organ and other organs of the body. The change 
 of character at this period is not by any means limited to the 
 appearance of the sexual feelings and their sympathetic 
 ideas, but, when traced to its ultimate reach, will be found 
 to extend to the highest feelings of mankind, social, moral, 
 and even religious. In its lowest sphere, as a mere animal 
 instinct, it is clear that the sexual appetite forces the most 
 selfish person out of the little circle of self-feeling into a 
 wider feeling of family sympathy and a rudimentary moral 
 feeling. The consequence is that, when an individual is sexu- 
 
 * There may be no little trath, therefore, though not the entire truth, 
 in the saying of Anaxagoras, that man is the wisest of animals by reason 
 of his having hands. 
 
ORGANIC FUNCTIONS. 35 
 
 filly mutilated at an early age, he is emasculated morally as 
 well as physically. Eunuchs are said to be the most de- 
 praved creatures morally : they are cowardly, envious liars, 
 utterly deceitful, and destitute of real social feeling. And 
 there is certainly a characteristic variety of insanity caused 
 by self-abuse, which makes the patient very like a eunuch in 
 character. 
 
 It has been affirmed by some philosophers that there is 
 no essential difference between the mind of a woman and 
 that of a man; and that if a girl were subjected to the same 
 education as a boy, she would resemble him in tastes, feel- 
 ings, pursuits, and powers. To my mind it would not be one 
 whit more absurd to affirm that the antlers of the stag, the 
 human beard, and the cock's comb, are effects of education ; 
 or that, by putting a girl to the same education as a boy, the 
 female generative organs might be transformed into male 
 organs. The physical and mental differences between the 
 sexes intimate themselves very early in life, and declare 
 themselves most distinctly at puberty : they are connected 
 with the influence of the organs of generation. The forms 
 and habits of mutilated men approach those of women ; and 
 women, whose ovaries and uterus remain from some cause in 
 a state of complete inaction, approach the forms and habits 
 of men. It is said, too, that in hermaphrodites the mental 
 character, like the physical, participates equally in that of 
 both sexes. While woman preserves her sex, she will neces- 
 sarily be feebler than man, and, having her special bodily 
 and mental characters, will have to a certain extent her own 
 sphere of activity ; where she has become thoroughly mas- 
 culine in nature, or hermaphrodite in mind — when, in fact, 
 she has pretty well divested herself of her sex — then she 
 may take his ground, and do his work ; but she will have 
 lost her feminine attractions, and probably also her chief 
 feminine functions. 
 
 Allowing that the generative organs have their specific 
 effect upon the mind, the question occurs whether each of 
 
36 BODY AXD MIND. 
 
 the internal organs has not also a special effect, giving rise to 
 particular feelings with their sympathetic ideas. They are 
 notably united in the closest sympathy, so that, although in- 
 sensible to touch, they have a sensibility of their own, by 
 virtue of which they agree in a consent of functions, and re- 
 spond more or less to one another's sufferings ; and there can 
 be no question that the brain, as the leading member of tliis 
 physiological union, is sensible of, and affected by, the con- 
 ditions of its fellow-members. We have not the same oppor- 
 tunity of observing the specific effects of other organs that 
 we have in the case of the generative organs; for while 
 those come into functional action directly after birth, these 
 come into action abruptly at a certain period, and thus ex- 
 hibit their specific effects in a decided manner. It may well 
 be, however, that the general uniformity among men in their 
 passions and emotions is due to the specific sympathies of 
 organs, just as the uniformity of their ideas of external Na- 
 ture is due to the uniform operation of the organs of sense. 
 It is probable that an exact observation of the mental ef-.- 
 fects of morbid states of the different organs would help the 
 inquiry into the feelings and desires of the mind which owe 
 their origin to particular organs. "What are the psychological 
 features of disease of the heart, disease of the lungs, disease 
 of the liver? They are unquestionably different in each case. 
 The inquiry, which has never yet been seriously attempted, 
 is, without cloubt, a difficult one, but I believe that the phe- 
 nomena of dreams might, if carefully observed, afford some 
 help. The ground-tone of feeling in a dream, the background 
 on which the phantoms move, is often determined by the 
 state of an internal organ, the irritation of which awakens 
 into some degree of activity that part of the brain with 
 which the organ is in specific sympathy ; accordingly sympa- 
 thetic ideas spring out of the feeling and unite in a more or 
 less coherent dream-drama. How plainly this happens in the 
 case of the generative organs it is unnecessary to point out : 
 exciting their specific dreams, they teach a lesson concerning 
 
SPECIFIC ORGANIC SYMPATHIES. 37 
 
 physiological sympathies which, applied to tlio observation 
 of the effects of otlier organs, may be largely useful in the 
 interpretation, not of dreams only, but of the phenomena of 
 insanity. Dreams furnish a particularly fruitful field for the 
 study of the specific effects of organs on mind, because these 
 effects are more distinctly felt and more distinctly declared 
 when the impressions from the external senses are shut out 
 by sleep. As tlie stars are not visible, although they still 
 shine, in the daytime, so the effects of an internal organ may 
 not be perceptible during the waking state while conscious- 
 ness is actively engaged. But just as, when the sun goes 
 down, the stars shine visibly, which before were invisible, 
 veiled by his greater light, so Avhen active consciousness is 
 suspended, organic sympathies, which before were insensible, 
 declare themselves in the mind. Perhaps it is in the excita- 
 tion of its sympathetic feeling and ideas by a disordered organ 
 during sleep that we may discover the explanation of a fact 
 which seems to be undoubted, and to be more than accident- 
 al — namely, that a person has sometimes dreamed propheti- 
 cally that he would have a particular internal disease, before 
 he consciously felt a symptom of it, and has been afterward 
 surprised to find his dream come true. 
 
 It is natural to suppose that the passion which a particu- 
 lar organ produces in the mind will be that which, when 
 otherwise excited, discharges itself specially upon that organ. 
 Notably this is the case with the sexual organs and the pas- 
 sion to which they minister. "When we consider the effects 
 which a joyful anticipation, or the elation of a present ex- 
 citement, has upon the lungs — the accelerated breathing and 
 the general bodily exhilaration v/hich it occasions — we can- 
 not help thinking of the strange hopefulness and the sanguine 
 expectations of the consumptive patient, who, on the edge 
 of the grave, projects, without a shadow of distrust, what he 
 will do long after he will have been "green in death and fes- 
 tering in his shroud." Observe how fear strikes the heart, 
 and what anxious fear and apprehension accompany some 
 
38 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 affections of the heart. Anger, disappointment, and envj, 
 notably touch the liver ; which, in its turn, when deranged, 
 engenders a gloomy tone of mind through which all things 
 have a malignant look, and from which, when philosophy 
 avails not to free us, the restoration of its functions will 
 yield instant relief. The internal organs are plainly not the 
 agents of their special functions only, but, by reason of the 
 intimate consent or sympathy of functions, they are essential 
 constituents of our mental life. 
 
 The time yet at my disposal will not allow me to do more 
 than mention the effects of mental states on the intimate pro- 
 cesses of nutrition and secretion. Emotion may undoubtedly 
 favor, hinder, or pervert nutrition, and increase, lessen, or 
 alter a secretion ; in doing which there is reason to think 
 that it acts, not only by dilating or contracting the vessels 
 through the vaso-motor system, as w^e witness in the blush 
 of shame and the pallor of fear, but also directly on the or- 
 ganic elements of the part through the nerves, which, as the 
 latest researches seem to show, end in them sometimes by 
 continuity of substance. If they do so end, it is difficult to 
 conceive how a strong emotion vibrating to the ultimate 
 fibrils of a nerve can fail to affect for a moment or longer 
 the functions of the organic elements. Be this so or not, 
 however, the familiar observations — first, that a lively hope 
 or joy exerts an enlivening effect upon the bodily life, quiet 
 and equable when moderate, but, when stronger, evinced in 
 the brilliancy of the eye, in the quickened pulse and respira- 
 tion, in an inclination to laugh and sing ; and, secondly, that 
 grief or other depressing passion has an opposite effect, re- 
 laxing the arteries, enfeebling the heart, making the eye dull, 
 impeding digestion, and producing an inclination to sigh and 
 weep — these familiar observations of opposite effects indicate 
 the large part which mental states may play, not in the 
 causation of all sorts of disease alone, but in aiding recov- 
 ery from them. A sudden and great mental shock may, like 
 a great physical shock, and perhaps in the same way, par- 
 
INFLUENCE OF MIXD OX BODY. 39 
 
 alyzc for a time all the bodily and mental functions, or cause 
 instant death. It may, again, produce epilepsy, apoplexy, or 
 insanity ; while a prolonged state of depression and anxiety 
 is sometimes an important agent in the causation of chronic 
 disease, such as diabetes and heart-disease. Can it be 
 doubted, too, that the strong belief that a bodily disorder 
 will be cured by some appliance, itself innocent of good or 
 harm, may so affect beneficially the nutrition of the part as 
 actually to effect a cure ? To me it seems not unreasonable 
 to suppose that the mind may stamp its tone, if not its very 
 features, on the individual elements of the body, inspiring 
 them with hope and energy, or infecting them with despair 
 and feebleness. A separated portion of the body, so little 
 that our naked eye can make nothing of it, the spermatozoon 
 of the male and the ovum of the female, does at any rate 
 contain, in a latent state, the essential characters of the 
 mind and body of the individual from whom it has pro- 
 ceeded; and, as we are utterly ignorant how this myste- 
 rious effect is accomplished, we are certainly not in a posi- 
 tion to deny that what is true of the spermatozoon and ovum 
 may be true of other organic elements. And, if this be so, 
 then those who profess to discover the character of the in- 
 dividual in the character of the nose, the hand the features, 
 or other part of the body, may have a foundation of truth 
 for speculations which are yet only vague, fanciful, and val- 
 ueless. 
 
 Perhaps we do not, as physicians, consider sufficiently the 
 influence of mental states in the production of disease, and 
 their importance as symptoms, or take all the advantage 
 which we might take of them in our efforts to cure it. Quack- 
 ery seems to have here got hold of a truth which legitimate 
 medicine fails to appreciate and use adequately. Assuredly 
 the most successful physician is he who, inspiring the great- 
 est confidence in his remedies, strengthens and exalts the im- 
 agination of his patient : if he orders a few drops of pepper- 
 mint-water with the confident air of curing the disease, will 
 
40 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 he not really do more sometimes for the patient than one who 
 treats him in the most approved scientific way, hut without 
 inspiring a conviction of recovery ? Ceremonies, charms, ges- 
 ticulations, amulets, and the like, have in all ages and amoug 
 all nations heen greatly esteemed and largely used in the 
 treatment of disease ; and it may he speciously presumed that 
 they have derived their power, not from any contract with 
 the supernatural, hut, as Bacon observes, by strengthening 
 and exalting the imagination of him who used them. En- 
 tirely ignorant as we are, and probably ever shall be, of the 
 nature of mind, groping feebly for the laws of its operation, 
 we certainly cannot venture to set bounds to its power over 
 those intimate and insensible molecular movements which 
 are the basis of all our visible bodily functions, any more than 
 we can justly venture to set bounds to its action in the vast 
 and ever-progressing evolution of Nature, of which all our 
 thoughts and works are but a part. This much we do know : 
 that as, on the one hand, in the macrocosm of Nature, it is 
 certain that the true idea once evolved is imperishable — that 
 it passes from individual to individual, from nation to nation, 
 from generation to generation, becoming the eternal and ex- 
 alting possession of man — so, on the other hand, in the mi- 
 crocosm of the body, which some ignorantly despise, there 
 are many more things in the reciprocal action of mind and 
 organic element than are yet dreamed of in our philosophy. 
 
LECTURE 11. 
 
 Gentlemen : In my last lecture I gave a general survey 
 of the physiology of our mental functions, showing how in- 
 dissolubly they are bound np with the bodily functions, and 
 how barren must of necessity be a study of mind apart from 
 body. I pointed out that the higher mental operations were 
 functions of the supreme nerve-centres ; but that, though of 
 a higher and more complex nature than the functions of the 
 lower nerve-centres, they obeyed the same physiological laws 
 of evolution, and could be best approached through a knowl- 
 edge of them. I now propose to show that the phenomena 
 of the derangement of mind bear out fully this view of its na- 
 ture ; that we have not to deal with disease of a metaphys- 
 ical entity, which the method of inductive inquiry cannot 
 reach, nor the resources of the medical art touch, but with 
 disease of the nervous system, disclosing itself by physical 
 and mental symptoms. I say advisedly physical and mental, 
 because in most, if not all, cases of insanity, at one period or 
 other of their course, there are, in addition to the prominent 
 mental features, symptoms of disordered nutrition and secre- 
 tion, of disordered sensibility, or of disordered motility. N'ei- 
 ther in health nor in disease is the mind imprisoned in one 
 corner of the body ; and, when a person is lunatic, he is, as 
 Dr. Bucknill has remarked, lunatic to his fingers' ends. 
 
 Mental disorders are neither more nor less than nervous dis- 
 eases in which mental symptoms predominate, and their entire 
 separation from other nervous diseases has been a sad hin- 
 
42 BODY AXD MIND. 
 
 derance to progress. When a blow on the head has paralyzed 
 sensibilitj and movement, in consequence of the disease in 
 the brain which it has initiated, the patient is sent to the 
 hospital ; bnt when a blow on the head has caused mental 
 derangement, in consequence of the disease of brain which it 
 has initiated, the patient is sent to an asylum. In like man- 
 ner, one man who has unluckily swallowed the eggs of a 
 taenia, and has got a cysticercus in the brain, may go to the 
 hospital ; another who has been similarly unlucky goes to an 
 asylum. Syphilitic disease of the brain or its arteries lands 
 one person in an asylum with mental symptoms predominant, 
 another in a hospital with sensory and motor disorder pre- 
 dominant. The same cause produces different symptoms, ac- 
 cording to the part of the brain which it particularly affects. 
 No doubt it is right that mental derangements should have, 
 as they often require, the special appliances of an asylum, 
 but it is certainly not right that the separation which is neces- 
 sary for treatment should reach to their pathology and to the 
 method of its study; So long as this is the case, we shall 
 labor in vain to get exact scientific ideas concerning their 
 causation, their pathology, and their treatment. 
 
 Clearing, then, the question as completely as possible from 
 the haze which metaphysics has cast around it, let us ask — 
 How comes idiocy, or insanity ? "What is the scientific mean- 
 ing of them ? We may take it to be beyond question that 
 they are not accidents; that they come to pass, as every 
 other event in Islature does, by natural law. They are mys- 
 terious visitations only because we understand not the laws 
 of their production, appear casualties only because we are 
 ignorant of their causality. When a blow on the head or an 
 infl.ammation of the membranes of the brain has produced 
 derangement of mind, we need not look farther for a cause : 
 the actual harm done to structure is sufficient to account for 
 disorder of function in the best-constituted and best-developed 
 brain. But it is only in a small proportion of cases of insanity 
 that we can discover such a direct physical occasion of disease. 
 
IDIOCY. 43 
 
 In a great many cases — in more than half, certainly, and per- 
 haps in five out of six — there is something in the nervous 
 organization of the person, some native peculiarity, ■which, 
 however we name it, predisposes him to an outbreak of in- 
 sanity. When two persons undergo a similar moral shock, 
 or a similar prolonged anxiety, and one of them goes mad in 
 consequence, while the other goes to sleep and goes to work 
 and recovers his equanimity, it is plain that all the cooper- 
 ating conditions have not been the same, that the entire 
 cause has been different. What, then, has been the differ- 
 ence ? In the former case there has been present a most im- 
 portant element, whicli was happily wanting in the latter — 
 there has been a certain hereditary neurosis, an unknown and 
 variable quantity in the equation. 
 
 Perhaps of all the erroneous notions concerning mind 
 which metaphysics has engendered or abetted, there is none 
 more false than that which tacitly assumes or explicitly de- 
 clares that men are born with equal original mental capacity, 
 opportunities and education determining the differences of 
 subsequent development. The opinion is as cruel as it is false. 
 What man can by taking thought add one cubit either to his 
 mental or to his bodily stature ? Multitudes of human beings 
 come into the world weighted with a destiny against which 
 they have neither the will nor the power to contend ; they are 
 the step-children of ISTature, and groan under the worst of all 
 tyrannies — the tyranny of a bad organization. Men differ, in- 
 deed, in the fundamental characters of their minds, as they do 
 in the features of their countenances, or in the habits of their 
 bodies; and between those who are born with the poten- 
 tiality of a full and complete mental development, under fa- 
 vorable circumstances, and those who are born with an 
 innate incapacity of mental development, under any circum- 
 stances, there exists every gradation. What teaching could 
 ever raise the congenital idiot to the common level of hu- 
 man intelligence? What teaching could ever keep the in- 
 spired mind of the man of genius at that level? 
 
44 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 The congenital idiot is deprived of his human birthright ; 
 for he is born with such a defect of brain that he cannot 
 display anj, or can only display very feeble and imperfect 
 mental functions. From no fault of his own is he thus afflict- 
 ed, seeing that he must be held innocent of all offence but 
 the offence of his share of original sin ; but it is nowise so 
 clear that it is not from some fault of his parents. It is all too 
 true that, in many cases, there has observably been a neglect 
 or disregard of the laws which govern the progress of human 
 development through the ages. Idiocy is, indeed, a manufac- 
 tured article ; and, although we are not always able to tell 
 how it is manufactured, still its important causes are known 
 and are within control. Many cases are distinctly traceable 
 to parental intemperance and excess. Out of 300 idiots in 
 Massachusetts, Dr. Howe found as many as 145 to be the off- 
 spring of intemperate parents ; and there are numerous scat- 
 tered observations which prove that chronic alcoholism in 
 the parent may directly occasion idiocy in the child. I think, 
 too, that there is no reasonable question of the ill effects of 
 marriages of consanguinity : that their tendency is to pro- 
 duce degeneracy of the race, and idiocy as the extremest 
 form of such degeneracy. I do not say that all the children 
 of such marriages may not sometimes be healthy, and some 
 of them quite healthy at other times ; but the general and 
 ultimate result of breeding in and in is to produce barrenness 
 and sterility, children of a low degree of viability and of 
 imperfect mental and physical development, deaf-mutism, and 
 actual imbecility or idiocy. Again, insanity in the parent 
 may issue in idiocy in the offspring, which is, so to speak, the 
 natural term of mental degeneracy when it goes on un- 
 checked through generations. It may be affirmed with no 
 little confidence that, if the experiment of intermarrying in- 
 sane persons for two or three generations were tried, the re- 
 sult would be sterile idiocy and extinction of the family. 
 Certain unfavorable conditions of life tend unquestionably to 
 produce degeneracy of the individual ; the morbid predispo- 
 
DEGENERATE VARIETIES. 45 
 
 sition so generated is tlien transmitted to the next generation, 
 and, if the unfavorable conditions continue, is aggravated in 
 it; and thus is formed a morbid variety of the human kind, 
 which is incapable of being a link in the line of progress of 
 humanity. Nature puts it under the ban of sterility, and 
 thus prevents the permanent degradation of the race. Morel 
 has traced through four generations the family history of a 
 youth who was admitted into the asylum at Rouen in a state 
 of stupidity and semi-idiocy ; the summary of which may 
 fitly illustrate the natural course of degeneracy when it goes 
 on through generations. 
 
 First generation : Immorality, depravity, alcoholic ex- 
 cess and moral degradation, in the great-grandfather, who 
 was killed in a tavern-brawl. 
 
 Second generation : Hereditary drunkenness, maniacal at- 
 tacks, ending in general paralysis, in the grandfather. 
 
 Third generation : Sobriety, but hypochondriacal tenden- 
 cies, delusions of persecutions, and homicidal tendencies in 
 the father. 
 
 Fourth generation : Defective intelligence. First attack 
 of mania at sixteen; stupidity, and transition to complete 
 idiocy. Furthermore, probable extinction of the family ; 
 for the generative functions were as little developed as those 
 of a child of twelve years of age. He had two sisters who 
 were both defective physically and morally, and were classed 
 as imbeciles. To complete the proof of heredity in this case. 
 Morel adds that the mother had a child while the father was 
 confined in the asylum, and that this adulterous child shovred 
 no signs of degeneracy. 
 
 "When epilepsy in young children leads to idiocy, as it 
 often does, we must generally look for the deep root of the 
 mischief in the family neurosis. 
 
 No one can well dispute that, in the case of such an 
 extreme morbid variety as a congenital idiot is, we have to 
 do with a defective nervous organization. We are still, 
 however, without more than a very few exact descriptions 
 
46 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 of the brains of idiots. Mr. Marshall has recently examined 
 and described the brains of two idiots of European descent. 
 He found the convolutions to be fewer in number, individu- 
 ally less complex, broader and smoother, than in the apes : 
 " In this respect," he says, "the idiots' brains are even more 
 simple than that of the gibbon, and approach that of the 
 baboon." The condition was the result neither of atrophy 
 nor of mere arrest of growth, but consisted essentially in an 
 imperfect evolution of the cerebral hemispheres or their 
 parts, dependent on an arrest of development. The propor- 
 tion of the weight of brain to that of body was extraordinarily 
 diminished. "We learn, then, that when man is born with a 
 brain no higher — indeed, lower — than that of an ape, he may 
 have the convolutions fewer in number, and individually less 
 complex, than they are in the brain of a chimpanzee and an 
 orang; the human brain may revert to, or fall below, that 
 type of development from which, if the theory of Darwin be 
 true, it has gradually ascended by evolution through the 
 ages. 
 
 With the defect of organ there is a corresponding defect 
 of function. But there is sometimes more than a simple 
 defect. A curious and interesting fact, which has by no 
 means yet received the ccmsideration which it deserves, is 
 that, with the appearance of this animal type of brain in 
 idiocy, there do sometimes appear or reappear remarkable 
 animal traits and instincts. There is a class of idiots which 
 may justly be designated tlieroid^ so like brutes are the mem- 
 bers of it. The old stories of so-called wild men, such as 
 Peter the wild boy, and the young savage of Aveyron, who 
 ran wild in the woods and lived on acorns and whatever else 
 they could pick up there, were certainly exaggerated at the 
 time. These degraded beings were evidently idiots, who 
 exhibited a somewhat striking aptitude and capacity for a 
 wild animal life. Dr. Carpenter, however, quotes the case 
 of an idiot girl, who was seduced by some miscreant, and 
 who, when she was delivered, gnawed through the umbilical 
 
THEROID DEGENERACY. 47 
 
 cord as some of the lower animals do. And Dr. Crichton 
 Brown, of the "West Riding Asylum, records a somewhat 
 similar case in a young woman, not an idiot naturally, but 
 who had gone completely demented after insanity. She had 
 been in the habit of escaping from home, and of living in 
 solitude in the woods, feeding upon wild fruits or what she 
 could occasionally beg at a cottage, and sleeping in the brush- 
 wood. She had frequently lived in this manner for a fort- 
 night at a time. During one of these absences she was 
 delivered of twins; she had sought out a sheltered hollow, 
 and there, reverting to a primitive instinct, gnawed through 
 the umbilical cord. The twins were alive when found two 
 days after birth, but the mother was in a very exhausted 
 state, having had no food or covering since her delivery. 
 " We have at Salpetriere," says Esquirol, " an imbecile woman, 
 who used to earn a few sous by doing rough household 
 work. It has happened on several occasions that as soon as 
 she got her sous she took them to a laborer, and gave herself 
 up to his brutality ; but when she was pregnant she went no 
 more to him." 
 
 In the conformation and habits of other idiots the most 
 careless observer could not help seeing the ape. A striking 
 instance of this kind is described by Dr. Mitchell, Deputy 
 Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotlaud. " I have never," he 
 says, " seen a better illustration of the ape-faced idiot than in 
 this case. It is not, however, the face alone that is ape- 
 like. He grins, chatters, and screams like a monkey, never 
 attempting a sound in any way resembling a word. lie puts 
 himself in the most ape-like attitude in his hunts after lice, 
 and often brings his mouth to help his hands. He grasps 
 what he brings to his mouth with an apish hold. His thumbs 
 are but additional fingers. He has a leaping walk. He has 
 heavy eyebrows, and short hair on his cheek or face. He is 
 muscular, active, and not dwarfish. He sits on the floor in 
 ape fashion, with his genitals always exposed. He has filtliy 
 habits of all kinds. He may be called an idiot of the lowest 
 
48 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 order ; yet there is a miscliievous brute-like intelligence in his 
 eye. His head is not very small, its greatest circumference 
 being twenty inches and a half, but in shape it strongly 
 exhibits the ape-form of abnormality." 
 
 Pinel has recorded the case of an idiot who ^^^s some- 
 thing like a sheep, both in respect of her tastes, her mode of 
 life, and the form of her head. She had an aversion to meat, 
 and ate fruit and vegetables greedily, and drank nothing but 
 water. Her demonstrations of sensibility, joy, or trouble, 
 were confined to the repetition of the ill-articulated words, 
 5^, ma^ l)ah. She alternately bent and raised her head, and 
 rubbed herself against the belly of the girl who attended 
 her. If she wanted to resist or express her discontent, she 
 tried to butt with the crown of her head ; she was very pas- 
 sionate. Her back, her loins, and shoulders, were covered 
 with flexible and blackish hairs one or two inches long. She 
 never could be made to sit on a chair or bench, even when at 
 meals ; as soon as she was placed in a sitting posture, she 
 glided on the floor. She slept on the floor in the posture of 
 animals. 
 
 There is now under care, in the West Eiding Asylum, a 
 deformed idiot girl who, in general appearance and habits, 
 has, according to Dr. Brown, striking features of resemblance 
 to a goose ; so much so, that the nurses who received her de- 
 scribed her as just like " a plucked goose." Her father died 
 in the asylum, and her mother's sister was also a patient in it 
 at one time. She is four feet two inches in height, has a small 
 head, and thin and scanty hair, so that the crown of the head 
 is partially bald. The eyes are large, round, prominent, and 
 restless, and are frequently covered by the eyelids, as if by a 
 slow, forcible effort at winking. The lower jaw is large, 
 projecting more than one inch beyond the contracted upper 
 jaw, and possesses an extraordinary range of antero-pos- 
 terior, as well as lateral, movement ; the whole configuration 
 of the lower part of the face having a somewhat bill-like ap- 
 pearance. The neck is unusually long and flexible, and is 
 
TIIEROID IDIOCY. 40 
 
 capable of being bent backward so as actually to touch tlic 
 back betv/een the scapuhe. Tlie cutis anserina is general 
 over the body, but is most marked on the back and dorsal 
 aspects of the limbs, where it looks exactly as if it had been 
 just deprived of feathers. The inferior angles of the^capuhc 
 stand prominently out, and moving freely with the movements 
 of the arms have precisely the appearance of rudimentary 
 wings. The girl utters no articulate sounds, but expresses 
 pleasure by cackling like a goose, and displeasure by hissing 
 or screeching like a goose, or perhaps like a macaw. "When 
 angry, she flaps her arms against her sides and beats her feet 
 upon the floor. She knows her own name, and understands 
 one or two short sentences, such as " Come here " and " Put 
 out your hand." She recognizes the persons who attend 
 upon her, and feed her, and is much agitated if touched by a 
 stranger. She cannot feed herself, but swallows voraciously 
 all that is put into her- mouth, showing no preference for one 
 article of diet over another. She is dirty in her habits, and 
 no amount of attention has improved her in this respect. 
 She is very fond of her bath, cackling when she is put into it. 
 and screeching when she is taken out of it.* 
 
 It is a natural question, Whence come these animal traits 
 
 * The following account of an itliot in the Vv'estern Counties Idiot Aej-- 
 lum has been communicated to me by Mr. Kenton, surgeon to the Asylum : 
 She is between 15 and IG years old, has a very small head, bnt is well formed 
 otherwise, and well nourished. She has little or no intellect, not being able 
 to speak, and barely understanding a few signs. By careful treatment she 
 has been taught to feed herself, but there her education has reached its 
 limit. She has been left to herself, and watched with a view to observe her 
 natural habits. When alone in the garden, she chooses a quiet spot among 
 the shnxbs, and, sitting down, will bend forward with her small head be- 
 tween her thighs, and occupy herself in picking imaginary insects from the 
 adjacent parts of her body, pretending to pick them and to throw them 
 away. She will then w\inder about, and finding a suitable bough, will 
 swing by her hands, and then double her legs over the branch and swing 
 with her head downward. She will steal any thing she fancies, and hide it 
 away ; will suddenly spring upon any child near and bite and scratch it, 
 and then in a moment look as demure as if she had done nothing. At cer- 
 tain limes she will go under the shrubs, scratch a hole with her hands in 
 3 
 
50 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 and instincts in man? Whence was derived tlie instinct 
 which taught the idiot woman to gnaw through the umbilical 
 cord ? Was it really the reappearance of a primitive instinct 
 of animal nature — a faint echo from a far-distant past, testi- 
 fying to a kinship which man has almost outgrown, or has 
 grown too proud to acknowledge ? No doubt such animal 
 traits are marks of extreme human degeneracy, but it is no 
 explanation to call them so ; degenerations come by law, and 
 are as natural as natural law can make them. Instead of 
 passing them by as abnormal, or, worse still, stigmatizing 
 them as unnatural, it behooves us to seek for the scientific 
 interpretation which they must certainly have. When we 
 reflect that every human brain does, in the course of its de- 
 velopment, pass through the same stages as the brains of 
 other vertebrate animals, and that its transitional states re- 
 semble the permanent forms of their brains ; and when we 
 reflect farther, that the stages of its development in the 
 womb may be considered the abstract and brief chronicle of 
 a series of developments that have gone on through countless 
 ages in Nature, it does not seem so wonderful, as at the first 
 blush it might do, that it should, when in a condition of 
 arrested development, sometimes display animal instincts. 
 Summing up, as it were, in itself the leading forms of the 
 vertebrate type, there is truly a brute brain within the man's ; 
 and when the latter stops short of its characteristic develop- 
 ment as Tiuman — when it remains arrested at or below the 
 level of an orang's brain — it may be presumed that it will 
 manifest its most primitive functions, and no higher functions. 
 
 the ground, sit down upon it as a cat does, then turn round and carefully 
 cover the spot by scraping the earth over it with her hands. She tears her 
 clothes up into strips, and hides the pieces. Mr. Kenton mentions another 
 idiot under his care, who puts every thing to his nose before putting it into 
 his mouth. This he does, not hastily, but deliberately, examining each 
 piece of food carefully by his sense of smell. He greatly dislikes butter, 
 and will not eat pie-crust or any cooked food which contains butter, and ho 
 detects its presence with certainty by the sense of smell. He will not kiss 
 any one till he has sniffod at the person first. 
 
CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT. 51 
 
 I am not aware of any other considerations than tliose just 
 adduced which ofter even the glimpse of an explanation of 
 the origin of these animal traits in man. We need not, how- 
 ever, confine our attention to idiots only. Whence come the 
 savage snarl, the destructive disposition, the obscene lan- 
 guage, the wild howl, the offensive habits, displayed by some 
 of the insane? Why should a human being deprived of his 
 reason ever become so brutal in character as some do, unless 
 he has the brute nature within him? In most large asylums 
 there is one, or more than one, example of a demented per- 
 son who truly ruminates : bolting his food rapidly, he retires 
 afterward to a corner, where at his leisure he quietly brings 
 it up again into the mouth and masticates it as the cow does. 
 I should take up a long time if I were to enumerate the 
 various brute-like cliaracteristics that are at times witnessed 
 among the insane ; enough to say that some very strong facts 
 and arguments in support of Mr. Darwin's views might be 
 drawn from the field of morbid psychology. We may, with- 
 out much difficulty, trace savagery in civilization, as we can 
 trace animalism in savagery ; and, in the degeneration of in- 
 sanity, in the unlindlng, so to say, of the human kind, there 
 are exhibited marks denoting the elementary instincts of its 
 composition. 
 
 It behooves us, as scientific inquirers, to realize distinctly 
 the physical meaning of the progress of human intelligence 
 from generation to generation. What structural differences 
 in the brain are implied by it ? That an increasing purpose 
 runs through the ages and that "the thoughts of men are 
 widened with the process of the suns," no one will call in 
 question ; and that this progress has been accompanied by a 
 progressive development of the cerebral hemispheres, the 
 convolutions of which have increased in size, number, and 
 complexity, will hardly now be disputed. Whether the frag- 
 ments of ancient human crania which have been discovered 
 in Europe do or do not testify to the existence of a barbarous 
 rao^e that disap])eared before historical time, they certainly 
 
52 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 mark a race not higher than the lowest surviving human va- 
 riety. Dr. Pritchard's comparison of the skulls of the same 
 nation at different periods of its history led him to the con- 
 clusion that the present inhahitants of Britain, " either as the 
 result of many ages of great intellectual cultivation or from 
 some other cause, have much more capacious hrain-cascs 
 than their forefathers." Yet stronger evidence of a growth 
 of brain with the growth of intelligence is furnished by an 
 examination of the brains of existing savages. Gratiolet has 
 figured and described the brain of the Hottentot Venus, who 
 was nov/ise an idiot. He found a striking simplicity and a 
 regular arrangement of the convolution of the frontal lobes, 
 which presented an almost perfect symmetry in the two 
 hemispheres, involuntarily recalling the regularity and sym- 
 metry of the cerebral convolutions in the lower animals. 
 The brain was palpably inferior to that of a normally-de- 
 veloped white woman, and could only be compared with the 
 brain of a white idiotic from arrest of cerebral development. 
 Mr. Marshall has also recently examined the brain of a Bush- 
 woman, and has discovered like evidence of structural inferi- 
 ority : the primary convolutions, although all present, were 
 smaller and much less complicated than in the European ; 
 the external connecting convolutions were still more remark- 
 ably defective; the secondary sulci and convolutions were 
 everywhere decidedly less developed ; there was a deficiency 
 of transverse commissural fibres ; and in size, and every one 
 of the signs of comparative inferiority, "it leaned, as it were, 
 to the higher quadrumanous forms." The developmental dif- 
 ferences between this brain and the brain of a European 
 were in fact of the same kind as, though less in degree than, 
 those between the brain of an ape and that of a man. 
 Among Europeans the average weight of the brain is greater 
 in educated than in uneducated persons ; its size — other cir- 
 cumstances being equal — bearing a general relation to the 
 mental power of the individual. Dr. Thurnam concludes, 
 from a series of carefully-compiled tables, that while 
 
BRAlX-WEIGnTS. 53 
 
 tho average weight of the brain in ordinary Europeans 
 is 49 oz., it was 54.7 oz. in ten distinguished men; and 
 Prof. Wagner found a remarkably complex arrangement 
 of the convolutions in the brains of five very eminent 
 men which he examined.* Thus, then, while we take it to 
 be well established that the convolutions of the human brain 
 have undergone a considerable development through the ages, 
 we may no less justly conclude that its larger, more numer- 
 ous, and complex convolutions reproduce the higher and more 
 varied mental activity to the progressive evolution of which 
 their progressive increase has answered — that they manifest 
 the kind of function which has determined the structure. 
 The vesicular neurine has increased in quantity and in qual- 
 ity, and the function of the increased and more highly-en- 
 dowed structure is to display that intelligence which it un- 
 
 *The following table is compiled from Dr. Thumarn's paper "On the 
 Weight of the Human Brain " (Journal of Mental Science, April, 1866) : 
 
 BRAIN-WEIGHTS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 
 
 Ages. Or. 
 
 1. Cuvier, Naturalist 63 64.5 
 
 2. Abercrombie, Physician 64 03 
 
 3. Spurzheim, Physician 56 55.06 
 
 4. Dirichlet, Mathematician 54 55.6 
 
 5. De Moray, Statesman and Courtier .... 50 53.6 
 
 6. Daniel Webster, Statemian 70 53.5 
 
 7. Campbell, Lord- Chancellor ...... 80 53.5 
 
 8. Chalmers, celebrated Preacher 67 53 
 
 9. Fuchs, Pathologist 52 52.9 
 
 10. Gauss, Mathematician ....... 78 52.6 
 
 Average of ten distinguished men .... 50-70 54^7 
 
 Brain-weights of average European men . . . • j 50I70 47.1 
 
 Average brain-weight of male negroes 4-1.3 
 
 " " 14 congenital idiots (males) . . 42 
 
 " 8 " " (females) . . 41.2 
 
 Estimated brain-weight of Microcephalic idiocy (males) . . 37.5 
 
 " (females) . 32.5 
 It may be proper to add that the average weight of the adult male brain 
 is 10 per cent, greater than that of the female— 100 : 90. The brains of the 
 Hottentot, Bushman, and Australian are, eo far as observation goes, of less 
 weight than those of negroes. 
 
54 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 consciously embodies. The native Australian, Avho is one of 
 the lowest existing savages, has no words in his language to 
 express such exalted ideas as justice, love, virtue, mercy; he 
 has no such ideas in his mind, and cannot comprehend them. 
 The vesicular neurine which should embody them in its con- 
 stitution and manifest them in its function has not been de- 
 veloped in his convolutions; he is as incapable therefore of 
 tlie higher mental displays of abstract reasoning and moral 
 feeling as an idiot is, and for a like reason. Indeed, were we 
 to imagine a person born in this country, at this time, with 
 a brain of no higher development than the brain of an Aus- 
 tralian savage or a Bushman, it is perfectly certain that he 
 would be more or less of an imbecile. And the only way, I 
 suppose, in which beings of so low an order of development 
 could be raised to a civilized level of feeling and thought 
 would be by cultivation continued through several genera- 
 tions ; they would have to undergo a gradual process of hu- 
 manization before they could attain to the capacity of civili- 
 zation. 
 
 Some, who one moment own freely the broad truth that 
 all mental manifestations take place through the brain, go 
 on, nevertheless, to straightway deny that the conscience or 
 moral sensibility can be a function of organization. But, if 
 all mental operations are not in this world equally functions 
 of organization, I know not what warrant we have for de- 
 claring any to be so. The solution of the much-vexed ques- 
 tion concerning the origin of the moral sense seems to lie in 
 the considerations just adduced. Are not, indeed, our moral 
 intuitions results of the operation of the fundamental law of 
 nervous organization by which that which is consciously ac- 
 quired becomes an unconscious endowment, and is then 
 transmitted as more or less of an instinct to the next genera- 
 tion? They are examples of knowledge which has been 
 hardly gained through the suffering and experience of the 
 race, being now inherited as a natural or instinctive sensi- 
 bility of the well-constituted brain of the individual. In the 
 
THE MORAL SENSE. 55 
 
 iiuitter of our moral feelings we arc most truly tlie heirs of 
 the ages. Take the moral sense, and examine the actions 
 ■which it sanctions and those which it forbids, and thus ana- 
 lyze, or, as it were, decompose, its nature, and it will he found 
 that the actions which it sanctions are those which may be 
 proved by sober reason to be conducive to the well-being and 
 the progress of the race, and that its prohibitions fall upon 
 the actions which, if freely indulged in, would lead to the 
 degeneration, if not extinction, of mankind. And if we 
 could imagine the human race to live back again to its ear- 
 liest infancy — to go backward through all the scenes and 
 experiences through which it has gone forward to its present 
 height — and to give back from its mind and character at 
 each time and circumstance, as it passed it, exactly that 
 which it gained when it was there before — should we not 
 llnd the fragments and exuviae of the moral sense lying here 
 and there along the retrograde path, and n condition at the 
 beginning which, whether simian or hum.a.^, \\'i\s bare of aV 
 true moral feeling ? "•' 
 
 We are daily witnesses of, and our daily actions testify 
 to, the operation of that plastic law of nervous organization 
 by which separate and successive acquisitions are combined 
 and so intimately blended as to constitute apparently a sin- 
 gle and undecomposable faculty : we observe it in the forma- 
 tion of our volitions; and we observe it, in a more simple 
 and less disputable form, in the way in which combinations 
 of movements that liave been slowly formed by practice are 
 executed finally as easily as if they were a single and sim- 
 ple movement. If the moral sense — which is derived, then, 
 insomuch as it has been acquired in the process of human 
 development through the ages — were not more or less innate 
 in the well-born individual of this age, if he were obliged to 
 go, as the generations of his forefathers have gone, through 
 
 * Foster, in bis " Eesay ou Decision of Cliaracter," makes this concep- 
 tion of tlie individual cliaracter, almost in the words used ; but the applica- 
 tion of it to the race, and the conclusion drawn, are of course not hiji. 
 
5G BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 the elementaiy process of acquiring it, lie would be very 
 much in the position of a person wlio, on each occasion of 
 writing his name, had to go through the elementary steps of 
 learning to do so. The progressive evolution of the human 
 brain is a proof that we do inherit as a natural endowment 
 the labored acquisitions of our ancestors ; the added struct- 
 ure represents, as it were, the embodied experience and 
 memories of the race ; and there is no greater difficulty in 
 believing that the moral sense may have been so formed, than 
 in believing, what has long been known and is admitted on 
 all hands, that the young fox or young dog inherits as an in- 
 stinct the special cunning which the foxes and the dogs that 
 have gone before it have had to win by hard experience. 
 
 These remarks are not an unnecessary digression. !Mor 
 will they have been made in vain if they serve to fix in our 
 minds the conviction that the law of progressive evolution 
 and specialization of nerve-centres, which may be traced 
 generally from the first appearance of nerve-tissue in the low- 
 est animals to the complex structure of the nervous system 
 of man, and specially from the rudimentary appearance of 
 cerebral convolutions in the lower vertebrata to the numer- 
 ous and complex convolutions of the human brain, does not 
 abruptly cease its action at the vesicular neurine of the hemi- 
 spheres, but continues in force within the intimate recesses 
 of the mental organization. Moreover, they are specially to 
 the purpose, seeing that they enable us to understand in some 
 sort how it is that a perversion or destruction of the moral 
 sense is often one of the earliest symptoms of mental derange- 
 ment : as the latest and most exquisite product of mental or- 
 ganization, the highest bloom of culture, it is the first to 
 testify to disorder of the mind-centres. Not that we can de- 
 tect any structural change in such case ; it is far too delicate 
 for that. The wonder would, indeed, be if we could discover 
 such more than microscopical changes with the instruments 
 of research which we yet possess. We might almost as well 
 look to discover the anatomy of a gnat with a telescope. 
 
IXSANE NEUROSIS. 57 
 
 I purposely selected for consideration the defective brain 
 of the idiot, because it exhibits an undeniable fault of struct- 
 ure, which is often plainly traceable to evil ancestral in- 
 fluences. When we duly consider this, and reflect that we 
 might, if we chose, arrange a series of human brains which 
 should present a regular gradation from the brain of an ape 
 to that of a well-developed European, are we not fully justi- 
 fied in supposing that like unfavorable ancestral influences 
 may occasion defects in the constitution or composition of 
 the mind-centres which we are yet quite unable to detect ? 
 We know nothing of the occult molecular movements which 
 are the physical conditions of our mental operations ; we 
 know little or nothing of the. chemical changes which accom- 
 pany them — cannot, in fact, detect the difterence between 
 the nerve-element of a brain exhausted by exercise and in- 
 capable of further function, and that of a brain reinvigorated 
 by sleep and ready for a day of energetic function ; and we 
 know nothing of the intricate connection of nerve-cells in the 
 hemispheres. It is plain, then, that there may be, unknown 
 to us save as guessed from their effects, the most important 
 modifications in the molecular activities of nerve-element, 
 changes in its chemical composition, and actual defects in the 
 physical constitution of the nerve-centres. Wherefore, when 
 no appreciable defect is found in the brain of one who has 
 had a strong predisposition to insanity, and has ultimately 
 died insane, it behooves us to forbear a hasty conclusion that 
 it is a perfectly vrell-constituted brain. Close to us, yet in- 
 accessible to our senses, there lies a domain of Nature — that 
 of the infinitely little — the operations in which are as much 
 beyond our present ken as are those that take place in the 
 remotest regions of space, to which the eye, Avith all its aids, 
 cannot yet reach, and of which the mind cannot conceive. 
 
 It certainly cannot be disputed that, when nothing abnor- 
 mal whatever may be discoverable in the brains of persons 
 who have a strong hereditary tendency to insanity, they 
 often ,eshibit characteristic peculiarities iu their manner of 
 
58 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 thought, feeling, and conduct, carrying in their physiognomy, 
 bodily habit, and mental disposition, the sure marks of their 
 evil heritage. These marks are, I believe, the outward and 
 visible signs of an inward and invisible peculiarity of cerebral 
 organization. Here, indeed, we broach a most important in- 
 quiry, which has only lately attracted attention — the inquiry, 
 namely, into the physical and mental signs of the degeneracy 
 of the human kind. I do not mean to assert that all persons 
 whose parents or blood relatives have suffered from nervous 
 or mental disease exhibit mental and bodily peculiarities ; 
 some may be well formed bodily and of superior natural in- 
 telligence, the hereditary disposition in them not having 
 assumed the character of deterioration of race ; but it admits 
 of no dispute that there is what may be called an insane 
 temperament or neurosis^ and that it is marked by peculiari- 
 ties of mental and bodily conformation. Morel, who was the 
 first to indicate, and has done mucli to prosecute, this line of 
 inquiry, looks upon an individual so constituted as containing 
 in himself the germs of a morbid variety : summing up the 
 pathological elements which have been manifested by his an- 
 cestors, he represents the first term of a series which, if 
 nothing happen to check the transmission of degenerate ele- 
 ments from generation to generation, ends in the extreme 
 degeneracy of idiocy, and in extinction of the family. 
 
 "What are the bodily and mental marks of the insane 
 temperament ? That there are sucb is most certain ; for 
 although the varieties of this temperament cannot yet be 
 described with any precision, no one who accustoms himself 
 to observe closely will fail to be able to say positively, in 
 many instances, whether an insane person, and even a sane 
 person in some instances, comes of an insane family or not. 
 An irregular and unsymmetrical conformation of the head, a 
 want of regularity and harmony of the features, and, as Morel 
 holds, malformations of the external ear, are sometimes ob- 
 served. Convulsions are apt to occur in early life, and there 
 are tics, grimaces, or other spasmodic movements of muscles 
 
THE IXSAXE TEMPERAMENT. 59 
 
 of face, eyelids, or lips, afterward. Stammering and defects 
 of prommciation are also sometimes signs of the neurosis. 
 In other cases there are peculiarities of the eyes, which, 
 though they may be full and prominent, have a vacillating 
 movement, and a vacantly-abstracted, or half-fearful, half- 
 suspicious, and distrustful look. There may, indeed, bo 
 something in the eye wonderfully suggestive of the look of an 
 animal. The walk and manner are uncertain, and, though 
 not easily described in words, may be distinctly peculiar. 
 With these bodily traits are associated peculiarities of thought, 
 feeling, and conduct. Without being insane, a person who 
 has the insane neurosis strongly marked is thought to bo 
 strange, queer, and not like other persons. He is apt to see 
 things under novel aspects, or to think about them under 
 novel relatiims, which would not have occurred to an ordinary 
 mortal. Punning on words is, I am inclined to think, some- 
 times an indication of the temperament, and so also that 
 higlicr kind of wit which startles us with the use of an idea 
 in a double sense ; of both which aptitudes no better example 
 can be given than that of Charles Lamb. His case, too, may 
 show that the insane temperament is compatible with, and 
 indeed it not seldom coexists with, considerable genius. Even 
 those who have it iii a more marked form often exliibit re- 
 markable special talents and aptitudes, such as an extraor- 
 dinary talent for music, or for calculation, or a prodigious 
 memory for details, when they may be little better than im- 
 becile in other things. There is, indeed, a marked instinctive 
 character in all thoy think and do ; they seem not to need or 
 to be able to reflect upon their own mental states. iVt one 
 time unduly elated, at another time depressed without ap- 
 parent cause, they are prone to do things diflTerently from 
 the rest of the world ; and now and then they do whimsical 
 and seemingly quite purposeless acts, especially under con- 
 ditions of excitement, when the impulses springing out of the 
 unconscious morbid nature surprise and overpower them. 
 Indeed, the mental balance may be easily upset altogether by 
 
60 BODY AND lllKD. 
 
 any great moral shock, or by tlie strain of continued anxiety. 
 A great physical change in the system, too, such as is caused 
 by the development of puberty, by the puerperal state, and 
 the climacteric change, is not without danger to their mental 
 stability. The effects of alcohol on such persons are in some 
 respects special : it does not make them so much drunk as 
 mad for the time being ; and I think it will be found in most, 
 if not all, cases of insanity caused by alcohol that there has 
 been a predisposition to it. 
 
 I have sketched generally the features of the insane 
 temperament, but there are really several varieties of it which 
 need to be observed and described. In practice we meet 
 with individuals representing every gradation from the mild- 
 est form of the insane temperament down to actual idiocy. 
 These cases ought to be arranged in groups according to their 
 affinities, for until this be done we shall not make much real 
 progress toward exact scientific notions respecting the causa- 
 tion and pathology of insanity. One group might consist of 
 those egotistic beings, having the insane neurosis, who mani- 
 fest a peculiar morbid suspicion of every thing and every- 
 body ; they detect an interested or malicious motive in the 
 most innocent actions of others, always looking out for an 
 evil interpretation ; and even events they regard as in a sort 
 of conspiracy against them. Incapable of altruistic reflec- 
 tion and true sympathies, they live a life of solitude and self- 
 brooding, intrenched within their morbid self-feeling, until the 
 discord between them and the world is so great that there is 
 nothing for it but to count them mad. Another group might 
 be made of those persons of unsound mental temperament 
 who are born with an entire absence of the moral sense, 
 destitute of the possibility even of moral feeling ; they are 
 as truly insensible to the. moral relations of life, as defi- 
 cient in this regard, as a person color-blind is to certain 
 colors, or as one who is without ear for music is to the finest 
 harmonies of sound. Although there is usually conjoined 
 with this 4ibsence of moral sensibility more or less weakness 
 
MORAL DEFECTS. 61 
 
 of mind, it does happen in some instances that there is a rc- 
 markablj acute intellect of the cunning type. 
 
 The observations of intelligent prison-surgeons are tend- 
 ing more and more to prove that a considerable proportion 
 of criminals are weak-minded or epileptic, or come of families 
 in which insanity, epilepsy, or some other neurosis, exists. 
 Mr. Thompson, surgeon to the General Prison of Scotland, 
 has gone so far recently as to express his conviction that the 
 principal business of prison-surgeons must always be with 
 mental defects or disease ; that the diseases and causes of 
 death among prisoners are chiefly of the nervous system; 
 and, in line, that the treatment of crime is a branch of psy- 
 chology. He holds that there is among criminals a distinct 
 and incurable criminal class, marked by peculiar low physical 
 and mental characteristics; that crime is hereditary in the 
 families of criminals belonging to this class; and that this 
 hereditary crime is a disorder of mind, having close relations 
 of nature and descent to epilepsy, dipsomania, insanity, and 
 other forms of degeneracy. Such criminals are really movMd 
 varieties, and often exhibit marks of physical degeneration — 
 spinal deformities, stammering, imperfect organs of speech, 
 club-foot, cleft-palate, hare-lip, deafness, paralysis, epilepsy, 
 and scrofula. Moreau relates a striking case, which is of in- 
 terest as indicating the alliance between morbid or degenerate 
 varieties, and which I may quote here. 
 
 Mrs. D , aged thirty-tAvo. Her grandfather kept an 
 
 inn at the time of the great French Revolution, and during 
 the Reign of Terror he had profited by the critical situation 
 in which many nobles of the department found themselves to 
 get them secretly into his house, where he was believed to 
 have robbed and murdered them. His daughter, who was in 
 his secrets, having quarrelled with him, denounced him to 
 the authorities, but he escaped conviction from want of proofs. 
 She subsequently committed suicide. One of her brothers 
 had nearly murdered her with a knife on one occasion, and 
 another brother hanged himself. Her sister vras epileptic, 
 
62 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 imbecile, and paroxjsmally violent. Ilur daugliter, the pa- 
 tient, after swimming in the head, noises in the ears, flashes 
 before the eyes, became deranged, fancying that people were 
 plotting against her, purchasing arms and barricading herself 
 in her room, and was finally put in an asylum. Thus there 
 were, in different members of this family, crime, melancholia, 
 epilepsy, suicide, and mania. Need we wonder at it ? The 
 moral element is an essential part of a complete and sound 
 character ; he who is destitute of it, being unquestionably to 
 that extent a defective being, is therefore on the road to, or 
 marks, race degeneracy ; and it is not a matter of much won- 
 der that his children should, when better influences do not 
 intervene to check the morbid tendency, exhibit a further de- 
 gree of degeneracy, and be actual morbid varieties. I think 
 that no one who has studied closely the causation of insanity 
 will question this mode of production. 
 
 I could not, if I would, in the present state of knowledge, 
 describe accurately all the characteristics of the insane neu- 
 rosis, and group according to their aflinities the cases testify- 
 ing to its influence. The chief concern now with its morbid 
 peculiarities is to point out, first, that they mark some inher- 
 ited fault of brain-organization ; and, secondly, that the cause 
 of such fault is not insanity alone in the parent, but may be 
 other nervous disease, such as hysteria, epilepsy, alcoholism, 
 paralysis, and neuralgia of all kinds. Except in the case of 
 suicidal insanity, it is not usual for the parent to transmit to 
 the child the particular form of mental derangement from 
 which he has suffered : insanity in the^parent may be epilepsy 
 in the child, and epilepsy in the parent insanity in the child ; 
 and, in families where a strong tendency to insanity exists, 
 on« member may be insane, another epileptic, a third may 
 suffer from severe neuralgia, and a fourth may commit sui- 
 cide. The morbid conditions which affect the motor nerve- 
 centres in one generation seem to concentrate themselves 
 sometimes upon the sensory or the ideational centres in an- 
 other. In truth, nervous disease is a veritable Proteus, dis- 
 
TRANSITORY FURY. 63 
 
 appearing in one form to reappear in another, and, it may be, 
 capriciously skipping one generation to fasten upon the next. 
 
 The different forms of insanity that occur in young cliil- 
 dren — as all forms of it except general paralysis may do — are 
 almost always traceable to nervous disease in the preceding 
 generation, a neuropathic condition being really the essential 
 element in their causation. The cases of acute mania in chil- 
 dren of a few weeks or a few years old, which have been de- 
 scribed, might more properly be classed as examples of idiocy 
 with excitement. There can be no true mania until there is 
 some mind. But we do meet sometimes in older children 
 with a genuine acute mania, occurring usually in connection 
 with chorea or epilepsy, and presenting the symptoms, if I 
 may so express it, of a mental chorea or an epilepsy of the 
 mind, but without the spasmodic and convulsive movements 
 of these diseases. More or less dulness of intelligence and 
 apathy of movement, giving the seeming of a degree of imbe- 
 cility, is common enough in chorea, and in some cases there 
 is violent delirium ; but, besides these cases, there are others 
 in which, without choreic disorder of movements, there is a 
 choreic mania : it is an active delirium of ideas which is the 
 counterpart of the usual delirium of movements, audits auto- 
 matic character and its marked incoherence are striking 
 enough to an ordinary observer. Hallucinations of the spe- 
 cial senses, and loss or perversion of general sensibility, usu- 
 ally accompany the delirium, the disorder affecting the cen- 
 tres of special and general sensation, as well as the mind-cen- 
 tres. 
 
 Between this choreic mania and epileptic mania there are 
 intermediate conditions partaking more or less of the charac- 
 ter of one or the other — hybrid forms of a cataleptic nature. 
 The child will lie for hours or days in a seeming ecstasy or 
 trance, with its limbs rigid or fixed in a strange posture. 
 There may be apparent insensibility to impressions, while at 
 other times vague answers are given, or there is a sudden 
 bursting out into wild shrieks or incoherent raving. If this 
 
64 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 be of a religious kind, the cLild is apt to be thought by ig- 
 norant persons to be inspired. The attacks are of variable 
 duration, and are repeated at varying intervals. On the one 
 hand, they pass into attacks of chorea; and, on the other 
 hand, into true epileptic seizures, or alternate with them. 
 
 In children, as in adults, a brief attack of violent mania, 
 a genuine mania transitoria, may precede, or follow, or take 
 the place of an epileptic fit ; in the latter case being a masked 
 epilepsy. Children of three or four years of age are some- 
 times seized with attacks of violent shrieking, desperate 
 stubbornness, or furious rage, when they bite, tear, kick, and 
 do all the destruction they can; these seizures, which are a 
 sort of vicarious epilepsy, come on periodically, and may 
 either pass in the course of a few months into regular epilepsy, 
 or may alternate with it. Older children have perpetrated 
 crimes of a savage and determined nature — incendiarism and 
 even murder — under the influence of similar attacks of tran- 
 sitory fury, followed or not by epileptic convulsions. It is of 
 the utmost importance to realize the deep effect which the 
 epileptic neurosis may have on the moral character, and to 
 keep in mind the possibility of its existence when a savage, 
 apparently motiveless, and unaccountable crime has been 
 committed. A single epileptic seizure has been known to 
 change entirely the moral character, rendering a child rude, 
 vicious, and perverse, who was hitherto gentle, amiable, and 
 tractable. No one who has seen it can fail to have been 
 struck with the great and abrupt change in moral character 
 which takes place in the asylum epileptic immediately before 
 the recurrence of his fits; in the intervals between them he 
 is often an amiable, obliging, and industrious being, but when 
 they impend he becomes sullen, morose, and most dangerous 
 to meddle with. Not an attendant but can then foretell that 
 he is going to have his fits, as confidently almost as he can 
 foretell that the sun will rise next day. Morel has made the 
 interesting observation, which is certainly well founded, that 
 the epileptic neurosis may exist for a considerable period in 
 
INSANE NEUROSIS. G5 
 
 an undeveloped or masked form, sliowing itself, not by con- 
 vulsions, but by periodic attacks of mania, or by manifesta- 
 tions of extreme moral perversion, which are apt to bo 
 thought wilful viciousness. But they are not : no moral in- 
 fluence will touch them; they depend upon a morbid physical 
 condition, which can only have a physical cure ; and they 
 get their explanation, and indeed justification, afterward, 
 when actual epilepsy occurs. 
 
 The epileptic neurosis is certainly most closely allied to the 
 insane neurosis ; and when it exists in its masked form, af- 
 fecting the mind for some time before convulsions occur, it is 
 hardly possible to distinguish it from one form of the insane 
 neurosis. The difficulty of doing so is made greater, inas- 
 much as epilepsy in tlie parent may engender the insane 
 neurosis in the child, and insanity in the parent the epileptic 
 neurosis in the child. A character which the insane neurosis 
 has in common with the epileptic neurosis is, that it is apt to 
 burst out in a convulsive explosion of violence ; that when 
 it develops into actual insanity it displays itself in deeds 
 rather than in words — in an insanity of action rather than 
 of thought. It is truly a neurosis spasmodica. Take, for ex- 
 ample, a case which is one of a class, that of the late Alton 
 murderer, who, taking a walk one fine afternoon, met some 
 little girls at play, enticed one of them into a neighboring 
 hop-garden, there murdered her and cut her body into frag- 
 ments, which he scattered about, returned quietly home, 
 openly washing his hands in the river on the way, made an 
 entry in his diary, " Killed a little girl ; it was fine and hot ;" 
 and, when forthwith taken into custody, confessed what he 
 had done, and could give no reason for doing it. At the trial 
 it was proved that his father had had an attack of acute 
 mania, and that another near relative was in confinement, 
 suffering from homicidal mania. He himself had been noted 
 as peculiar; he had been subject to fits of depression, been 
 prone to weep without apparent reason, and had exhibited 
 singular caprices of conduct ; and it had once been necessary 
 
66 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 to watch liim from fear that he might commit suicide. He 
 was not insane in the legal or the ordinary sense of the 
 term, but he certainly had the insane neurosis, and it may be 
 presumed confidently that he would, had he lived, have be- 
 come insane. 
 
 Those who have practical experience of insanity know 
 well that there is a most distressing form of the disease ; in 
 which a desperate impulse to commit suicide or homicide 
 overpowers and takes prisoner the reason. The terrible im- 
 pulse is deplored sometimes by him who sufifers from it as 
 deeply as by any one who witnesses it ; it causes him unspeak- 
 able distress ; he is fully conscious of its nature, and struggles 
 in vain against it ; his reason is no further afi'ected than in 
 having lost power to control, or having become the slave of, 
 the morbid and convulsive impulse. It may be that this form 
 of derangement does sometimes occur where there is no he- 
 reditary predisposition to insanity, but there can be no doubt 
 that in the great majority of cases of the kind there is such a 
 neuropathic state. The impulse is truly a convulsive idea, 
 springing from a morbid condition of nerve-element, and it 
 is strictly comparable with an epileptic convulsion. How 
 grossly unjust, then, the judicial criterion of responsibility 
 which dooms an insane person of this class to death if ho 
 knew what he was doing when he committed a murder ! It 
 were as reasonable to hang a man for not stopping by an act 
 of will a convulsion of which he was conscious. An interest- 
 ing circumstance in connection with this morbid impulse is 
 that its convulsive activity is sometimes preceded by a feeling 
 very like the aura epileptica — a strange morbid sensation, 
 beginning in some part of the body, and rising gradually to 
 the brain. Tlie patient may accordingly give warning of the 
 impending attack in some instances, and in one case was 
 calmed by having his thumbs loosely tied together Avith a 
 ribbon when the forewarning occurred. Dr. Skae records an 
 instructive example in one of his annual reports. The feeling 
 began at the toes, rose gradually to the chest, producing a 
 
AUK A EPILEPTICA. G7 
 
 sense of faintness and constriction, and then to the head, i)ro- 
 ducing a momentary loss of consciousness. This aura was 
 accompanied by an involuntary jerking — first of the legs, and 
 then of the arms. It was when these attacks came on that 
 the patient felt impelled to commit some act of violence 
 against others or himself. On one occasion he attempted to 
 commit suicide by throwing himself into the water; more 
 often the impulse was to attack others. He deplored his con- 
 dition, of which he spoke with great intelligence, giving all the 
 details of his past history and feelings. In other cases a feeling 
 of vertigo, a trembling, and a vague dread of something fear- 
 ful being about to happen, resembling the vertigo and mo- 
 mentary vague despair of one variety of the epileptic aura, 
 precede the attack. Indeed, whenever a murder has been 
 committed suddenly, vrithout premeditation, without malice, 
 without motive, openly, and in a way quite different from 
 the way in which murders are commonly done, we ought to 
 look carefully for evidence of previous epilepsy, and, should 
 there have been no epileptic fits, for evidence of an aura epi- 
 lepUca and other symptoms allied to epilepsy. 
 
 It is worth while observing that in other forms of insanity, 
 v/hen we look closely into the symptoms, there are not un- 
 frequently complaints of strange, painful, and distressing 
 sensations in some part of the body, which app-ear to have a 
 relation to the mental derangement not unlike that which 
 the epileptic aura has to the epileptic fit. Common enough 
 is a distressing sensation about the epigastrium : it is not a 
 definite pain, is not comparable strictly to a burniug, or 
 weight, or to any known sensation, but is an indescribable 
 feeling of distress to which the mental troubles are referred. 
 It sometimes rises to a pitch of anguish, when it abolishes the 
 power to think, destroys the feeling of identity, and causes 
 sucli unspeakable suffering and despair that suicide is at- 
 tempted or accomplished. In other cases the distressing and 
 indescribable sensation is in the crown of the head or down 
 the spine, and sometimes it arises from the pelvic organs. In 
 
68 " BODY AXD MIND. 
 
 all cases the patients connect tlieir mental trouble with it, 
 regarding it as the cause of the painful confusion of thought, 
 the utter inability of exertion, the distressing ideas, and the 
 paroxysm of despair. Perhaps they exaggerate its impor- 
 tance ; but there can be little doubt that writers on mental 
 disorders, too exclusively occupied with the prominent men- 
 tal features, have not hitherto given sufficient attention to 
 these anomalous sensations. We have been apt to class them 
 as hypochondriacal, and to pass them over as of no special 
 significance ; but I cannot help thinking that, properly studied, 
 they may sometimes teach us more of the real nature of the 
 particular form of insanity — of its probable course, termina- 
 tion, and its most suitable treatment — than many much more 
 obtrusive symptoms. 
 
 In bringing this lecture to an end, I may fitly point out 
 how entirely thus far the observation of the phenomena of de- 
 fective and disordered mind proves their essential dependence 
 on defective and disordered brain, and how closely they are 
 related to some other disordered nervous functions. The insane 
 neurosis which the child inherits in consequence of its par- 
 ent's insanity is as surely a defect of physical nature as is 
 the epileptic neurosis to which it is so closely allied. It is an 
 indisputable though extreme fact that certain human beings 
 are born with such a native deficiency of mind that all the 
 training and education in the world will not raise them to 
 the height of brutes ; and I believe it to be not less true that, 
 in consequence of evil ancestral influences, individuals are 
 born with such a flaw or warp of Nature that all the care in 
 the world will not prevent them from being vicious or crimi- 
 nal, or becoming insane. Education, it is true, may do 
 much, and the circumstances of life may do much ; but Ave 
 cannot forget that the foundations on which the acquisitions 
 of education must rest are not acquired, but inherited. No 
 one can escape the tyranny of his organi/.ation ; no one can 
 elude the destiny that is innate in him, and which uncon- 
 sciously and irresistibly shapes liis ends, even when he he- 
 
TYRANNY OF ORGANIZATION. 69 
 
 lieves that he is determining^ them witli consummate fore- 
 sight and skill. A well-grounded and comprehensive theory 
 of mind must recognize and embrace these facts ; they meet 
 us every moment of our lives, and cannot be ignored if we 
 are in earnest in our attempts to construct a mental science ; 
 and it is because metaphysical mental philosophy has taken 
 no notice whatever of them, because it is bound by the prin- 
 ciple of its existence as a philosophy to ignore them, that, 
 notwithstanding the labor bestowed on it, it has borne no 
 fruiis — that, as Bacon said of it, " not only what was asserted 
 once is asserted still, but what were questions once are ques- 
 tions still, and, instead of being resolved by discussion, are 
 only fixed and-fed." 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 Gentlemex : In my last lecture I showed how large a 
 part in the production of insanity is played by the hereditary 
 neurosis, and pointed out the necessity of scrutinizing more 
 closely than has yet been done the features of the different 
 forms of mental derangement that own its baneful influence. 
 Past all question it is the most important element in the 
 causation of insanity. It cannot be in the normal order of 
 events that a healthy organism should be unable to bear or- 
 dinary mental trials, much less a natural physiological func- 
 tion such as the evolution of puberty, the puerperal state, or 
 the climacteric change. When, therefore, the strain of grief 
 or one of these physiological conditions becomes the occa- 
 sion of an outbreak of insanity, we must look for the root of 
 the ill in some natural infirmity or instability of nerve-cle- 
 ment. Not until we apply ourselves earnestly to an exact 
 observation and discrimination of all the mental and bodily 
 conditions which cooperate in the causation, and are mani- 
 fested in the symptoms, of the manifold varieties of insanity, 
 shall we render more precise and satisfactory our knowledge 
 of its causes, its classification, and its treatment. How un- 
 scientific it appears when we reflect, to enumerate, as is com- 
 monly done, sex and age among its predisposing causes ! No 
 one goes mad because he or she happens to be a man or a 
 woman, but because to each sex, and at certain ages, there 
 occur special physiological changes, which are apt to run into 
 pathological effects in persons predisposed to nervous dis- 
 
IIYSTEUICAL INSANITY. Vl 
 
 order. How often it happens that a moral cause of insanity 
 is sought and falsely found in a state of mind such as grief 
 or jealousy, which is really an early symptom of the disease! 
 Again, how vague and unsatisfactory the accepted psycho- 
 logical classification of insanity, under which forms of dis- 
 ease distinct enough to claim separate descriptions are in- 
 cluded in the same class ! It is obvious that we learn very 
 little of value from an account of the treatment of mania 
 generally when there are included under the class diseases so 
 different as puerperal mania, the mania of general paralysis, 
 syphilitic, epileptic, and hysterical mania, each presenting 
 features and requiring treatment in some^ degree special. 
 The hope and the way of advance in our knowledge of men- 
 tal disorders lie in the exact observation of the varieties of 
 the insane diathesis, and of the effects of bodily functions 
 and disorders upon these ; in noting carefully the bodily as 
 well as mental symptoms that characterize the several forms 
 of derangement of mind ; and in tracing the relations of 
 mental to other disorders of the nervous system. We must 
 aim to distinguish well if we would teach well — to separate 
 the cases that exhibit special features and relations, and to 
 arrange them in groups or classes according to their affinities, 
 just as we do habitually with general paralysis, and as I did 
 in my last lecture with epileptic mania. 
 
 Following this plan, we might in like manner make of 
 hysterical insanity a special variety. An attack of acute 
 maniacal excitement, with great restlessness, rapid and dis- 
 connected but not entirely incoherent conversation, some- 
 times tending to the erotic or obscene, evidently without 
 abolition of consciousness ; laughing, singing, or rhyming, 
 and perverseness of conduct, which is still more or less cohe- 
 rent and seemingly wilful — may occur in connection with, or 
 instead of, the usual hysterical convulsions. Or the ordinary 
 hysterical symptoms may pass by degrees into chronic insanity. 
 Loss of power of will is a characteristic symptom of hysteria 
 in all its Protean forms, and with the perverted sensations 
 
12 BODY AXD MIXD. 
 
 and disordered movements there is ahvays some degree of 
 moral perversion. Tliis increases until it swallows up the 
 other symptoms : the patient loses more and more of her 
 energy and self-control, becoming capriciously fanciful about 
 her licalth, imagining or feigning strange diseases, and keep- 
 ing up the delusion or the imposture with a pertinacity that 
 might, seem incredible, getting more and more impatient of 
 the advice and interference of others, and indifferent to the 
 interests and duties of her position. Outbursts of temper 
 become almost outbreaks of mania, particularly at the men- 
 strual periods. An erotic tinge may be observable in her 
 manner of behavior; and occasionally there are quasi- 
 ecstatic or cataleptic states. It is an easily-curable form of 
 derangement if the patient be removed in time from the anx- 
 ious but hurtful sympathies and attentions of her family, and 
 placed under good moral control ; but, if it be allowed to go 
 on unchecked, it will end in dementia, and it is especially apt 
 to do so when there is a marked hereditary predisposition. 
 
 In some instances we observe a curious connection be- 
 tween insanity and neuralgia, not unlike that which, existing 
 between epilepsy and a special form of neuralgia, induced 
 Trousseau to describe the latter as epileptiform. I have un- 
 der observation now a lady who suffered for some time from 
 an intense neuralgia of the left half of the face ; after the 
 removal of a tooth suspected to be at the root of the mis- 
 chief the pain ceased, but an attack of melancholia immedi- 
 ately followed. Griesinger mentions a similar case of a gen- 
 tleman under his care, in whom a double occipital neuralgia 
 was followed by a melancholic state of mind. In his " Com- 
 mentaries on Insanity," Dr. Burrows tells of a very eloquent 
 divine who was always maniacal when free from pains in the 
 spine, and sane when the pains returned to that site. And 
 the late Sir B. Brodie mentions two cases of a similar kind : 
 in one of them a neuralgia of the vertebral column alter- 
 nated wnth true insanity. These cases appear to be instances 
 of tlio transference of morbid action from one nerve-centre to 
 
TRANSFORMATION OF NEUROSES. 73 
 
 another, such as Dr. Darwin formerly noticed and commented 
 
 on. " Mrs. C ," he says, " was seized every day, about 
 
 the same hour, with violent pain in the right side of her bow- 
 els, about the situation of the lower edge of the liver, with- 
 out fever, which increased for an hour or two, till it became 
 quite intolerable. After violent screaming she fell into con- 
 vulsions, which terminated sometimes in fainting, with or 
 without stortor, as in common epilepsy ; at other times a 
 temporary insanity supervened, which continued about half 
 an hour, and the fit ceased." It seems not unreasonable to 
 suppose that the morbid action in the sensory centres, which 
 the violent neuralgia implied, was at one time transferred to 
 the motor centres, giving rise to convulsive movements, and 
 at another time to the mind-centres, giving rise to convulsive 
 ideas. There is a form of neuralgia w^hich is the analogue of 
 a convulsion, and there is a mania which is the counterpart, 
 in the highest nerve-centres, of neuralgia and convulsions in 
 their respective centres. Perhaps if we had the power in 
 some cases of acute insanity to induce artificially a violent 
 neuralgia, or general convulsions — to transfer the morbid ac- 
 tion from the mind-centres — we might, for the time being at 
 any rate, cure the insanity. 
 
 I pass on now to exhibit the efiects of organic sympathies 
 in the causation of mental disorders, or rather the specific 
 efi'ects of particular organs upon the features of different 
 forms of insanity. In my first lecture I pointed out that 
 there is the closest physiological consent of functions be- 
 tween the difterent organs ; that the brain, as the organ of 
 mind, joins in this consent ; and that our ideas and feelings 
 are obtained by the concurrence of impressions from the 
 internal organs of the body and the external organs of the 
 senses. The consequence is, that derangement of an internal 
 organ, acting upon the brain, may engender, by pathological 
 sympathy, morbid feelings and their related ideas. The 
 mental efi'ects may be general or specific : a general emotional 
 depression through which all ideas loom gloomy, of which 
 4 
 
74 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 every one's experience testifies; and a special morbid feeling 
 with its particular sympathetic ideas, of which the phenom- 
 ena of dreaming and insanity yield illustrations. 
 
 The slight shades of this kind of morbid influence we can- 
 not venture to trace ; but it is easy to recognize the most 
 marked effects. Take, for example, the irritation of ovaries 
 or uterus, which is sometimes the direct occasion of nympho- 
 mania — a disease by which the most chaste and modest 
 woman is transformed into a raging fury of lust. Some ob- 
 servers have, without sufficient reason I think, made of 
 nympJiomania a special variety, grouping under the term 
 cases in which it was a prominent symptom. But it certainly 
 occurs in forms of mania that are quite distinct — in puerperal 
 mania, for example, in epileptic mania, and in the mania 
 sometimes met with in old women ; and the cases in which 
 it does occur have not such characteristic features as warrant 
 the formation of a definite group. "We have, indeed, to note 
 and bear in mind how often sexual ideas and feelings arise 
 and display themselves in all sorts of insanity ; how they 
 connect themselves with ideas which in a normal mental 
 state have no known relation to them ; so that it seems as 
 inexplicable that a virtuous person should ever have learned, 
 as it is distressing that she should manifest, so much obscenity 
 of thought and feeling. Perhaps it is that such ideas are ex- 
 cited sympathetically in a morbidly active brain by unrelated 
 ideas, just as, in other nervous disorders, sympathetic morbid 
 sensations and movements occur in parts distant from the 
 seat of tbe primary irritation. Considering, too, Avhat an 
 important agent in the evolution of mind the sexual feeling 
 is, how much of thought, feeling, and energy it remotely in- 
 spires, there is less cause for wonder at the naked interven- 
 tion of its simple impulses in the phenomena of mania, when 
 coordination of function is abolished in the supreme centres, 
 and the mind resolved, as it were, into its primitive animal 
 elements. This should teach us to take care not to attribute 
 too hastily the sexual feelings to a morbid irritation of the 
 
INSANITY OF PUBESCENCE. 75 
 
 sexual organs. It is plain that they may have a purely cen- 
 tral origin, just as the excitation of them in health may pro- 
 ceed from the mind. Here, in fact, as in other cases, ^ve 
 must bear in mind the reciprocal influence of mind on organ, 
 and of organ on mind. 
 
 The great mental revolution whicli occurs at puberty may 
 go beyond its physiological limits, in some instances, and 
 become pathological. The vague feelings, blind longings, and 
 obscure impulses, which then arise in the mind, attest the 
 awakening of an impulse which knows not at first its aim or 
 the means of its gratification ; a kind of vague and yearning 
 melancholy is engendered, which leads to an abandonment to 
 poetry of a gloomy Byronic kind, or to indulgence in inde- 
 finite religious feelings and aspirations. There is a want of 
 some object to fill the void in the feelings, to satisfy the 
 undefined yearning — a need of something to adore; con- 
 sequently, where there is no visible object of worship the 
 invisible is adored. The time of this mental revolution is, at 
 best, a trying period for youth ; and, where there is an in- 
 herited infirmity of nervous organization, the natural dis- 
 turbance of the mental balance may easily pass into actual 
 destruction of it. 
 
 The form of derangement connected with this period of 
 life I believe to be either a tanciful and quasi-hysterical 
 melancholia, which is not very serious when it is properly 
 treated ; or an acute mania, which is apt to be recurrent, and 
 is much more serious. The former occurs especially in girls, 
 if it be not peculiar to them ; there are periods of depression 
 and paroxysms of apparently causeless weeping, alternating 
 with times of undue excitability, more especially at the 
 m.enstrual periods ; a disinclination is evinced to work, to 
 rational amusement, to exertion of any kind ; the behavior is 
 capricious, and soon becomes perverse and wilful ; the natural 
 affections seem to be blunted or abolished, the patient taking 
 pleasure in distressing those whose feelings she would most 
 consider when in health ; and, although there are no fixed 
 
V6 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 delusions, there are unfounded suspicions or fears and chan- 
 ging morbid fancies. The anxious sympathies of those most 
 dear are apt to foster the morbid self-feeling which craves 
 them, and thus to aggravate the disease: what such patients 
 need to learn is, not the indulgence but a forgetfulness of 
 their feelings, not the observation but the renunciation of 
 self, not introspection but useful action. In some of these 
 cases, where the disease has become chronic, delusions of 
 sexual origin occur, and the patient whose virginity is intact 
 imagines that she is pregnant or has had a baby. 
 
 The morbid self-feeling that has its root in the sexual sys- 
 tem is not unapt to take on a rehgious guise. We observe 
 examples of this in certain members of those latter-day reli- 
 gious sects which profess to commingle religion and love, and 
 which especially abound in America. No physiologist can 
 well doubt that the holy kiss of love in such cases owes all 
 its warmth to the sexual feeling which consciously or uncon- 
 sciously inspires it, or that the mystical union of the sexes 
 lies very close to a union that is nowise mystical, when it does 
 not lead to madness. A similar intimate connection between 
 fanatical religious exaltation and sexual excitement is exem- 
 plified by the lives of such religious enthusiasts as St. Theresa 
 and St. Catherine de Sienne, whose nightly trances and 
 visions, in which they believed themselves received as verita- 
 ble spouses into the bosom of Christ and transported into an 
 unspeakable ecstasy by the touch of His sacred lips, attested, 
 though they knew it not, the influence of excited sexual or- 
 gans on the mind. More extreme examples of a like patho- 
 logical action are afforded by those insane women who be- 
 lieve themselves to be visited by lovers or ravislied by perse- 
 cutors during the night. Sexual hallucinations, betraying 
 an ovarian or uterine excitement, might almost be described 
 as the characteristic feature of the insanity of old maids ; the 
 false visions of unreal indulgence being engendered probably 
 in the same way as visions of banquets occur in the dreams 
 of a starving jierson, or as visions of cooling streams to one 
 
PERIODIC INSANITY. 77 
 
 wlio is perishing of thirst. It seems to be the fact that, al- 
 thougli women bear sexual excesses better than men, they 
 suffer more than men do from the entire deprivation of sexual 
 intercourse. 
 
 The development of puberty may lead indirectly to insanity 
 by becoming the occasion of a vicious habit of self-abuse in 
 men ; and it is not always easy to say in such cases how much 
 of the evil is due to pubescence and how much to self-abuse. 
 But the form of mental derangement directly traceable to 
 self-abuse has certainly characteristic features. There arc 
 no acute symptoms, the onset of the disease being most grad- 
 ual. The patient becomes offensively egotistic and impracti- 
 cable ; he is full of self-feeling and self-conceit ; insensible 
 to the claims of others upon him, and of his duties to them ; 
 interested only in hypochondriacally watching his morbid 
 sensations, and attending to his morbid feelings. His mental 
 energy is sapped; and though he has extravagant pretensions, 
 and often speaks of great projects engendered by his con- 
 ceit, he never works systematically for any aim, but exhibits 
 an incredible vacillation of conduct, and spends his days in 
 indolent and suspicious self-brooding. His relatives he thinks 
 hostile to him, because they do not take the interest in his 
 sufferings which he craves, nor yield suflSciently to his pre- 
 tensions, but perhaps urge him to some kind of work ; he is 
 utterably incapable of conceiving that he has duties to them. 
 As matters get worse, the general suspicion of the hostility 
 of people takes more definite form, and delusions spring up 
 that persons speak offensively of him, or watch him in the 
 street, or comment on what passes in his mind, or play tricks 
 upon him by electricity or mesmerism, or in some other mys- 
 terious way. His delusions are the objective explanation, 
 by wrong imagination, of the perverted feelings. Messages 
 may be received from Heaven by peculiar telegraphic signals ; 
 and there are occasionally quasi-cataleptic trances. It is 
 strange what exalted feelings and high moral and religious 
 aims these patients will often declare they have, who, incapa- 
 
78 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 ble of reforming themselves, are ready to reform the world. 
 A later and worse stage is one of moody or vacant self-ab- 
 sorption, and of extreme loss of mental power. They are 
 silent, or, if they converse, they discover delusions of a sus- 
 picious or obscene character, the perverted sexual passion 
 still giving the color to their thoughts. They die miserable 
 wrecks at the last. This is a form of insanity which certainly 
 has its special exciting cause and its characteristic features ; 
 nevertheless, I think that self-abuse seldom, if ever, produces 
 it without the cooperation of the insane neurosis. 
 
 The monthly activity of the ovaries w^hich marks the ad- 
 vent of puberty in women has a notable effect upon the mind 
 and body ; wherefore it may become an important cause of 
 mental and physical derangement. Most women at that 
 time are susceptible, irritable, and capricious, any cause of 
 vexation affecting them more seriously than usual ; and 
 some who have the insane neurosis exhibit a disturbance of 
 mind which amounts almost to disease. A sudden suppres- 
 sion of the menses has produced a direct explosion of insan- 
 ity ; or, occurring some time before an outbreak, it may be 
 an important link in its causation. It is a matter also of com- 
 mon experience in asylums, that exacerbations of insanity 
 often take place at the menstrual periods ; but whether there 
 is a particular variety of mental derangement connected with 
 disordered menstruation, and, if so, what are its special fea- 
 tures, we are not yet in a position to say positively. There is 
 certainly a recurrent mania, which seems sometimes to have, 
 in regard to its origin and the times of its attacks, a relation 
 to the menstrual function, suppression or irregularity of 
 which often accompanies it ; and it is an obvious presump- 
 tion that the mania may be a sympathetic morbid effect of 
 the ovarian and uterine excitement, and may represent an 
 exaggeration of the mental irritabiUty which is natural to 
 women at that period. The patient becomes elated, hila- 
 rious, talkative, passing soon from that condition into a state 
 of acute and noisy mania, wliich may last for two or three 
 
RECURRENT INSANITY. V9 
 
 weeks or longer, and then sinking into a brief stage of more 
 or less depression or confusion of mind, from which she 
 awakens to calmness and clearness of mind. In vain we 
 flatter ourselves with the hope of a complete recovery ; after 
 an interval of perfect lucidity, of varying duration in difier- 
 ent cases, the attack recurs, goes through the same stages, 
 and ends in the same way, only to he followed by other at- 
 tacks, until at last, the mind being permanently weakened, 
 there are no longer intervals of entire lucidity. Could we 
 stop the attacks, the patient might still regain by degrees 
 mental power; but we cannot. All the resources of our art 
 fail to touch them, and I know no other form of insanity 
 which, having so much the air of being curable, thus far de- 
 fies all efforts to stay its course. "We should be apt to con- 
 clude that it was connected with the menstrual function, 
 were it not that periodicity is more or less the law of all ner- 
 vous diseases, that its attacks often recur at uncertain inter- 
 vals, and, more decisive still, that it is not confined to women, 
 but occurs perhaps as often in men. Whether connected or 
 not, however, in any way with the generative functions, it 
 certainly presents features of relationship to epilepsy, and 
 occurs where the insane neurosis exists; and, if I were to 
 describe it in a few words, I should designate it an epilepsy 
 of the mind. Its recurrence more or less regularly ; the 
 uniformity of the prodromata and of the symptoms of the 
 attack, each being almost an exact image of the other ; its 
 comparatively brief duration ; the mental torpor or confu- 
 sion which follows it, and the ignorance or denial sometimes, 
 on the part of the patient, of his having had the attack ; the 
 temporary recovery ; and the undoubted fact that it often 
 occurs where there is evidence of an insane neurosis pro- 
 duced by epilepsy, or insanity, or both, in the family ; these 
 are facts which support the opinion of its kinship to epilepsy. 
 I have under my care an unmarried lady who for many years 
 has been subject to these recurrent attacks of mania, and 
 whose intelligence has now been destroyed by them ; ulti- 
 
80 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 mately true epileptic fits supervened, but they only occur, at 
 long intervals, usually not oftener tlian twice a year, while 
 the maniacal attacks recur regularly every three or four 
 weeks. It is of some interest, in regard to the question of 
 its nature, that the age of its most frequent outbreak is, as it 
 is with epilepsy, the years that cover the development of 
 puberty. Irregularity or suppression of menstruation may 
 or may not be present, so that we are not warranted in at- 
 tributing the disease to amenon-hoea or dysmenorrhoea ; we are 
 the less warranted in doing so, as any form of insanity, how- 
 ever caused, may occasion a suppression of the menses. 
 
 The natural cessation of menstruation at the change of 
 life is accompanied by a revolution in the economy which is 
 often trying to the mental stability of those w^ho have a pre- 
 disposition to insanity. The age of pleasing is past, but not 
 always the desire, which, indeed, sometimes grows then more 
 exacting; there are all sorts of anomalous sensations of bod- 
 ily distress, attesting the disturbance of circulation and of 
 nerve functions; and it is now that an insane jealousy and a 
 propensity to stimulants are apt to appear, especially where 
 there have been no children. "When positive insanity breaks 
 out, it usually has the form of profound melancholia, with 
 vague delusions of an extreme character, as that the world is 
 in flames, that it is turned upside down, that every thing is 
 changed, or that some very dreadful but undefined calamity 
 has happened or is about to happen. The countenance has 
 the expression of a vague terror and apprehension. In some 
 cases short and transient paroxysms of excitement break the 
 melancholy gloom. These usually occur at the menstrual 
 periods, and may continue to do so for some time after the 
 function has ceased. It is not an unfavorable form of in- 
 sanity as regards probability of recovery under suitable treat- 
 ment. 
 
 Continuing the consideration of tlie influence of the gen- 
 erative organs in the production of insanity, I come now to 
 puerperal insanity. Under this name are sometimes con- 
 
PUERPERAL INSANITY. 81 
 
 founded three distinct varieties of disease — that which occurs 
 during pregnancy, that which follows parturition and is 
 properly puerperal, and that which comes on months after- 
 ward during lactation/'' The insanity of pregnancy is, as a 
 rule, of a marked melancholic type, with suicidal tendency ; 
 a degree of mental weakness or apparent dementia being 
 sometimes conjoined with it. Other cases, however, exhibit 
 much moral perversion, perhaps an uncontrollable craving 
 for stimulants, which we may regard as an exaggerated display 
 of the fanciful cravings from which women suffer in the 
 earlier months of pregnancy. We can hardly fail, indeed, to 
 recognize a connection between the features of this form of 
 insanity and the strange longings, the capriciousness, and the 
 morbid fears, of the pregnant woman. The patient may be 
 treated successfully by removal from home ; but, if the dis- 
 ease be allowed to go on, there is no good ground to expect 
 that parturition will have a beneficial effect upon it ; on the 
 contrary, the probability is, that it will run into a severe puer- 
 peral insanity, and from that into dementia. 
 
 Puerperal insanity proper comes on within one month of 
 parturition ; and, like the insanity of pregnancy, occurs most 
 often in primiparffi. The statistics of the Edinburgh Asylum 
 show that in all the cases occurring before the sixteenth day 
 after labor, as most cases do, the symptoms Avere those of 
 acute mania ; but in all the cases which occurred after the 
 sixteenth day they were those of melancholia. In both forms, 
 but especially in the latter, there is sometimes a mixture of 
 childishness and apparent dementia. The mania is more 
 likely than the melancholia to get well. It is of an acute and 
 extremely incoherent character, a delirious rather than a sys- 
 tematized mania, marked by noisy restlessness, sleeplessness, 
 tearing of clothes, hallucinations, and in some cases by great 
 salacity, which is probably the direct mental effect of the irri- 
 tation of the generative organs. Suicide may be attempted 
 
 * " The Insanity of Pregnancy, Puerperal Insanity, and Insanity ol 
 Lactation," By J. Batty Tuke, M. D. 
 
82 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 in an excited, purposeless way. The bodily symptoms, con- 
 tradicting the violence of the mental excitement, indicate 
 feebleness ; the features are pinched ; the skin is pale, cold, 
 and clammy ; and the pulse is quick, small, and irritable. 
 We may safely say that recovery takes place in three out of 
 four cases of puerperal mania, usually in a few weeks ; the 
 patient, after the acute symptoms have subsided, sinking into 
 a temporary state of confusion and feebleness of mind, and 
 then waking up as from a dream. I may add the expression 
 of a conviction that no good, but rather harm, is done by 
 attempting to stifle this or any other form of acute insanity 
 by the administration of large doses of opium. 
 
 The insanity of lactation does not come under the scheme 
 of this lecture ; for it is an asthenic insanity, produced by 
 bodily exhaustion and the depression of mental worries. The 
 time of its occurrence seems to show that the longer the 
 child is suckled the greater is the liability to it ; and in the 
 majority of cases it has the form of melancholia, often with 
 determined suicidal tendency. 
 
 So frequently is hereditary predisposition more or less 
 distinctly traceable in these three forms of insanity occurring 
 in connection with child-bearing, that we are warranted in 
 declaring it quite exceptional for any one of them to be met 
 with where it is entirely absent. 
 
 I have now enumerated all the forms of insanity which, 
 being specially connected with the generative organs, pre- 
 sent characteristic features. It is certain, however, that dis- 
 ease of them may act as a powerful cooperating cause in the 
 production of insanity, without giving rise, so far as we 
 know, to a special group of symptoms. Thus, for example, 
 melancholia, distinguishable by no feature from melancholia 
 otherwise caused, may be the eftect of disease of the uterus. 
 Schroder van der Kolk mentions the case of a woman pro- 
 foundly melancholic who suffered from prolapsus uteri, and 
 in whom the melancholia disappeared when the uterus was 
 returned to its proper place. Flemming relates two similar 
 
SYMPATHETIC INSANITY. 83 
 
 cases in which melancholia was cured by the use of a pessary, 
 the depression returning in one of them wlienever the pessary 
 was removed ; and I have met with one case in which pro- 
 found melancholia of two years' standing disappeared after 
 the removal of a prolapsus uteri. Other diseases and dis- 
 placements of the uterus may act in a similar way. 
 
 Let me now say a few words concerning the abdominal 
 organs. No one will call in question that the states of their 
 functions do exert a positive influence on our states of mind ; 
 but it is unfortunately too true that we cannot yet refer any 
 special mental symptoms to the influence of the abdominal 
 organs. I have met with one case of severe melancholia, of 
 long standing, which was distinctly cured by the expulsion 
 of a tape-worm ; and it appears to be tolerably certain that 
 hypochondriacal insanity is in some instances connected 
 with, if not caused by, a perverted sensation proceeding from 
 an internal organ, most often abdominal. In health we are 
 not conscious of the impressions which these organs make 
 upon the brain, albeit they assuredly send their unperceived 
 contributions to the stream of energies of which conscious- 
 ness is the sum and the outcome ; but, when a disordered or- 
 gan sends a morbid impression to the brain, it no longer does 
 its work there in silence and self-suppression, but asserts 
 itself in an unwonted aflfection of consciousness. The hypo- 
 chondriac cannot withdraw his attention from the morbid 
 sensation to which it is irresistibly attracted, and which it 
 aggravates; his interest in all things else is gradually 
 quenched, and his ability to think and act freely in the rela- 
 tions of life sapped. The step from this state to positive in- 
 sanity is not a great one : the strange and distressing sensation, 
 being so anomalous, so unlike any thing of which the patient 
 has had experience, affecting him so powerfully and so unac- 
 countably, gets at last an interpretation that seems suited to 
 its extraordinary character; and he then imagines that some 
 animal or man or devil has got inside him and is tormenting 
 him. He has now a hallucination of the organic sense which 
 
84 BODY AXD MIXD. 
 
 dominates his thoughts, and he is truly insane. Not long since 
 I saw a patient who believed that he had a man in his belly ; 
 when his bowels were constipated, the delusion became active, 
 he made desperate efforts by vomiting to get rid of his torment- 
 or, and was then surly, morose, and dangerous; but, when 
 his bowels had been relieved, the delusion subsided into the 
 background, and he was good-tempered and industrious. If 
 a patient, instead of attributing his sufferings to an absurdly 
 impossible cause, ascribes them to a serious internal disease 
 which he certainly has not got, there will be a difficulty in 
 deciding whether he is insane or not, should he do injury to 
 himself or others, as hypochondriacal melancholies sometimes 
 do. It is a probable surmise that in those cases of insanity in 
 which there are such delusions as that food will not enter 
 the stomach, that there is no digestion, that the intestines 
 are sealed up, there is a cause in a morbid irritation ascend- 
 ing from the viscera to the brain. I am furthermore dis- 
 posed to think that a form of fearful melancholia in which 
 the patient evinces an extreme morbid sensitiveness to his 
 every thought, feeling, and act, in which he is, as it were, 
 hypochondriacally distressed about whatever he thinks, feels, 
 and does, imagining it, however trivial and innocent, to be a 
 great sin, which has cost him his happiness in time and eter- 
 nity, has its foundation in certain morbid states of abdominal 
 sensation. In cases of this sort, the delusion is not the cause 
 of the feeling of despair, but is, as it were, a condensation 
 from it, and an attempted interpretation of it. The same 
 thing is observed in dreams : the images and events of a dis- 
 tressing dream are not the causes of the feelings, but are 
 caused by them ; they undergo strange and sudden meta- 
 morphoses without causing much or any surprise, and they 
 disappear together with the terror the moment we awake, 
 which would not be the case if they really caused tlie terror. 
 "We perceive, indeed, in this generation of the image out of 
 the feeling, the demonstration of the true nature of ghosts 
 and apparitions; the nervous system being in an excited 
 
PANPHOBIA. 85 
 
 state of expectant fear, and the images being the eflects and 
 exponents of the feeling: they give tlie vague terror form. 
 Accordingly, as Coleridge has remarked, those who see a 
 ghost under such circumstances do not sufior much in conse- 
 quence, though in telling the story they will perhaps say that 
 their hair stood on end, and that they were in an agony of terror ; 
 whereas those who have been really frightened by a figure 
 dressed up as a ghost have often suffered seriously from the 
 shock, having fainted, or had a fit, or gone mad. In like man- 
 ner, if an insane person actually saw the dreadful things which 
 he imagines that he sees sometimes, and really thought the ter- 
 rible thoughts which he imagines he thinks, he would suffer in 
 health more than he does, if he did not actually die of them. 
 I come now to the thoracic organs. The heart and 
 the lungs are closely connected in their functions, so that 
 they mutually affect one another. Some diseases of the 
 lungs greatly oppress and trouble the heart ; yet there is 
 reason to believe that they have their special effects upon 
 the mind. How, indeed, can we think otherwise when we 
 contrast the sanguine confidence of the consumptive patient 
 with the anxious fear and apprehension exhibited in some 
 diseases of the heart ? It used to be said that disease of the 
 heart was more frequent among the insane than among the 
 sane; but the latest observations do not afford any support 
 to the opinion, nor do they furnish valid grounds to connect 
 a particular variety of insanity with heart-disease in those 
 cases in which it does exist. All that we are thus far war- 
 ranted in aflirming is, that if there be a characteristic mental 
 effect of such disease, it is a great fear, mounting up at times 
 to despairing anguish ; and perhaps I may venture to add 
 that, if there be a variety of mental disorder specifically con- 
 nected with heart-disease, it is that form of melancholia in 
 which the patient is overwhelmed with a vague and vast 
 apprehension, Avhere there is not so much a definite delusion 
 as a dreadful fear of every thing actual and possible, and 
 which is sometimes described hb panphobia. 
 
86 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 There has long been an opinion, wliich seems to be well 
 founded, that tubercle of the lungs is more common among 
 the insane than among the sane. For although the propor- 
 tion of deaths in asylums attributed to phthisis is one-fourth, 
 which is the same proportion as that for the sane population 
 above fourteen years of age, Dr. Clouston has shown, by 
 careful scrutiny of the records "of 282 post-mortem examina- 
 tions made in the Edinburgh Asylum, that phthisis was the 
 assigned cause of death in only a little more than half of the 
 cases in which there was tubercle in the body. The symp- 
 toms of phthisis are so much masked in the insane, there 
 being usually no cough and no expectoration, that its diag- 
 nosis is difficult, and it is not always detected during life. 
 The relation between it and insanity has been noticed by 
 several writers: Schroder van der Kolk was distinctly of 
 opinion that an hereditary predisposition to phthisis might 
 predispose to, or develop into, insanity, and, on the other 
 hand, that insanity predisposed to phthisis ; and Dr. Clous- 
 ton found that hereditary prediposition to insanity existed in 
 seven per cent, more of the insane who were tubercular than 
 of the insane generally. "When family degeneration is far 
 gone, the two diseases appear to occur frequently, and the 
 last member is likely to die insane or phthisical, or both ; 
 whether, therefore, they mutually predispose to one another 
 or not, they are often concomitant effects in the course of 
 degeneration. However, in weighing the specific value of 
 these observations, we must not forget that, independently 
 of any special relation, the enfeebled nutrition of tuberculosis 
 will tend to stimulate into activity the latent predisposition 
 to insanity ; and that, in like manner, insanity, especially in 
 its melancholic forms, will favor the actual development of a 
 predisposition to phthisis. 
 
 In the cases in which the development of phthisis and 
 insanity has been nearly contemporaneous, which are about 
 one-fourth of the cases in which they coexist, the mental 
 symptoms are of so peculiar and uniform a character as to 
 
PHTHISICAL MANIA. 87 
 
 ]i;ivc led to the inclusion of the cases in a natural group 
 under the designation of phthisical mania. They have no 
 positively distinctive symptom, it is true ; they cannot he 
 separated from other cases by a well-defined line of demar- 
 cation. Yet they do exhibit, Dr. Clouston believes, certain 
 common and uniform characters which justify their descrii)- 
 tion as a separate variety. They often begin in an insidious 
 way by irritability, waywardness, and capriciousness of con- 
 duct, and apparent weakening of intellect ; yet the patient 
 converses rationally when he chooses to talk, and shows that 
 he still lias his intellect, albeit there is a great disinclination 
 to exert it. To sign a certificate of his insanity would be no 
 easy matter. Or they begin with an acutely maniacal or 
 melancholic stage, which is, however, of very short duration, 
 soon passing into a half-maniacal, half-demented state. If 
 there be a single characteristic feature, it is a monomania of 
 suspicion. As the disease advances, the symptoms of de- 
 mentia predominate ; but there are occasional brief attacks 
 of irritable excitement and fitful flashes of intelligence. And 
 in these cases, more often than in other cases, there occurs a 
 momentary revival of intelligence before death. "We shall 
 the more readily admit the special features of phthisical 
 mania when we call to mind that there is in most phthisical 
 patients a peculiar mental state ; and that brief attacks of 
 temporary mania or delirium sometimes occur in the course 
 of phthisis. The phthisical patient is irritable, fanciful, un- 
 stable of purpose, brilliant, and imaginative, but wanting in 
 calmness and repose, quick of insight, but without depth and 
 comprehension ; every thing is fitful — fitful energy, fitful pro- 
 jects, fitful flashes of imagination. The hectic is in his 
 thoughts and in his actions. The whims and imaginings of 
 his mind become almost wanderings at times, his fancies 
 almost delusions. 
 
 I have now said enough concerning the sympathetic 
 mental effects of disordered organs, not certainly to set forth 
 adequately their nature, but to show the essential importance 
 
88 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 of a careful study of them. To complete the exposition of 
 the action of pathological sympathies on mind, it would be 
 necessary to trace out the close relations that there are 
 between the organic feelings and the different kinds of special 
 sensibility — between systemic and sense consciousness. The 
 digestive organs have a close sympathy with the sense of 
 taste, as we observe in the bad taste accompanying indiges- 
 tion, in the nausea and vomiting which a nauseous taste 
 may cause, and in the avoidance of poisonous matter by 
 animals. The respiratory organs and the sense of smell are, 
 in like manner, sympathetically associated ; and there can be 
 no doubt that the sense of smell has special relations with the 
 sexual feeling. The state of the digestive organs notably 
 affects the general sensibility of the skin. Disturbances of 
 these physiological sympathies may become the occasions of 
 insane delusions. Digestive derangement, perverting the 
 taste, will engender a delusion that the food is poisoned. 
 Disease of the respiratory organs appears sometimes to pro- 
 duce disagreeable smells, which are then perhaps attributed 
 to objective causes, such as the presence of a corpse in the 
 room, or to gases maliciously disseminated in it by fancied 
 persecutors. In mania, smell and taste are often grossly per- 
 verted, for the patient will devour, with seeming relish and 
 avidity, dirt and garbage of the most offensive kind. Increase, 
 diminution, or perversion of the sensibility of the skin, one 
 or other of which is not uncommon among the insane, may 
 undoubtedly be the cause of extravagant delusions. We 
 hardly, indeed, realize how completely the mind is dependent 
 upon the habit of its sensations. The man who has lost a 
 limb can hardly be persuaded that he has lost it, so sensible 
 is he of the accustomed feelings in it ; years after he has lost 
 it he dreams of vivid sensations and of active movements in 
 it — ^has, in fact, both sensory and motor hallucinations. It is 
 easy, then, to understand how greatly abnormal sensations 
 may perplex and deceive the unsound mind. A woman under 
 Esquirol's care had complete anaesthesia of the skin: she 
 
HALLUCINATIONS. 89 
 
 believed that the devil had carried off her body. A soldier 
 Avho was wounded at the battle of Austerlitz lost the sensibil- 
 ity of his skin, and from that time thought bimself dead. 
 When asked how he was, he replied, "Lambert no longer 
 lives; a cannon-ball carried him away at Austerlitz. What 
 you see is not Lambert, but a badly-imitated machine," which 
 he always spoke of as it. A patient under my care, who suf- 
 fered from general paralysis, and had lost sensibility and 
 voluntary power of one side, could never be persuaded that 
 another patient, a very harmless fellow, had not got hold of 
 him, and was keeping him down ; and when convulsions 
 occurred in the paralyzed side, as they did from time to time, 
 he swore terribly at his fancied tormentor. Were a sane per- 
 son to wake up some morning with the cutaneous sensibility 
 gone, or with a large area of it sending up to the brain per- 
 verted and quite unaccountable impressions, it might be a 
 hard matter perhaps for him to help going mad. 
 
 The mental effects of perverted sensation afford a promis- 
 ing field for future research; when better understood it can- 
 not be doubted that they will explain many phenomena in 
 the pathology of mind that now quite baffle explanation. It 
 behooves us to clearly realize the broad fact, which has most 
 wide-reaching consequences in mental physiology and pathol- 
 ogy, that all parts of the body, the highest and t*he lowest, 
 have a sympathy with one another more intelligent than 
 conscious intelligence can yet, or perhaps ever will, conceive ; 
 that there is not an organic motion, visible or invisible, sen- 
 sible or insensible, ministrant to the noblest or to the most 
 humble purposes, which docs not work its appointed effect in 
 the complex recesses of mind ; that the mind, as the crowning 
 achievement of organization, and the consummation and out- 
 come of all its energies, really comprehends the bodily life. 
 
 I had originally set down within the purpose of these 
 Lectures the consideration, which I must now forego, of the 
 influence of the quantity and quality of the blood in the pro- 
 duction of insanity. Poverty and vitiation of blood may 
 
90^ BODY AXD MIND. 
 
 certainly play a weighty part in producing mental, as they do 
 in producing other nervous disorders. Lower the supply of 
 blood to the brain below a certain level, and the power of 
 thinking is abolished ; the brain will then no more do mental 
 work than a water-wheel will move the machinery of the mill 
 when the water is lowered so as not to touch it. When a 
 strong emotion produces a temporary loss of consciousness, 
 it is to be presumed that a contraction of arteries takes place 
 within the brain similar to that which causes the pallor of 
 the face ; and when the laboring heart pumps hard to over- 
 come the obstruction, and the walls of the vessels are weak, 
 they may burst, and the patient die of effusion of blood. 
 During sleep the supply of blood to the brain is lessened 
 naturally, and we perceive the effects of the lowering of the 
 supply, as it takes place, in the sort of incoherence or mild 
 delirium of ideas just before falling off to sleep. To a like 
 condition of things we ought most probably to attribute the 
 attacks of transitory mania or delirium that occur now and 
 then in consequence of great physical exhaustion, as from 
 great and sudden loss of blood, or just as convalescence from 
 fever or other acute disease is setting in, or in the prostration 
 of phthisis, and which a glass of wine opportunely given will 
 sometimes cure. The distress of the melancholic patient is 
 greatest when he wakes in the morning, whicb is a time 
 when a watch ought to be kept specially over the suicidal 
 patient; the reason lying probably in the effects of the di- 
 minished cerebral circulation during sleep. 
 
 If the state of the blood be vitiated by reason of some 
 poison bred in the body, or introduced into it from without, 
 the mental functions may be seriously deranged. We are 
 able, indeed, by means of the drugs at our command, to per- 
 form all sorts of experiments on the mind: we can suspend 
 its action for a time by chloral or chloroform, can exalt its 
 functions by small doses of opium or moderate doses of alco- 
 hol, can pervert them, producing an artificial delirium, by the 
 administration of large enough doses of belladonna and Indian 
 
VITIATED BLOOD. 91 
 
 hemp. Wc can positively do more experimentally with the 
 functions of the mind-centres than wc can do with those of 
 any other organ of the body. "When these are exalted in con- 
 sequence of a foreign substance introduced into the blood, it 
 cannot be doubted that some physical effect is produced on 
 the nerve-element, which is the condition of the increased 
 activity, not otherwise probably than as happens when a 
 fever makes, as it certainly will sometimes do, a demented 
 person, whose mind seemed gone past all hope of even mo- 
 mentary recovery, quite sensible for the time being. Perhaps 
 this should teach us that, just as there are vibrations of light 
 which we cannot see, and vibrations of sound which we can- 
 not hear, so there are molecular movements in the brain which 
 are incapable of producing thought ordinarily, not sufficing to 
 affect consciousness, but which may do so when the sensi- 
 bility of the molecules is exalted by physical or chemical 
 modification of them. 
 
 Alcohol yields us, in its direct effects, the abstract and 
 brief chronicle of the course of mania. At first there is an 
 agreeable excitement, a lively flow of ideas, a revival of old 
 ideas and feelings which seemed to have passed from the mind, 
 a general increase of mental activity — a condition very like 
 that which often precedes an attack of acute mania, when 
 the patient is witty, lively, satirical, makes jokes or rhymes, 
 and certainly exhibits a brilliancy of fancy which he is capable 
 of at no other time. Then there follows, in the next stage of 
 its increasing action, as there does in mania, the automatic 
 excitation of ideas which start up and follow one another 
 without order, so that thought and speech are more or less 
 incoherent, while passion is easily excited. After this stage 
 has lasted for a time, in some longer, in others shorter, it 
 passes into one of depression and maudlin melancholy, just as 
 mania sometimes passes into melancholia, or convulsion into 
 paralysis. And the last stage of all is one of stupor and de- 
 mentia. If the abuse of alcohol be continued for years, it 
 may cause different forms of mental derangement, in each of 
 
92 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 which the muscular are curiously like the mental symptoms : 
 delirium tremens in one, an acute noisy and destructive mania 
 in another, chronic alcoholism in a third, and a condition of 
 mental weakness with loss of memory and loss of energy in a 
 fourth. 
 
 Writers on gout agree that a suppressed gout may entail 
 mental derangement in some persons ; and, on the other hand, 
 that insanity has sometimes disappeared with the appearance 
 of the usual gouty paroxysm. Sydenham noticed and described 
 a species of mania supervening on an epidemic of intermittent 
 fever, which, he remarks, contrary to all other kinds of mad- 
 ness, would not yield to plentiful venesection and purging. 
 Griesinger, again, has directed attention to cases in which, 
 instead of the usual symptoms of ague, the patient has had an 
 intermittent insanity in regular tertian or quartan attacks, and 
 has been cured by quinine. "We must bear in mind, however, 
 that intermittence ijiay be a feature of insanity as of other 
 nervous diseases, without ague having any thing whatever to 
 do with it, and without quinine doing any good whatever. 
 Quinine will not cure the intermittence of nervous diseases, 
 though it may cure ague in whicli the symptoms are ioter- 
 mittent. Griesinger has also pointed out that mental disorder 
 has sometimes occurred in the course of acute rheumatism, 
 the swelling of the joints meanwhile subsiding. These facts, 
 with others which I cannot dwell upon now, prove how im- 
 portant an agency in the production of insanity a perverted 
 state of the blood may be. But it is a mode of causation of 
 which we know so little that I may justly declare we know 
 next to nothing. The observation and classification of mental 
 disorders have been so exclusively psychological that we have 
 not sincerely realized the fact that they illustrate the same 
 pathological principles as other diseases, are produced in the 
 same way, and must be investigated in the same spirit of posi- 
 tive research. Until this be done I see no hope of improve- 
 ment in our knowledge of them, and no use in multiplying 
 books about them. 
 
IDIOPATHIC INSANITY. 93 
 
 It is quite true that wlien we have referred all the cases 
 of insanity which we can to bodily causes, and grouped them 
 according to their characteristic bodily and mental featuros, 
 there will remain cases which we cannot refer to any recog- 
 nizable bodily cause or connect with any definite bodily dis- 
 ease, and which we must be content to describe as idiopathic. 
 The explanation of these cases we shall probably discover- 
 ultimately in the influence of the hereditary neurosis and in 
 the peculiarities of individual temperament. It is evident 
 that there are fundamental differences of temperament, and 
 it is furthermore plain that different natures will be differently 
 favored in the struggle of existence ; one person will have an 
 advantage over another, and by the operation of the law of 
 Natural Selection there will be a success of the fittest to suc- 
 ceed. It is with the development of mind in the conduct of life 
 as it is with every form of life in its relation to its environ- 
 ment. Life is surrounded by forces that are always tending 
 to destroy it, and with which it may be represented as in a 
 continued warfare : so long as it contends successfully with 
 them, winning from them and constraining them to further 
 its development, it flourishes ; but when it can no longer strive, 
 when they succeed in winning from it and increasing at its 
 expense, it begins to decay and die. So it is with mind in 
 the circumstances of its existence : the individual who cannot 
 use circumstances, or accommodate himself successfully to 
 them, and in the one way or the other make them further his 
 development, is controlled and used by them ; being weak, he 
 must be miserable, must be a victim ; and one way in which 
 his suffering and failure will be manifest will be in insanity. 
 Thus it is that mental trials which serve in the end to strength- 
 en a strong nature break down a weak one which cannot fitly 
 react, and that the eflaciency of a moral cause of insanity 
 betrays a conspiracy from within with the unfavorable out- 
 ward circumstances. 
 
 It behooves us to bear distinctly in mind, when we take 
 the moral causes of insanity into consideration, that the men- 
 
94 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 tal suflfering or psychical pain of a sad emotion testifies 
 to actual wear and tear of nerve-element, to disintegration 
 of some kind ; it is the exponent of a physical change. 
 "What the change is we know not; hut we may take it to he 
 heyond question that, when a shock imparted to the mind 
 through the senses causes a violent emotion, it produces a 
 real commotion in the molecules of the brain. It is not that 
 an intangible something flashes inward and mysteriously af- 
 fects an intangible metaphysical entity ; but that an impres- 
 sion made on the sense is conveyed along nervous paths of 
 communication, and produces a definite physical efi^ect in 
 physically-constituted mind-centres; and that the mental 
 efiect, which is the exponent of the physical change, may be 
 then transferred by molecular motion to the muscles, thus 
 getting muscular expression, or to the processes of nutrition 
 and secretion, getting expression in modifications of them. 
 "When there is a native infirmity or instability of nerve- 
 element, in consequence of bad ancestral influences, the in- 
 dividual will be more liable to, and will sufler more from, 
 such violent mental commotions; the disintegrating change 
 in the nerve-element will be more likely to pass into a disor- 
 ganization which rest and nutrition cannot repair, not other- 
 wise than as happens with the elements of any other organ 
 under like conditions of excessive stimulation. As physi- 
 cians, we cannot afford to lose sight of the physical aspects 
 of mental states, if we would truly comprehend the nature 
 of mental disease, and learn to treat it with success. The 
 metaphysician may, for the purposes of speculation, separate 
 mind from body, and evoke the laws of its operation out of 
 the depths of self- consciousness; but the physician — who 
 has to deal practically with the thoughts, feelings, and con- 
 duct of men; who has to do with mind, not as an abstract 
 entity concerning which he may be content to speculate, but 
 as a force in Nature, the operations of which he must pa- 
 tiently observe and anxiously labor to influence — must recog- 
 nize how entirely the integrity of the mental functions de- 
 
UNITY OF BODY AND MIND. 95 
 
 pends on the integrity of the bodily organization — must ac- 
 knowledge the essential unity of body and mind. 
 
 To set forth this unity has been a chief aim in these Lec- 
 tures, because I entertain a most sincere conviction that a 
 just conception of it must lie at the foundation of a real ad- 
 vance in our knowledge both of the physiology and pathol- 
 ogy of mind. I have no wish whatever to exalt unduly the 
 body ; I have, if possible, still less desire to degrade the mind ; 
 but I do protest, with all the energy I dare use, against the 
 unjust and most unscientific practice of declaring the body 
 vile and despicable, of looking down upon the highest and 
 most wonderful contrivance of creative skill as something of 
 which man dare venture to feel ashamed. I cannot now 
 summarize the facts and arguments which I have brought 
 forward ; I must trust to the indulgence of your memory of 
 them when I declare that to my mind it appears a clear sci- 
 entific duty to repudiate the quotation from an old writer, 
 which the late Sir William Hamilton used to hang on the 
 wall of his lecture-room : 
 
 " On earth, there is nothing great but man, 
 In man there is nothing great but mnid." 
 
 The aphorism, which, like most aphorisms, contains an equal 
 measiu*e of truth and untruth, is suitable enough to the pure 
 metaphysician, but it is most unsuitable to the scientific in- 
 quirer, who is bound to reject it, not because of that which 
 is not true in it only, but much more because of the baneful 
 spirit with which it is inspired. On earth there are assured- 
 ly other things great besides man, though none greater ; and 
 in man there are other things great besides mind, though none 
 greater. And whosoever, inspired by the spirit of the aph- 
 orism, thinks to know any thing truly of man without study- 
 ing most earnestly the things on earth that lead up to man, 
 or to know any thing truly of mind without studying most 
 earnestly the things in the body that lead up to and issue in 
 mind, will enter on a barren labor, which, if not a sorrow to 
 
96 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 himself, will assuredly be sorrow and vexation of spirit to 
 others. To reckon the highest operations of mind to be 
 functions of a mental organization is to exalt, not to degrade, 
 our conception of creative power and skill. For, if it be 
 lawful and right to burst into admiration of the wonderful 
 contrivance in Nature by which noble and beautiful products 
 are formed out of base materials, it is surely much stronger 
 evidence of contrivance to have developed the higher mental 
 functions by evolution from the lower, and to have used 
 forms of matter as the organic instruments of all. I know 
 not why the Power which created matter and its properties 
 should be thought not to have endowed it with the functions 
 of reason, feeling, and will, seeing that, whether we discover 
 it to be so endowed or not, the mystery is equally incompre- 
 hensible to us, equally simple and easy to the Power which 
 created matter and its properties. To a right-thinking and 
 right-feeling mind, the beauty, the grandeur, the mystery of 
 Nature are augmented, not lessened, by each new glimpse into 
 the secret recesses of her operations. The sun going forth 
 from its chamber in the east to run its course is not less glo- 
 rious in majesty because we have discovered the law of gravi- 
 tation, and are able by spectral analysis to detect the metals 
 which enter into its composition — because it is no longer 
 Helios driving his golden chariot though the pathless spaces 
 of the heavens. The mountains are not less imposing in 
 their grandeur because the Oreads have deserted them, nor 
 the groves less attractive, nor the streams more desolate, be- 
 cause science lias banished the Dryads and the Naiads. No, 
 science has not destroyed poetry, nor expelled the divine 
 from Nature, but has furnished the materials, and given the 
 presages, of a higher poetry and a mightier philosophy than 
 the world has yet seen. The grave of each superstition 
 which it slays is the Avorab of a better birth. And if it 
 come to pass in its onward march — as it may well be it will 
 come to pass — that other superstitions shall be dethroned as 
 
SCIENCE AND POETRY. 9Y 
 
 the sun-god has been dethroned, wo may rest assured that 
 this also will be a step in human progress, and in the benefi- 
 cent evolution of the Power which ruleth alike the courses 
 of the stars and the wavs of men. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I.— THE LIMITS OF PHILOSOPHICAL mQUIRY.* 
 
 It is not a little hard upon those who now devote them- 
 selves to the patient interrogation of Nature, by means of 
 observation and experiment, that they shoidd be counted, 
 whether they will or not, ministers of the so-called Positive 
 Philosophy, and disciples of him who is popularly considered 
 the founder of that philosophy. No matter that positive in- 
 vestigation within the limits which Comte prescribes was 
 pursued earnestly and systematically before his advent, and 
 with an exactness of method of which he had no conception; 
 that many of thoso distinguished since his time for their 
 scientific researches and generalizations have been unac- 
 quainted with his writings; that others who have studied 
 them withhold their adherence from his doctrines, or ener- 
 getically disclaim them. These things are not considered; 
 so soon as a scientific inquirer pushes his researches into the 
 phenomena of life and mind, he is held to be a Comtist. Thus 
 it happens that there is a growing tendency in the public 
 mind to identify modern science with the Positive Philosophy. 
 Considering how much mischief has often been done by iden- 
 
 * Journal of Mental Science, No. 70. The Limits of Philosophical Inquiry. 
 Address delivered to the Members of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institu- 
 tion, November 6, 1868. By William, Lord-Archbishop of York. (Edmon- 
 ston and Douglas.) 
 
THE LIMITS OF rHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 99 
 
 tifying the character of an epoch of thought with the doc- 
 trines of some eminent man wlio has lived and lahored and 
 taken the lead in it, and thus making his defects and errors, 
 hardened into formulas, chains to fetter the free course of 
 thought, it is no wonder that scientific men should be anxious 
 to disclaim Comtc as their lawgiver, and to protest against 
 such a king being set up to reign over them. Not conscious 
 of any personal obligation to his writings, conscious how 
 much, in some respects, he has misrepresented the spirit and 
 pretensions of science, they repudiate the allegiance which 
 his enthusiastic disciples would force upon them, and which 
 popular opinion is fast coming to think a natural one. They 
 do well in thus making a timely assertion of independence ; 
 for, if it be not done soon, it will soon be too late to be done 
 well. "W^hen we look back at the history of systems of re- 
 ligion and philosophy, it is almost appalling to reflect how 
 entirely one man has appropriated the intellectual develop- 
 ment of his age, and how despotically he has constrained the 
 faith of generations after him ; the mind of mankind is abso- 
 lutely oppressed by the weight of his authority, and his errors 
 and limitations are deemed not less sacred than the true ideas 
 of which he has been the organ : for a time he is made an 
 idol, at the sound of whose name the human intellect is ex- 
 pected to fall down and worship, as the people, nations, and 
 languages were expected, at what time they heard the sound 
 of the flute, harp, sackbut, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, 
 to fall down and worship the golden image which Nebuchad- 
 nezzar the king had set up. Happily it is not so easy to take 
 captive the understanding now, when thought is busy on so 
 many subjects in such various domains of Nature, and when 
 an army of investigators often marches where formerly a 
 solitary pioneer painfully sought his way, as it was when the 
 fields of intellectual activity were few and limited, and the 
 laborers in them few also. 
 
 A lecture delivered by the Archbishop of York before the 
 Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, which has been pub- 
 
100 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 lished as a pamphlet, contains a plain, earnest, and on the 
 whole temperate, but not very closely-reasoned, criticism, 
 from his point of view, of the tendency of modern scientific 
 research, or rather of Positivism, and a somewhat vagne dec- 
 laration of the limits of philosophical inquiry. He perceives 
 with sorrow, but not with great apprehension, that the pros- 
 pects of philosophy are clouded over in England, France, and 
 Germany, and that a great part of the thinking world is oc- 
 cupied with physical researches. But he does not therefore 
 despair ; believing that Positivism indicates only a temporary 
 mood, produced by prostration and lassitude after a period 
 of unusual controversy, and that it will after a time pass 
 away, and be followed by a new era of speculative activity. 
 It may be presumed that men, weary of their fruitless efiorts 
 to scale the lofty and seemingly barren heights of true philos- 
 ophy, have taken the easy path of Positivism, which does not 
 lead upward at all, but leads, if it be followed far enough, to 
 quagmires of unbelief. The facts on which the archbishop 
 bases his opinion, and the steps of reasoning by which he is 
 able thus to couple a period of speculative activity with a 
 period of religious belief, and to declare a system of positive 
 scientific research to be linked inseparably with a system of 
 unbelief, do not appear^ they are suflScient to inspire strong 
 conviction in him, but they apparently lie too far down in 
 the depths of his moral consciousness to be capable of being 
 unfolded, in lucid sequence, to the apprehension of others. 
 
 To the critical reader of the lecture it must at once occur 
 that a want of discrimination between things that are wide- 
 ly different is the cause of no little looseness, if not reck- 
 lessness, of assertion. In the first place, the archbishop 
 identifies off-hand the course and aim of modern scientific 
 progress with the Positivism of Comte and his followers. 
 This is very much as if any one should insist on attributing 
 the same character and the same aim to persons who were 
 travelling for a considerable distance along the same road. 
 As it was Oomte's great aim to organize a harmonious co- 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. IQI 
 
 ordination and subordination of the sciences, lie assimilated 
 and used for bis purpose tbe scientific knowledge wbicb was 
 available to him, and systematized tbe observed method of 
 scientific progress from the more simple and general to the 
 more special and complex studies ; but it assuredly is most 
 unwarrantable to declare those who are engaged in physical 
 research to be committed to his conclusions and pretensions, 
 and there can be no question that a philosophy of science, 
 when it is written, will differ widely from the so-called Posi- 
 tive Philosophy. 
 
 In the second place, the archbishop unwittingly perpe- 
 trates a second and similarly reckless injustice in assuming, 
 as he does, that modern science must needs accept what he 
 describes as the sensational philosophy. " Thus the business 
 of science," he says, " is to gather np the facts as they ap- 
 pear, without addition or perversion of the senses. As the 
 senses are our only means of knowledge, and we can only 
 know things as they present themselves to tho eye and ear, 
 it follows that our knowledge is not absolute knowledge of 
 the things, but a knowledge of their relations to us, that is, 
 of our sensations." Passing by the question, which might 
 well be raised, whether any one, even the founder of the 
 sensational philosophy, ever thus crudely asserted the senses 
 to be our only means of knowledge, and our knowledge to 
 be only a knowledge of our sensations ; passing by, too, any 
 discussion concerning what the archbishop means, if he 
 means any thing, by an absolute knowledge of things as dis- 
 tinct from a knowledge of things in their relations to us, and 
 all speculations concerning the faculties which finite and rel- 
 ative beings who are not archbishops have of apprehending 
 and comprehending the absolute ; it is necessary to protest 
 against the assumption that science is committed to such a 
 representation of the sensational philosophy, or to the sensa- 
 tional philosophy at all. Those modern inquirers who have 
 pushed farthest their physical researches into mental func- 
 tions and bodily organs have notoriously b»cn at great pains 
 
102 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 to discriminate between the nervous centres which minister 
 to sensation and those which minister to reflection, and have 
 done much to elucidate the physical and functional connec- 
 tions between them. They have never been guilty of calling 
 all knowledge a knowledge only of sensations, for they rec- 
 ognize how vague, barren, and unmeaning, are the terms of 
 the old language of philosophical strife, when an attempt is 
 made to apply them with precision to the phenomena re- 
 vealed by exact scientific observation. The sensorial centres 
 with which the senses are in direct connection are quite dis- 
 tinct from, and subordinate to, the nervous centres of idea- 
 tion or reflection — the supreme hemispherical ganglia. It is 
 in these, which are far more developed in man than in any 
 other animal, and more developed in the higher than in the 
 lower races of men, that sensation is transformed into knowl- 
 edge, and that reflective consciousness has its seat. The 
 knowledge so acquired is not drained from the outer world 
 through the senses, nor is it a physical mixture or a chemical 
 compound of so much received from without and so much 
 added by the mind or brain ; it is an organized result of a 
 most complex and delicate process of development in the 
 highest kind of organic element in Nature — a mental organi- 
 zation accomplished, like any other organization, in accord- 
 ance with definite laws. "We have to do with laws of life^ 
 and the language used in the interpretation of phenomena 
 must accord with ideas derived from the study of organiza- 
 tion ; for assuredly it cannot fail to produce confusion if it be 
 the expression only of ideas derived from the laws of phys- 
 ical phenomena, so far as these are at present known to us. 
 Now, the organization of a definite sensation is a very difi'er- 
 ent matter from, has no resemblance in Nature to, the phys- 
 ical impression made upon the organ of sense, and the or- 
 ganization of an idea is a higher and more complex vital 
 process than the organization of a sensation ; to call knowl- 
 edge, therefore, a knowledge only of sensation is either a 
 meaningless proposition, or, in so far as it has meaning, it is 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL IXQUIRY. 103 
 
 falser tlian it would be to affirm the properties of a chemical 
 compound to be those of its constituents. Were they who 
 pursue the scientific study of mind not more thoughtful than 
 the Archbishop of York gives them credit for being, they 
 would have no reason to give why animals with as many 
 senses as man has, and with some of them more acute than 
 his, have not long since attained, like him, to an understand- 
 ing of the benefits of establishing archbishoprics. 
 
 It must be understood that by the assertion of the organic 
 basis of mental function is not meant that the mind imposes 
 the laws of its own organization ; on the contrary, it obeys 
 them, knowing not whence they come nor whither they 
 tend. Innate ideas, fundamental ideas, categories of the un- 
 derstanding, and like metaphysical expressions, are obscure 
 intimations of the laws of action of the internal organizing 
 power under the conditions of its existence and exercise ; 
 and it is easy to perceive that a new and higher sense con- 
 ferred on man, altering entirely these conditions, would at 
 once render necessary a new order of fundamental ideas or 
 categories of the understanding. That all our knowledge is 
 relative cannot be denied, unless it be maintained that in that 
 wonderful organizing power which cometh from afar there 
 lies hidden that which may be intuitively revealed to con- 
 sciousness as absolute knowledge — that the nature of the 
 mysterious power which inspires and impels evolution may, 
 by a flash of intuitive consciousness, be made manifest to 
 the mind in the process of its own development. If ISTature 
 be attaining to a complete self-consciousness in man, far 
 away from such an end as it seems to be, it is conceivable 
 that this might happen ; and if such a miraculous inspiration 
 were thus to reveal the unknown, it would be a revelation of 
 the one primeval Power. Clearly, however, as positive sci- 
 entific research is powerless before a vast mystery — the 
 whence, what, and whither, of the mighty power which 
 gives the impulse to evolution — it is not justified in making 
 any proposition regarding it. This, however, it may rightly 
 
104 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 do ; while keeping its inquiries ■vvitliin the limits of the 
 knowable, it may examine criticallj, and nse all available 
 means of testing, the claims and credentials of any professed 
 revelation of the mystery. And it is in the pursuit of such 
 inquiries that it would have been satisfactory to have had 
 from the archbishop, as a high-priest of the mystery, some 
 gleam of information as to the proper limits which he be- 
 lieves ought to be observed. At what point is the hitherto 
 and no farther to which inquiry may advance in that direc- 
 tion ? Where do we reach the holy ground when it becomes 
 necessary to put the scientific shoes from off our feet ? There 
 must assuredly be some right and duty of examination into 
 the evidence of revelations claiming to be Divine; for, if it 
 were not so, how could the intelligent Mussulman ever be, 
 if he ever is, persuaded to abandon the one God of his faith, 
 and to accept what must seem to him the polytheism of the 
 Christian Trinity ? 
 
 Another error, or rather set of errors, into which the 
 archbishop plunges, is that he assumes positive science to be 
 materialistic, and materialism to involve the negation of God, 
 of immortality, and of free will. This imputation of mate- 
 rialism, which ought never to have been so lightly made, it is 
 quite certain that the majority of scientific men would ear- 
 nestly disclaim. Moreover, the materialist, as such, is not 
 under any logical constraint whatever to deny either the ex- 
 istence of a God, or the immortality of the soul, or free will. 
 One is almost tempted to say that in two things the arch- 
 bishop distances competition : first, in the facility w^ith which 
 he loses or dispenses with the links of his own chain of rea- 
 soning; and, secondly, in his evident inability to perceive, 
 when looking sincerely with all his might, real and essential 
 distinctions which are at all subtile, which are not broadly, 
 and almost coarsely, marked. If the edge of a distinction be 
 fine, if it be not as blunt as a weaver's beam, it fails seem- 
 ingly to attract his attention. "Whosoever believes sincerely 
 in the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, as taught by 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 105 
 
 tlio Apostle Paul, wliicli all Christians profess to do, must 
 surelj have some difficulty in conceiving the immortality of 
 the soul apart from that of the body; for, if the apostle's 
 preaching and the Christian's faith be not vain, and the body 
 do rise again, then it may be presumed that the soul and it 
 will share a common immortality, as they have shared a com- 
 mon mortality. So far, then, from materialism being the ne- 
 gation of immortality, the greatest of the apostles, the great 
 Apostle of the Gentiles, earnestly preached materialism as es- 
 sential to the life which is to come. There is as little or less 
 justification for saying that materialism involves of necessity 
 the denial of free will. The facts on which the doctrine of 
 free will is based are the same facts of observation, whether 
 spiritualism or materialism be the accepted faith, and the 
 question of their interpretation is not essentially connected 
 with the one or the other faith ; the spiritualist may consist- 
 ently deny, and the materialist consistently advocate, free 
 will. In like manner, the belief in the existence of God is 
 nowise inconsistent with the most extreme materialism, for 
 the belief is quite independent of the facts and reasons on 
 which that faith is founded. The spiritualist may deny God 
 the power to make matter think, but the materialist need not 
 deny the existence of God because he holds that matter may 
 be capable of thought. Multitudes may logically believe that 
 mind is inseparable from body in life or death — that it is 
 born with it, grows, ripens, decays, and dies with it, without 
 disbelieving in a great and intelligent Power who has called 
 man into being, and ordained the greater light to rule the day 
 and the lesser light to rule the night. 
 
 ^'hat an unnecessary horror hangs over the word materi- 
 alism ! It has an ugly sound and an indefinite meaning, and 
 is well suited, therefore, to be set up as a sort of moral 
 scarecrow ; but, if it be closely examined, it will be found to 
 have the semblance of something terrible, and to be empty 
 of any real harm. In the assertion that mind is altogether a 
 function of matter, there is no more actual irreverence than in 
 
106 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 asserting that matter is the realization of mind ; the one and 
 the other proposition being equally meaningless so far as they 
 postulate a knowledge of any thing more than phenomena. 
 "Whether extension be visible thought, or thought invisible ex- 
 tension, is a question of a choice of words, and not of a choice 
 of conceptions. To those who cannot conceive that any or- 
 ganization of matter, however complex, should be capable of 
 such exalted functions as those which are called mental, is it 
 really more conceivable that any organization of matter can 
 be the mechanical instrument of the complex manifestations 
 of an immaterial mind ? Is it not as easy for an omnipotent 
 power to endow matter with mental functions as it is to 
 create an immaterial entity capable of accomplishing them 
 through matter ? Is the Creator's arm shortened, so that He 
 cannot endow matter with sensation and ideation? It is 
 strangely overlooked by many who write on this matter, that 
 the brain is not a dead instrument, but a living organ, with 
 functions of a higher kind than those of any other bodily 
 organ, insomuch as its organic nature and structure far sur- 
 pass those of any other organ. What, then, are those func- 
 tions if they are not mental ? N'o one thinks it necessary to 
 assume an immaterial liver behind the hepatic structure, in or- 
 der to account for its functions. But so far as the nature of 
 nerve and the complex structure of the cerebral convolutions 
 exceed in dignity the hepatic elements and structure, so far 
 must the material functions of the brain exceed those of the 
 liver. Men are not sufficiently careful to ponder the wonder- 
 ful operations of which matter is capable, or to reflect on the 
 miracles effected by it which are continually before their eyes. 
 Are the properties of a chemical compound less mysterious 
 essentially because of the familiarity with which we handle 
 them ? Consider the seed dropped into the ground : it swells 
 with germinating energy, bursts its integuments, sends up- 
 ward a delicate shoot, which grows into a stem, putting forth 
 in due season its leaves and flowers, until finally a beautiful 
 structure is formed, such as Solomon in all his glory could not 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 1:07 
 
 equal, and all the art of mankind cannot imitate. And yet 
 all these processes are operations of matter; for it is not 
 thought necessary to assume an immaterial or spiritual plant 
 which effects its purposes through the agency of the material 
 structure which we observe. Surely there are here exhibited 
 properties of matter wonderful enough to satisfy any one of 
 the powers that may be inherent in it. Arc we, then, to be- 
 lieve that the highest and most complex development of or- 
 ganic structure is not capable of even more wonderful opera- 
 tions ? Would you have the human body, which is a micro- 
 cosm containing all the forms and powers of matter organized 
 in the most delicate and complex manner, to possess lower 
 powers than those forms of matter exhibit separately in Na- 
 ture? Trace the gradual development of the nervous system 
 through the animal series, from its first germ to its most com- 
 plex evolution, and let it be declared at what point it sudden- 
 ly loses all its inherent properties as living structure, and be- 
 comes the mere mechanical instrument of a spiritual entity. 
 In what animal, or in what class of animals, does the imma- 
 terial principle abruptly intervene and supersede the agency 
 of matter, becoming the entirely distinct cause of a similar, 
 though more exalted, order of mental phenomena? To ap- 
 peal to the consciousness of every man for the proof of a 
 power within him, totally distinct from any function of the 
 body, is not admissible as an argument, while it is admitted 
 that consciousness can make no observation of the bodily or- 
 gan and its functions, and until therefore it be proved that 
 matter, even when in the form of the most complex organi- 
 zation, is incapable of certain mental functions. "Why may it 
 not, indeed, be capable of consciousness, seeing that, whether 
 it be or not, the mystery is equally incomprehensible to us, 
 and must be reckoned equally simple and easy to the Power 
 which created matter and its properties ? When, again, we 
 are told that every part of the body is in a constant state of 
 change, that within a certain period every particle of it is re- 
 newed, and yet that amid these changes a man feels that he 
 
108 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 remains essentially tlie same, we perceive nothing inconsist- 
 ent in the idea of the action of a material organ ; for it is not 
 absurd to suppose that in the brain the new series of particles 
 take the pattern of those which they replace, as they do in 
 other organs and tissues which are continually changing their 
 substance yet preserve their identity. Even the scar of a 
 wound on the finger is not often effaced, but grows as the 
 body grows: why, then, assume the necessity of an imma- 
 terial principle to prevent the impression of an idea from be- 
 ing lost? 
 
 The truth is, that men have disputed vaguely and violently 
 about matter and motion, and about the impossibility of mat- 
 ter affecting an immaterial mind, never haviug been at the 
 pains to reflect carefully upon the different kinds of matter 
 and the corresponding differences of kind in its motions. All 
 sorts of matter, diverse as they are, were vaguely matter — 
 there was no discrimination made ; and all the manifold and 
 special properties of matter were comprised under the gen- 
 eral term motion. This was not, nor could it lead to, good ; 
 for matter really rises in dignity from physical matter in 
 Avhich physical properties exist to chemical matter and chem- 
 ical forces, and from chemical matter to living matter and its 
 modes of force ; and then in the scale of life a continuing as- 
 cent leads from the lowest kind of living matter with its force 
 or energy, through different kinds of physiological elements 
 with their special energies or functions, to the highest kind 
 of living matter with its force — viz., nerve-matter and nerve- 
 force ; and, lastly, through the different kinds of nerve-cells 
 and their energies to the most exalted agents of mental func- 
 tion. Obviously, then, simple ideas derived from observation 
 of mechanical phenomena cannot fitly be applied to the ex- 
 planation of the functions of that most complex combination 
 of elements and energies, physical and chemical, in a small 
 space, which we have in living structure ; to speak of me- 
 chanical vibration in nerves and nerve-centres is to convey 
 false ideas of their extremely delicate and complex energies, 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 109 
 
 and thus seriously to hinder the formation of more just con- 
 ceptions. 
 
 In like manner, much barren discussion has been owing 
 to the undiscriminating inclusion of all kinds of mental mani- 
 festations under the vague and general term mind ; for there 
 are most important differences in the nature and dignity of 
 so-called mental phenomena, when they are properly observed 
 and analyzed. Those who have not been at the pains to 
 follow^ the order of development of mental phenomena and 
 to make themselves acquainted with the different kinds of 
 functions that concur to form what we call mental action, 
 and who have not studied the differences of matter, are doing 
 no better than beating the air w^hen they disclaim against 
 materialism. By rightly submitting the understanding to 
 facts, it is made evident that, on the one hand, matter rises 
 in dignity and function until its energies merge insensibly 
 into functions which are described as mental, and, on the 
 other hand, that there are gradations of mental function, the 
 lowest of which confessedly do not transcend the functions 
 of matter. The burden of proving that the Deus ex mo.cliind 
 of a spiritual entity intervenes somewhere, and where it 
 intervenes, clearly lies upon those who make the assertion or 
 who need the hypothesis. They are not justified in arbitra- 
 rily fabricating an hypothesis entirely inconsistent with ex- 
 perience of the orderly development of Nature, which even 
 postulates a domain of Nature that human senses cannot take 
 any cognizance of, and in then calling upon those who reject 
 their assumption to disprove it. These have done enough if 
 they show that there are no grounds for and no need of the 
 hypothesis. 
 
 Here we might properly take leave of the archbishop's 
 address, were it not that the looseness of his statements and 
 the way in which his understanding is governed by the old 
 phrases of philosophical disputes tempt further criticism, and 
 make it a duty to expose aspects of the subject of which he 
 does not evince the least apprehension. He would, we ima- 
 
110 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 gine, be hard put to it to support the heavy indictment con- 
 tained in the following sentence which he flings off as he 
 goes heedlessly forward : " A system which pretends to dis- 
 pense with the ideas of God, of immortality, of free agency, 
 of causation, and of design, would seem to offer few attrac- 
 tions." The question of the value of any system of philosophy 
 is not, it may be observed incidentally, whether it is unattrac- 
 tive because it dispenses with received notions, still less 
 because its adversaries imagine that it must dispense with 
 them; but it is whether it possesses that degree of funda- 
 mental truth which will avail to enlarge the knowledge and 
 to attract ultimately the belief of mankind. History does not 
 record that the doctrines of Christianity were found attractive 
 by the philosophers of Greece or Rome when they were first 
 preached there ; does, indeed, record that Paul preaching on 
 Mars' Hill at Athens, the city of intellectual enlightenment, 
 and declaring to the inhabitants the unknown God whom 
 they ignorantly worshipped, made no impression, but found 
 it prudent to depart thence to Corinth, nowise renowned at 
 that time as a virtuous city, renowned, indeed, in far other 
 wise. We have not, however, quoted the foregoing sentence 
 in order to repudiate popular attractiveness as a criterion of 
 truth, but to take occasion to declare the wide difference be- 
 tween the modest spirit of scientific inquiry and the confident 
 dogmatism of the so-called Positive Philosophy. Science, 
 recognizing the measure of what it can impart to be bounded 
 by the existing limits of scientific inquiry, makes no proposi- 
 tion whatever concerning that which lies beyond these lim- 
 its ; equally careful, on the one hand, to avoid a barren 
 enunciation in words of what it cannot apprehend in 
 thought, and, on the other hand, to refrain from a blind 
 denial of possibihties transcending its means of research. A 
 calm acquiescence in ignorance until light comes is its atti- 
 tude. It must be borne clearly in mind, however, that this 
 scrupulous care to abstain from presumptuous assertions does 
 not warrant the imposition of any arbitrary barrier to the 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. Ill 
 
 re.lcli of its powers, but is quite cousistent with the convic- 
 tion of the possibility of an invasion and subjugation of the 
 unknown to a practically unlimited extent, and with the most 
 strenuous efforts to lessen its domain. 
 
 The wonder is — and the more it is considered the greater 
 it seems — that human intelligence should ever have grown to 
 the height either of affirming or of denying the existence of a 
 God. Certainly the denial implies, even if the affirmation 
 does not also, the assumption of the attributes of a God by 
 him who makes it. Let imagination travel unrestrained 
 through the immeasurable heavens, past the myriads of orbs 
 which, revolving in their appointed paths, constitute our 
 solar system, through distances which words cannot express 
 nor mind conceive definitely, to other suns and other planet- 
 ary systems ; beyond these glimmer in the vast distance the 
 lights of more solar systems, whose rays, extinguished in the 
 void, never reach our planet : still they are not the end, for 
 as thought in its flight leaves them behind, and they vanish 
 in remote space, other suns appear, until, as the imagination 
 strives to realize their immensity, the heavens seem almost 
 an infinite A^oid, so small a space do the scattered clusters of 
 planets fill. Then let sober reflection take up the tale, and, 
 remembering how small a part of the heavenly hosts our 
 solar system is, and how small a part of our solar system 
 the earth is, consider how entirely dependent man, and 
 beast, and plant, and every living thing are upon the heat 
 which this our planet receives from the sun; how vege- 
 tation flourishes through its inspiring influence, and the 
 vegetation of the past in long-buried forests gives up again 
 the heat which ages ago it received from the sun ; how animal 
 life is sustained by the life of the vegetable kingdom, and by 
 the heat which is received directly from the sun; and hoAv 
 man, as the crown of living things, and his highest mental 
 energy, as the crown of his development, depend on all that 
 has gone before him in the evolution of Nature — considering 
 all these things, docs not living Nature appear but a small 
 
112 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 and incidental by-play of the sun's energies ? Seems it not 
 an unspeakable presumption to affirm that man is the main 
 end and purpose of creation ? Is it not appalling to think 
 that he should dare to speak of what so far surpasses the 
 reach of his feeble senses, and of the power which ordains 
 and governs the order of events — impiously to deny the 
 existence of a God, or not less impiously to create one in his 
 image? The portion of the universe with which man is 
 brought into relation by his existing sentiency is but a frag- 
 ment, and to measure the possibilities of the infinite unknown 
 by the standard of what he knov/s is very much as if the 
 oyster should judge all Nature by the experience gained with- 
 in its shell — should deny the existence on earth of a human 
 being, because its intelligence cannot conceive his nature or 
 recognize his works. Encompassing us and transcending our 
 ken is a universe of energies ; how can man, then, the " feeble 
 atom of an hour," presume to affirm whose glory the heavens 
 declare, whose handiwork the firmament showeth? Certain- 
 ly true science does not so dogmatize. 
 
 Bacon, in a well-known and often-quoted passage, has re- 
 marked, that " a little philosophy inclineth men's minds to 
 Atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about 
 to religion ; for while the mind of man looketh upon second 
 causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no 
 further ; but when it beholdeth tlie chain of them, confeder- 
 ate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and 
 Deity." It is not easy to^perceive, indeed, how modern sci- 
 ence, which makes its inductions concerning natural forces 
 from observation of their manifestations, and arrives at 
 generalizations of diflerent forces, can, after observation of 
 Nature, avoid the generalization of an intelligent mental 
 force, linked in harmonious association and essential relations 
 witli other forces, but leading and constraining them to higher 
 aims of evolution. To speak of such evolution as the course 
 of Nature is to endow an undefined agency with the proper- 
 ties which are commonly assigned to a god, whether it bo 
 
PniLOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 113 
 
 called God or not. The nature, aim, and power of this su- 
 preme intelligent force, working so far as we know from 
 everlasting to everlasting, it is plainly impossible that man, a 
 finite and transient part of ISTature, should comprehend. To 
 suppose him capable of doing so, would be to suppose him 
 endowed with the very attributes which, having only in part 
 himself, he ascribes in the whole to Deity. 
 
 "Whether the low savage has or has not the idea of a God 
 is a question which seems hardly to deserve the amount of 
 attention which it has received. It is certain that he feels 
 himself surrounded and overruled by forces the natures and 
 laws of which he is quite ignorant of, and that he is apt to 
 interpret them, more or less clearly, as the' work of some 
 being of like passions with himself, but vastly more powerful, 
 whom it is his interest to propitiate. Indeed, it would ap- 
 pear, so far as the information of travellers enables us to 
 judge, that the idea entertained of God by the savage who 
 has any such idea is nearly allied to that which civilized peo- 
 ple have or have had of a devil ; for it is the vague dread of 
 a being whose delight is in bringing evil upon him rather 
 than that of a being who watches over and protects him. 
 Being ignorant altogether of the order of Nature, and of the 
 fixed laws under which calamities and blessings alike come, 
 he frames a dim, vague, and terrible embodiment of the causes 
 of those effects which touch him most painfully. TTill it be 
 believed, then, that the Archbishop of York actually appeals 
 to the instinct of the savage to rebuke the alleged atheism 
 of science ? Let it be granted, however, that the alleged in- 
 stinct of the savage points to a God and not to a devil ruling 
 the world, it must in all fairness be confessed that it is a dim, 
 undefined, fearful idea — if that can be called an idea which 
 form has none — having no relationship to the conception of 
 a God which is cherished among civilized people. In like 
 manner as the idea of a devil has undergone a remarkable 
 development with the growth of intelligence from age to age, 
 until in some quarters there is evinced a disposition to im- 
 
114 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 prove him out of being, so the conception of a God has under- 
 gone an important development through the ages, in corre- 
 spondence with the development of the human mind. The 
 conceptions of God affirmed by different revelations notably 
 reflect, and are an index of, the intellectual and moral char- 
 acter of the people to whom each revelation has been made, 
 and the God of the same religion does unquestionably advance 
 with the mental evolution of the people professing it, being 
 differently conceived of at different stages of culture. Art, 
 in its early infancy, when it is, so to speak, learning its steps, 
 endeavors to copy Nature, and, copying it badly, exaggerates 
 and caricatures it, whence the savage's crude notion of a God ; 
 but the aim and work of the highest art is to produce by 
 idealization the illusion of a higher reality, whence a more 
 exalted and spiritual conception of Deity. 
 
 Notwithstanding the archbishop's charge of atheism 
 against science, there is hardly one, if indeed there be even 
 one, eminent scientific inquirer who has denied the existence 
 of God, while there is notably more than one who has 
 evinced a childlike simplicity of faith. The utmost claim of 
 scientific skepticism is the right to examine the evidence of a 
 revelation professing to be Divine, in the same searching way 
 as it would examine any other evidence — to endeavor to trace 
 the origin and development, and to weigh the value, of re- 
 ligious conceptions as of other conceptions. It violates the 
 fundamental habit of the scientific mind, the very principle 
 of its nature, to demand of it the unquestioning acceptance 
 of any form of faith which tradition may hand down as 
 divinely revealed. When the followers of a religion appeal, 
 as the followers of every religion do, in proof of it, to the 
 testimony of miraculous events contrary to the experience 
 of the present order of Nature, there is a scientific fact not 
 contrary to experience of the order of Nature which they 
 overlook, but which it is incumbent to bear in mind, viz. : 
 That eager and enthusiastic disciples sometimes have visions 
 and dream dreams, and that they are apt innocently to ima- 
 
rniLOSOPmcAL inquiry. 115 
 
 gine or purposely to invent extraordinary or supernatural 
 events worthy the imagined importance of the subject, and 
 answering the bnrning zeal of their faith. The calm observer 
 and sincere interpreter of Nature cannot set capricious or 
 arbitrary bounds to his inquiries at any point where another 
 may assert that he ought to do so ; he cannot choose but 
 claim and maintain the right to search and try what any 
 man, Jew or Gentile, Mussulman or Bramin, has declared 
 sacred, and to see if it be true. And, if it be not true to him, 
 what matters it how true it be? The theologian tells him 
 that the limits of philosophical inquiry are where faith be- 
 gins, but he is concerned to find out where faith does begin, 
 and to examine what sort of evidence the evidence of things 
 unseen is. And if this right of free inquiry be denied him, 
 then is denied him the right to doubt what any visionary, or 
 fanatic, or madman, or impostor, may choose to proclaim as a 
 revelation from the spiritual world. 
 
 Toward the close of his lecture the archbishop, breaking 
 out into peroration, becomes violently contemptuous of the 
 philosopher who, " with his sensations sorted and tied up 
 and labelled to the utmost, might," he thinks, " chance to 
 find himself the most odious and ridiculous being in all the 
 multiform creation. A creature so glib, so wise, so full of 
 discourse, sitting in the midst of creation with all its mystery 
 and wonder, and persuading you that he is the master of its 
 secrets, and that there is nothing but what he knows ! " It 
 is not very difficult to raise a laugh by drawing a caricature ; 
 but it was hardly, perhaps, worthy the lecturer, the subject, 
 and the audience, to exhibit on such an occasion an archi- 
 episcopal talent for drawing caricatures. As we have al- 
 ready intimated, this philosopher, " so glib, so wise, so full 
 of discourse," does not profess to know nearly so much of 
 the mystery and wonder of creation as the archbishop does. 
 There is more flourishing language of the same sort before 
 the discourse ends, but it would be unprofitable to transcribe 
 or criticise it; and it is only right to the lecturer to say that 
 
116 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 lie is near his conclusion when lie works himself up into this 
 vituperative and somewhat hysterical ecstasy. The follow- 
 ing passage may be quoted, however, as instructive in more 
 respects than one : 
 
 "The world offers just now the spectacle, humiliating to us in 
 many ways, of millions of people clinging to their old idolatrous reli- 
 gions, and refusing to change them even for a higher form ; while in 
 Christian Europe thousands of the most cultivated class are beginning 
 to consider atheism a permissible or even a desirable thing. The very 
 instincts of the savage rebuke us. But just when we seem in danger 
 of losing all may come the moment of awakening to the dangers of 
 our loss. A world where thought is a secretion of the brain-gland — 
 where free will is the dream of a madman that thinks he is an em- 
 peror, though naked and in chains — where God is not or at least not 
 knowable, such is not the world as we have learned it, on Ivhich 
 great lives have been lived out, great self-sacrifices dared, great piety 
 and devotion have been bent on softening the sin, the ignorance, and 
 the misery. It is a world from which the sun is withdrawn, and with 
 it all light and life. But this is not our world as it was, not the world 
 of our fathers. To live is to think and to will. To think is to see 
 the chain of facts in creation, and passing along its golden links to 
 find the hand of God at its beginning, as we saw His handiwork in its 
 course. And to will is to be able to know good and evil ; and to will 
 aright is to submit the will entirely to a will higher than ours. So 
 that with God alone can we ' find true knowledge and true rest, the 
 vaunted fruits of philosophy." 
 
 Was ever before such a terrible indictment against Chris- 
 tianity drawn by a Christian prelate? Its doctrines have 
 now been preached for nearly two thousand years ; they 
 have had the aids of vast armies, of incalculable wealth, of 
 the greatest genius and eloquence ; they are embodied in the 
 results of conquests, in the sublimest works of art, in some 
 of the noblest specimens of oratory, in the very organization 
 of modern society; thousands upon thousands have died 
 martyrs to their faith in them, and thousands more have been 
 made martyrs for want of faith in them; they have been 
 carried to the darkest places of the earth by the vehicles of 
 commerce, have been proclaimed by the messengers and 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 117 
 
 backed by the moral power of a higher civilization; they 
 are almost identified with the spirit and results of modern 
 scientific progress : all these advantages they have had, 
 and yet the archbishop can do no more than point to the 
 spectacle of millions of people clinging to their old idola- 
 trous religions, and to thousands of the most cultivated class 
 in Christian Europe who are beginning to consider atheism a 
 permissible or even a desirable thing ! AYhether it be really 
 true that so many of the cultivated class in Europe are 
 gravitating toward atheism we cannot say ; but, if the allega- 
 tion be true, it may well be doubted whether an appeal to 
 the instincts of the savage who persists in clinging to his 
 idolatry will avail to convince them of their error. It is not 
 very consistent on the archbishop's part to make such an ap- 
 peal, who in another paragraph of his lecture emphatically 
 enjoins on philosophy not to banish God, freedom, duty, and 
 immortality from the field of its inquiries, adjuring it solemnly 
 never to consent to abandon these highest subjects of study. 
 Another comment on the passage above quoted which sug- 
 gests itself is that men have undergone great self-sacrifices, 
 sufferings, and death, for a bad cause with as firm and cheer- 
 ful a resolution as good men have for the best cause ; to die 
 for a faith is no proof whatever of the truth of it, nor by 
 any means always the best service which a man may render it. 
 Atheism counts its martyrs as well as Christianity. Jordano 
 Bruno, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, was condemned for 
 atheism, sentenced to death, and, refusing to recant, burned 
 at the stake. Yanini, who suff'ered death as an atheist, 
 might have been pardoned the moment before his execution 
 if he would have retracted his doctrines ; but he chose to be 
 burned to ashes rather than retract. To these might be 
 added others who have gone through much persecution and 
 grievous suffering for a cause which the Archbishop of York 
 would count the worst for which a man could suffer. How 
 many Christians of one sect have undergone lingering tor- 
 tures and cruel deaths at the hands of Christians of another 
 
118 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 sect for the sake of small and non-essential points of doc- 
 trine in which only they differed — for points at issue so mi- 
 nute as to " be scarcely visible to the nicest theological eye ! " 
 Christianity has sometimes been a terrible war-cry, and it 
 must be confessed that Christians have been good persecu- 
 tors. When the passions of men have worked a faith into 
 enthusiasm, they will suffer and die, and inflict suffering and 
 death, for any cause, good or bad. The appeal to martyr- 
 dom of professors is therefore of small worth as an argu- 
 ment fi)r the truth of their doctrine. Pity 'tis that it is so, 
 for, if it were otherwise, if self-sacrifice in a cause would suf- 
 fice to establish it, what a noble and powerful argument in 
 support of the Christian verities might archbishops and bish- 
 ops offer, in these sad times of luxury and unbelief when so 
 many are lapsing into atheism ! 
 
 But we must bring to an end these reflections, Avhich are 
 some of those that have been suggested by the perusal of the 
 archiepiscopal address on the "Limits of Philosophical In- 
 quiry." Though heavy charges are laid against modern sci- 
 ence, they are made in a thoughtless rather than a bitter 
 spirit, while the absence of bigotry and the general candor 
 displayed may justify a hope that the author will, on reflec- 
 tion, perceive his opinions to require further consideration, 
 and his statements to be too indiscriminate and sweeping. 
 On the whole there is, we think, less reason to apprehend 
 harm to scientific inquiry from this discharge of the arch- 
 bishop's feelings, than to apprehend harm to those who are 
 obstinately defending the religious position against the attack 
 which is thought imminent. For he has used his friends 
 badly: he has exposed their entire flank to the enemy; 
 while he would distinctly have philosophy concern itself 
 with the highest subjects — God, freedom, and immortality — 
 despising a philosophy which forbears to do so, and pointing 
 out how miserably it falls short of its highest mission, he 
 warns philosophy in the same breath that there is a point at 
 whioli its teachinpf ends. 
 
PHILOSOPUICAL INQUIRY. 110 
 
 "Philosophy, wliilc she is teaching morals and religion, 
 will soon come to ii point where her teaching tends. . . She 
 will send her scholars to seek in revelation and practical 
 obedience the higher culture that she can only commence.'" 
 
 The pity of the matter is, that we are not furnished with 
 a word of guidance as to where the hitherto and no farther 
 point is. "With brave and flourishing words he launches the 
 inquirer on a wide waste of waters, but without a rudder to 
 guide him, or a compass to steer by. Is he to go on so long 
 as what he discovers is in conformity with the Gospel accord- 
 ing to the Thirty-nine Articles, but furl-to his sails, cease his 
 exertions, and go down on his knees, the moment his discov- 
 eries clash with the faith according to the Thirty-nine Arti- 
 cles ? What guarantee have we that he will be content to 
 do so ? In withholding the Scriptures from the people, and 
 shutting off philosophy entirely from the things that belong 
 to faith, the Church of Eome occupies a strong and almost 
 impregnable position ; for, if there be no reading there will 
 be no inquiry, and if there be no inquiry there will be no 
 doubt, and if there be no doubt there will be no disbelief. 
 But the union of philosophical inquiry and religious faith is 
 not a natural union of kinds ; and it is diflficult to see how 
 the product of it can be much different from the hybrid 
 products of other unnatural unions of different kinds — can 
 be other than sterile, when it is not monstrous. 
 
II.— THE THEORY OF VITALITY.* 
 
 It has been the custom of certain discij^les of the so- 
 called Positive Philosophy to repudiate as extravagant the 
 well-known opinion of Protagoras, that man was the meas- 
 ure of the universe. If the proposition be understood of 
 man as he is known to himself by the revelations of self- 
 consciousness, there is unquestionably great reason for its 
 rejection ; but, if it be applied to him as an objective study, 
 it is manifest that modern science is tending to prove it by 
 no means so absurd as it has been sometimes deemed. Day 
 by day, indeed, is it becoming more and more clear that, as 
 Sir T. Browne has it, man " parallels Nature in the cosmog- 
 raphy of himself; " that, in truth, "we are that bold and 
 adventurous piece of Nature which he that studies wisely 
 learns in a compendium what others labor at in a divided 
 piece and endless volume." t The " heaven-descended yva9i 
 creavrSv " acquires new value as a maxim inculcating on man 
 the objective study of himself. 
 
 The earliest cultivators of Grecian philosophy — Thales, 
 Anaximenes, and Diogenes of Apollonia — did seek objec- 
 tively for the apx-fi or first principle of things common to 
 man and the rest of Nature. This primitive kind of induc- 
 tion was soon, however, abandoned for the easier and speed- 
 ier deduction from the subjective facts of consciousness ; so 
 that, as the German philosopher is said to have done with 
 
 * British and Foreign Medico- Chir. lieview, No. G4, 1863. 
 + FeUgio Medici. 
 
THE TUEORY OF VITALITY. 121 
 
 the elephant, man constructed the laws of an external world 
 out of the depths of his own consciousness. Because an in- 
 dividual was conscious of certain passions which influenced 
 liis conduct, he fancied that natural hodies were affected in 
 their relations to one another by like passions. Hence the 
 phenomena of Nature were explained by sympathies, antip- 
 athies, loves, discords : oil ' had an antipathy to water ; 
 Nature abhorred a vacuum ; Love was the creative force 
 which produced development and harmony ; Hate, the de- 
 structive force which produced disorder and discord. The 
 method was only a phase of the anthropomorphism by which 
 the Dryad was placed in the tree, the Naiad in the fountain, 
 and the gods of mankind were created by man. 
 
 The result of such a method was inevitable. AYhen in a 
 language there is but one word for two or three different 
 meanings, as happens in all languages before the cultivation 
 of science — when, for example, the loadstone is said to attract 
 iron, the earth to attract heavy bodies, the plant to attract 
 moisture, and one mind to attract another, without further 
 differentiation — there necessarily is an ambiguity about 
 words; disputes thereupon arise, and the unavoidable issue 
 is sophistry and sophists. That was a result which the in- 
 genious and active mind of Greece soon reached. In scien- 
 tific nomenclature it is constantly becoming necessary to dis- 
 card words which are in common use, because of their vague- 
 ness and want of precision; for as it is with life objectively, 
 and as it is with cognition or life subjectively, so must it be 
 with the language in which the phenomena are expressed. 
 A scientific nomenclature must rightly present a progress 
 from the general to the special, must reflect in its increasing 
 specialization the increased specialization of human adapta- 
 tion to external Nature. As might be expected, Plato and 
 Aristotle both recognized the evil in Greece, and both tried 
 to check it. The metaphysics, analytics, etc., of the latter 
 have been described as a dictionary of general terms, " the 
 process throughout being first to discover and establish defi- 
 6 
 
122 THE THEORY 
 
 nite meanings, and then to appropriate to eacli a several 
 word." * But it is in vain to attempt to establish words ex- 
 cept as living outgrowths of actual facts in Nature. The 
 method was a mistaken one ; there was not an intending of 
 the mind to the realities of external N'ature, and knowledge 
 was barren, wanting those "fruits and invented works" 
 which Bacon pronounces to be, as it were, " sponsors and 
 sureties for the truth of philosophy." 
 
 Much the same thing happened in the earlier part of the 
 Middle Ages. The mysticism and sophistry which then pre- 
 vailed, the endless and unprofitable but learned and ingenious 
 disputes concerning empty propositions and words which had 
 no definite meanings, might be said to represent the wasted 
 efiTorts and unavailing strength of a blind giant. But as the 
 infant, moved by an internal impulse, at first strives uncon- 
 sciously for its mother's breast and draws its nourishment 
 therefrom, gradually awakening thereby to a consciousness 
 of the mother who supplies it, so the human mind for a time 
 gathered unconsciously the material of its knowledge from 
 Nature, until it was gradually awakened to a full conscious- 
 ness of the fruitful bosom which was supplying it. The al- 
 chemist, moved by his avarice and the instinct of a unity in 
 Nature, and the astrologer, moved by the feeling of a destiny 
 governing human actions, both lighted on treasures which, 
 though not then appreciated, were yet not lost ; for of astrol- 
 ogy came astronomy, and from alchemy, in the fulness of 
 time, was born chemistry. In Eoger Bacon, who successfully 
 interrogated Nature in the spirit of the inductive method, we 
 
 * Coleridge's Literary Correspondence. It is for this attempt, praise- 
 worthy surely as far as it went, that Bacon is unduly severe upon Aristotle 
 in some parts. Thus : " And herein I cannot a little marvel at the philoso- 
 pher Aristotle that did proceed in such a spirit of difference and contradic- 
 tion toward all antiquity, undertaking not only to form new words of sci- 
 ence at pleasure, but to confound and extinguish all ancient wisdom," (De 
 Augmentis Scientiarum.) And again : " Aristotle, as though he had been 
 of the race of the Ottomans, thought he could not reign except the first thing 
 he did he killed all his brethren,'" (Ibid,) 
 
OF VITALITY. 123 
 
 SCO tlio liuman mind instinctively and, as it were, imcon- 
 seiously striving after tlie true source of knowledge ; while in 
 the Chancellor Bacon, who established the principles and 
 systematized the rules of the inductive philosophy, we see 
 it awakened to a clear apprehension of the necessity of doing 
 with design and method that which in an imperfect manner 
 it had for some time been blindly aiming at. But as it is 
 with the infant, so it is with humanity: action preceded con^ 
 sciousness, and Bacon was the efflux of a spirit which pre- 
 vailed, and not the creator of it. 
 
 The n^cthod of investigation has accordingly been com- 
 pletely reversed. Instead of beginning with himself and 
 passing thence to external !N"ature, man begins v>'ith Nature 
 and ends with himself; he is the complex to which his in- 
 vestigations ascend step by step through progressively in- 
 creasing complications of the simple. Not only so, but the 
 necessity of studying himself objectively is fully recognized ; 
 it is not the subjective feeling of heat or cold in a feverish 
 patient, but the figure at which the thermometer stands, that 
 is now appealed to as the trustworthy index of the real tem- 
 perature. The development of the senses, or, in other words, 
 the increased specialty of human adaptation to external Na- 
 ture, has been, as the progress of science proves, the founda- 
 tion of intellectual advance ; the understanding has been de- 
 veloped through the senses, and has in turn constructed in- 
 struments for extending the action of the senses.* The tele- 
 scope has merely been a means for enabling the eye to pene- 
 trate into distant space, and to observe the motions of worlds 
 which the unaided vision Vv^ould never have revealed ; by the 
 microscope the minute structure of tissues and the history of 
 
 * A great desideratum is a history of such development of the Benses : 
 " Wir besitzen gar treffliche Werke uber die Geschichte von Schlachten 
 und Staatsformen, genaue Tagebucher von KOnigen und flcissige Verzeich- 
 iiisse von den SchOpfungen der Dichter. Aber den wichtigsten Beitrag zu 
 einer Bildungsgeschichte des Menschen in der eingreifendsten Bedeutung 
 des Wovtes hat noch Niemand geliefert. Una fehlt eine Entwickelungs- 
 ge?chii;hte der Sinne."— ^Moleschott, Kreislmif des Lebens. 
 
124 THE THEORY 
 
 the little world of the organic cell have been made known ; 
 the balance has demonstrated the indestructibility of matter, 
 and has supplied to science the exactness of the numerical 
 method ; and, in the electric stream, there has been found a 
 means of investigating nerve-action, like that which there is 
 in polarized light for ascertaining the internal condition of 
 crystallized bodies. Who would have ventured to predict 
 some time since that it would ever be possible to measure 
 the speed at which an impulse of the will travels along the 
 nerves ? * And who will venture to say that it will not at a 
 future time be possible to measure the velocity with which 
 one idea calls up another in the brain ? Biology must plainly 
 of necessity be the last and most difficult study, for it pre- 
 supposes the other sciences as vital force supposes inferior 
 forces ; but it is the evident tendency of advancing knowl- 
 edge to bring life more and more within the compass of sci- 
 entific investigation. And if it be sometimes made a reproach 
 to science, as it was by Comte, that it has not discovered the 
 laws of life, it may well rest calm under the censure, point- 
 
 * Such an eminent physiologist as Miiller could venture to predict the 
 impossibility thereof. In his Physiology he says : " Wir werden auch wohl 
 nie die Mittel gewinnen die Geschwindigkeit der Nervenwirkung zu ermit- 
 teln da uns die Vergleich ungeheurer Entfernung felht aus der die Schnel- 
 ligkeit einer dem Nerven in dieser Hinsicht analogen Wirkung des Licht 
 berechnet werden kann," With which compare Helmboltz: " Ueber die 
 Methoden kleinste Zeittheilchen zu messen," etc. 1850. 
 
 As long as physiologists considered it necessary to refer the operations 
 of the nerves to the extension of an imponderable or psychical principle, it 
 might well appear incredible that the rapidity of the stream should be 
 measurable within the limits of the animal body. At present we know, 
 from the investigations of Du Bois-Reymond on the electro-motor proper- 
 ties of nerves, that the activity by which the propagation of a stimulus is 
 accomplished is closely connected Avith an altered arrangement of their ma- 
 terial molecules— perhaps even essentially determined by them. Accord- 
 ingly, the process of conduction in nerves may belong to the series of con- 
 tinuous molecular operations of ponderable bodies, in which, for example, 
 the conduction of sound in the air, or the combustion in a tube filled with 
 an explosive mixture, is to be reckoned. It is not surprising therefore," 
 he adds, " that the speed of conduction should be very moderate." (XJcber 
 die Methoden, etc.) 
 
OF VITALITY. 125 
 
 ing to the history of the earth to show that Nature, having 
 done all else, required a long period before it accomplished 
 the evolution of life. 
 
 In spite, then, of a desire on the part of some persons to 
 separate biology from the other sciences, and, notwithstand- 
 ing the alarm occasionally displayed with regard to the dig- 
 nity of vitality, it is the certain tendency of advancing 
 knowledge to bring a science of life into close and indissolu- 
 ble relations with other sciences, and thus to establish in 
 cognition, or to reflect in consciousness, the unity which 
 exists in Nature. AYhen, in ancient times, life Avas assigned 
 to the stars, the air, the water, a sort of unity Avas recog- 
 nized, but recognized only by explaining Nature from a very 
 imperfect knowledge of man ; now the task is to explain man 
 on the basis of an increasing knowledge of Nature, and in 
 that way to demonstrate the unity of the whole. "What must 
 be the result ? Nothing less, indeed, than the reconciliation 
 of the ideal and the real, the identification of subjective and 
 objective. As life is a condition in Avhich an intimate corre- 
 lation exists between the individual and Nature, it is CA^ident 
 that, while Plato dealt only with ideas of the mind, his sys- 
 tem must remain comparatively unprofitable ; but it is evi- 
 dent also that, since Ave have learned to discover the Imcs or 
 ideas in Nature of which ideas in the mind are correlates, it 
 becomes possible to find in Nature an interpretation of 
 Plato's true ideas.* Once for all, it may perhaps be taken 
 for granted that the ideas of genius never can be meaningless ; 
 for its mental life is a reflection in consciousness of the un- 
 conscious life of Nature. How excellently has this been ex- 
 emplified in him who embodied in poetical form the scientific 
 spirit of this age ! It was the great characteristic of Goethe, 
 
 * "But it is manifest that Plato, in his opinion of ideas as one that had 
 a wit of elevation situate as upon a clilf, did descry 'that forms were the 
 true object of knowledge,' but lost the real fruit of his opinion by consider- 
 ing of forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not confined and de- 
 termined by matter ; and so turning his opinion on theology, wherewith all 
 his natural philosophy is infected."— Z)3 Aug. Sclent. 
 
126 THE THEORY 
 
 as Lavater justly said of him, to give a poetical form to tlic 
 real ; he proved, in fact, that science, in place of rendering 
 poetry impossible, opened a field for the highest poetry. His 
 romance of the Elective Affinities {Wahlverwandschaften) 
 starts from the chemical affinities of elements, and applies 
 such affinities to human beings, therein exactly reversing the 
 old method, which, starting from the phenomena of self-con- 
 sciousness, applied the passions of the human mind to the 
 phenomena of external Nature. Of Goethe it may be justly 
 said, that in him the ideal and the real were happily blended; 
 that he embodied the scientific spirit of the age, and yet was 
 in some respects an advance upon it ; that he was a prophecy 
 of that which must be a course of development of the human 
 mind if it be destined to develop. 
 
 The foregoing general sketch of the course and tendency 
 of knowledge is fully justified by the present aspect of sci- 
 ence. When ISTature was first examined objectively the dif- 
 ferences in matter appeared manifold, and its modes of energy 
 or activity — that is, its forces — appeared many also. On a 
 more careful use of the senses, however — in fact, by the ap- 
 plication of the delicate balance to the products of combus- 
 tion — it became evident that one form of matter only disap- 
 peared to reappear in another form ; that it never perished, 
 but only changed. Elementary matter tlms passes upward 
 into chemical and organic compounds, and then downward 
 from organic to chemical, and from chemical compounds to 
 its elementary condition. Out of dust man is formed by an 
 upward transformation of matter, and to dust he returns by 
 a retrograde metamorphosis thereof. Corresponding with 
 the changes in the form of matter are changes in its modes 
 of energy or its forces ; to different combinations and ar- 
 rangements of molecules correspond diff'erent modes of en- 
 ergy. Eorce therefore is eternal, like matter, and passes 
 through a corresponding cycle of transformations. The cor- 
 relation and conservation of forces, which have always been 
 more or less clearly recognized as necessities of human 
 
OF VITALITY. 127 
 
 thought, are now accepted as scientific axioms, and are daily 
 receiving experimental demonstration.* 
 
 Though it may seem difficult to avoid the conclusion that 
 there is fundamentally but one natural force which manifests 
 itself under different modes, yet such a supposition at present 
 transcends the domain of science. As a matter of fact we are 
 compelled, in order to form a satisfactory conception of mat- 
 ter and its forces, to regard it under a twofold aspect. In 
 all our conceptions we imply a sort of dualism of power in 
 every body, though we are very apt to forget it in our gen- 
 eralizations.* The hinges of gravitation, for example, keep 
 worlds in their orbits by opposing a centrifugal force which 
 would otherwise drive them afloat into space. The smaller 
 hinges of molecular cohesion hold together the infinitely 
 smaller bodies which we call molecules of matter, in opposi- 
 tion to a repulsive force, which, on the application of a little 
 heat, may drive them off into space, and in volatile sub- 
 stances does so drive them off without heat. It is the same 
 with liquids ; their diffusion power is similar in character to 
 the volatility of solids; while " colloids " are volatile, "crys- 
 talloids " are comparatively "fixed." There is a relation of 
 molecules to one another which we are compelled to repre- 
 sent in conception as the result of a force of repulsion or 
 tension. And as some sensible image is necessary for the 
 mind in order to the clearness of a conception of the invisi- 
 ble, physics assumes between the ponderable molecules of a 
 body certain ethereal particles which are in a state of sta- 
 
 * Epicurns, Democritus, Aristotle, all upheld the eternity of matter; 
 the quotations from Lucretius and Persius on that subject are well knowu, 
 hut the following passage from the Be Angmentis Is not so common : " All 
 things change, but nothing is lost. This is an axiom in physics, and holds 
 in natural theology; for as the sum of matter neither diminishes nor in- 
 creases, so it is equally the work of Omnipotence to create or to annihilate." 
 Other passages of like import occur in Bacon's writings. And the Bra- 
 minical doctrine is as follows : "The ignorant assert that the universe iu 
 the beginning did not exist in its author, and that it was created out of 
 nothing. O ye, whose hearts are pure, how could something come out of 
 nothing?'' 
 
128 THE THEORY 
 
 tionary oscillation, the degree of temperature of the body 
 being supposed to depend upon the intensity of the active 
 force of these imponderable intermolecular particles. If the 
 body be suddenly and greatly compressed, these motions are 
 communicated to the imponderable ether outside the body, 
 and tension force thus becomes free force in manifest radia- 
 tion of heat. " What is heat in us," very justly said Locke, 
 " is in the heated body nothing but motion." When heat is 
 withdrawn from matter — that is, when the tension force be- 
 comes free, its molecules get nearer to one another — their 
 cohesion is greater ; thus vapors become liquids* and liquids 
 become solids. 
 
 It seems probable that the necessity of regarding matter 
 under this twofold aspect of attraction and repulsion is owing 
 to man's inability, as being himself a part of Nature, to form 
 a conception of Nature as a whole. He must necessarily re- 
 gard things in relation to himself; for as he exists only in 
 relation to Nature, and as every phase of consciousness is an 
 expression of this relation, it is plain that one of the elements 
 of the relation cannot free itself, and from an independent 
 point of view watch unconcernedly things as they really are. 
 Thus, though we speak of passivity and activity, they are 
 really not different kinds of action, but different relations of 
 the same kind of action. Whatever be the cause, and how- 
 ever doubtful the philosophical validity of the distinction, 
 we are compelled to regard matter in this twofold relation. 
 One aspect of the relation we describe as passive, statical, 
 cohesion, or, to use the generic term, attraction; the other 
 is active, dynamical, tension, or, to use the generic term, re- 
 pulsion. Attraction plus repulsion of molecules constitutes 
 our conception of matter ; and, in observation of its modes 
 of energy, attraction is recognized in gravitation, cohesion, 
 magnetism, affinity, love, while repulsion is found in the cen- 
 trifugal force, in heat, in electricity, in antipathy, and hate. 
 
 It is in rising to the department of chemical compounds 
 that attraction is found under a new and special phase as 
 
OF VITALITY. 129 
 
 cliemical affinity. But, when the chemical union of two mol- 
 ecules into a single one takes place, a diminution of the ten- 
 sion force surrounding each molecule must occur, and, accord- 
 ing to the law of the conservation of force, an equivalent of 
 another force must be set free. This happens in tlie produc- 
 tion of heat and electricity ; for, as Faraday has shown, 
 chemical action cannot take place without the development 
 of electricity. The amount of force liberated in a simple 
 chemical combination will be the equivalent of the tension 
 force lost. When one atom of carbon combines with one atom 
 of oxygen, a definite quantity of tension force surrounding each 
 molecule disappears, and a definite quantity of heat is accord- 
 ingly produced. When two molecules separate in chemical de- 
 composition, they necessarily make passive or latent so much 
 active force ; so much heat becomes so much tension force. 
 But furthermore, in a chemical decomposition we have the 
 resolution of that very intense and special force, chemical 
 aflSnity itself; so that the force set free will, one would sup- 
 pose, far exceed that which becomes latent as tension force 
 around the molecules. We know not why two molecules 
 should chemically combine ; we accept as a fundamental law 
 of their nature this high, special, and powerful form of at- 
 traction ; but we do know that, when chemical decomposition 
 takes place, a little chemical force must be resolved into 
 a large display of* inferior force. It is a fact authenticated 
 by Faraday, that one drop of water contains, and may be 
 made to evolve, as much electricity as under different modes 
 of display would suffice to produce a lightning-flash. The 
 decomposition of matter is the resolution of force, and in 
 such resolution one equivalent of chemical force will corre- 
 spond to several equivalents of inferior force. Thus chemical 
 force, though correlated with the physical forces, may be 
 said to be of a much higher order than they are. 
 
 In the still higher stage of matter in a state of vitality, 
 we meet with chemical combination of a much more complex 
 character than occurs in inorganic matter ; attraction appears 
 
130 THE THEORY 
 
 under its most special and complex form. Matter, which in 
 its elementary condition might occupy some space, is so 
 blended or combined as to occupy a minimum ot space ; and 
 force, which, under a lower mode, might suffice perhaps to 
 illuminate the heavens, is here confined within the smaU 
 compass of an organic cell or of a speck K)f protoplasm. "We 
 have to do, however, with organic matter under two forms — 
 as dead and as living matter, as displaying energy of its own, 
 or as displaying no energy. Dead organic matter has ceased 
 to act, and it is now acted upon ; it is at the mercy of the 
 forces which surround it, and immediately begin to effect its 
 dissolution. Heat hastens decomposition, because in the 
 separation of the constituents of organic matter into the 
 ultimate inorganic products — carbonic acid, ammonia, and 
 water — a certain amount of active force must become latent 
 as the tension force of these molecules ; and this force the 
 heat supplies. There is also the force of the chemical affinity 
 of the oxygen of the air for the oxidizable elements of the 
 substance ; and the combination is necessarily attended with 
 the production of heat. The heating value of organic matter 
 will accordingly increase with the quantity of oxidizable ele- 
 ments; but the matter is by no means so simple as it might 
 at first sight appear to be. Suppose the atom of carbon, with 
 which an atom of oxygen combines was previously in com- 
 bination with, for example, an atom of hydrogen ; and the 
 question is, whether the amount of heat produced will be the 
 same as though the atom of carbon had been free ? In reality 
 it will not ; it must be less, because in the separation of the 
 carbon atom and the hydrogen atom so much active force 
 must become tension force — that is, so much heat must dis- 
 appear or become latent; and that loss of heat will neces- 
 sarily counterbalance a part of the heat produced, or the 
 decrease of tension force which occurs, through the combi- 
 nation of the atom of carbon with the atom of oxygen. It is 
 this consideration which appears to invalidate some experi- 
 ments made and conclusions come to with regard to animal 
 heat. 
 
OF VITALITY. 131 
 
 But there is another consideration. In this mere burning 
 or decomposition of organic matter, or that wliich represents 
 tlie passive, statical, or attractive phase of vitality, the active 
 force which results is due partly to force from -without, and 
 not solely to the liberation of force latent in the matter. Ex- 
 ternal forces have, as it vt-ere, been pulling it to pieces. 
 What, then, on the principle of the conservation of force, 
 becomes of that intense chemical force which is implied in 
 the organic nature of the material, that power which holds 
 it together as a specific material diftering in properties from 
 all kinds of inorganic matter ? Though dead, the chemical 
 composition of organic substance is the same as when alive ; 
 and its future destiny is entirely dependent on the circum- 
 stances in which it may be placed. In the air, it is true, it 
 will undergo decomposition into inorganic products ; but, if 
 it be surrounded with the conditions of life, if it be exposed 
 to the influence of higher forces, by being given as food to 
 some animal, it does not go downward, but upward, and 
 somehow takes on life again. It is plain what becomes of 
 the statical force under the latter circumstances. But, in the 
 decomposition of organic matter in the air and the correlative 
 resolution of force, it is not so evident what becomes of all 
 the force which must be liberated. That it returns to general 
 Nature can admit of no doubt; but does it all appear as heat? 
 A part of it must necessarily do so, becoming latent as the 
 tension force of the molecules of the ultimate products of its 
 decomposition, and the rest is liberated under some form or 
 other, if not entirely as heat. There is some reason to believe, 
 however, that dead organic substance does not always un- 
 dergo the extreme retrograde metamorphosis of material and 
 of force before being used up again in vital compounds, even 
 by the vegetable kingdom. It has been shown that not only 
 do pale plants, such as fungi, feed on organic matter, but 
 that soluble humus is regularly taken up by the roots of al- 
 most all plants. Prof. Le Conte has shown it to be probable 
 that the decomposition of the organic matter supplies the 
 
132 THE THEORY 
 
 force necessary for raising other matter from a lower to a 
 higher stage.* The force necessary, for organization is thus 
 furnished bj the force which results from disorganization ; 
 death and destruction are the conditions of life and devel- 
 opment. 
 
 When organic matter displays energy — that is, when it 
 has life — its relations with its surroundings are diiferent. As 
 chemical aflSnity seems to hold the place of attraction in it, 
 and to correspond to gravitation among celestial bodies, 
 cohesive force among molecules, and magnetic force among 
 polar molecules, so its dynamical or vital action seems to cor- 
 respond to the force of repulsion, to the centrifugal force of 
 heavenly bodies, the tension force of molecules, and electrical 
 repulsion. The display of energy coincides with a molecular 
 change in the statical element. With the function of a gan- 
 glionic nerve-cell, for example, a correlative molecular change, 
 or "waste," as it is called, necessarily takes place either in 
 the nerve-element itself or in what is supplied to it from the 
 blood. The substances which are met with in the so-called 
 extractives of nerve-tissue afford abundant evidence of a ma- 
 terial waste ; for as products of the retrograde metamorphosis 
 are found lactic acid in considerable quantities, kreatin, uric 
 acid, probably also hypoxanthin, and, representing the fatty 
 acids, formic and acetic acid.t And what Du Bois-Eeymond 
 proved to happen in muscle, Funke has observed to happen 
 also with nerve : while the contents of nerve-tubes are neutral 
 during rest in the living state, they become acid after death, 
 and also after great activity during life. After excessive 
 mental exercise, it is well known that phosphates appear in 
 
 * The Correlation of Physical, Chemical, and Vital Force, and the Con- 
 servation of Force in Vital Phenomena. By J. Le Conte, Professor of Ge- 
 olo^ and Chemistry in South Carolina College. (American [Journal of 
 Science and Arts, No. 28, 1859.) 
 
 t It is interesting to remark how the products of chemical transformation 
 resulting from nerve-action agree with the products of decomposition after 
 muscular activity, and how the results coincide with what, a priori, might 
 have been expected from the great vital activity of nerve-structure. 
 
OF VITALITY. 133 
 
 the urine in considerable quantities ; and it is only by sup- 
 posing an idea to be accompanied by a correlative change in 
 the nerve-cells that we can explain the bodily exhaustion 
 which is produced by mental labor, and the breaking down 
 of the brain under prolonged intellectual efforts. There is 
 even at times a sensation of something going on in the brain ; 
 and, in insanity, such anomalous feelings are sometimes per- 
 sistently complained of. But the change or waste which 
 accompanies energy is restored by nutrition during rest, and 
 the conditions of future energy are thus established ; nutritive 
 attraction steadily repairing the waste of centrifugal function. 
 The cell thus, for a time at least, preserves its individuality ; 
 and definiteness of energy, with the maintenance of individ- 
 uality, is what is connoted by vitality. 
 
 Is the energy displayed by living matter something quite 
 special? In attempting to answer that question, two consid- 
 erations should be kept in view. In the first place, an effect 
 need not at all resemble in properties its cause ; the qualities 
 of a chemical compound are quite different from those of its 
 constituents. Such a complex compound as organic matter 
 really is may be expected, therefore, to exhibit peculiar prop- 
 erties in no way resembling those of its constituent elements 
 or those of simple compounds. In the second place, the ar- 
 rangement or grouping of the molecules in a substance, inde- 
 pendently of its chemical composition, may greatly alter its 
 properties : there is a molecular as well as a chemical consti- 
 tution of matter. In that condition of bodies which is de- 
 scribed as Isomerism, there are atoms alike in number, nature, 
 and relative proportion, so grouped as somehow to produce 
 compounds having very different chemical properties. Again, 
 it has been found that the same matter may exist under two 
 very different conditions, and with very different properties — 
 as colloidal and as crystalloidal, in a gelatinous or in a crys- 
 talline state. And what is the chief difference? It is that 
 the colloidal is a dynamical state of matter, the crystalloidal 
 a statical state. The colloid exhibits energy ; its existence is 
 
134 THE THEORY 
 
 a continued metastasis ; and it may be looked upon, says 
 Graham, " as the probable primary source of the force ap- 
 pearing in the phenomena of yitality." The distinction be- 
 tween the two kinds of matter is, in fact, " that subsisting 
 between the material of a mineral and the material of an 
 organized mass." And yet minerals may exist in the colloidal 
 state ; the hydrated peroxides of the aluminous class, for ex- 
 ample, are colloids. Furthermore, the mineral forms of silicic 
 acid deposited from water, such as flint, are found to have 
 passed during the geological ages from the colloidal into the 
 crystalline condition ; and, on the other hand, in the so-called 
 blood-crystals of Funke, a soft and gelatinous albuminoid is 
 seen to assume a crystalline contour. " Can any facts," asks 
 Graham, " more strikingly illustrate the maxim, that in Na- 
 ture there are no abrupt transitions, and that distinctions of 
 class are never absolute ? " * 
 
 The foregoing considerations render it evident that the 
 manifestation of organic energy by matter is not a contrast to 
 the kind of energy which is displayed by inorganic matter, 
 and so far justify the supposition that it may be a question 
 of chemical composition and intimate molecular constitution. 
 Vitality would not then be a special principle, but a result, and 
 would be explained ultimately by the operation of the so-called 
 molecular forces. Coleridge's assertion, that the division of 
 substances into living and dead, though psychologically ne- 
 cessary, Avas of doubtful philosophical validity, would receive 
 a support which its author could scarce have expected for it. 
 
 Before granting any conclusion, it is desirable to examine 
 into that which is generally deemed to constitute the spe- 
 
 * A farther characteristic of colloids is their singular inertness in all 
 ordinary chemical relations, though they have a compensating activity of 
 their own in their penetrability ; they are permeable vrhen in mass, as water 
 is, by the more highly diffusive class of substances, but they cut off entirely 
 other colloidal substances that may be in solution. It is evident that our 
 conception of solid matter must soon undergo considerable modification. 
 (On Liquid Diffusion applied to Analysis. By T. Graham, F. R. S. Philo- 
 sophical Transactions, 1862.) 
 
OF VITALITY. 135 
 
 cialty of life. Now, it is certain, when we consider the vast 
 range of vitality from the simple life of a molecule or cell to 
 the complex life of man, that valid objections may be made 
 to any definition of life. If it be v/ide enough to comprise 
 all forms, it will be too vague to have any value ; if narroAv 
 enough to be exact, it will exclude the most lowly forms. 
 The problem is to investigate the conditions of the manifesta- 
 tion of life. A great fault in many attempted definitions has 
 been the description of life as a resistance or complete con- 
 trast to the rest of Nature, which was supposed to be con- 
 tinually striving to destroy it. But the elements of organic 
 matter arc not different from those of inorganic, whence they 
 are derived, and to which they return ; and the chemical and 
 mechanical forces of these elements cannot be suspended or 
 removed within the organism. What is special is the manner 
 of composition of the elements : there is a concurrence of 
 manifold substances, and they are combined or grouped to- 
 gether in a very complex way. Such union or grouping is, 
 however, only a further advance upon, and by no means a 
 contrast to, the kind of combination which is met with in in- 
 organic bodies. Life is not a contrast to non-living Nature, 
 but a further development of it. The more knowledge ad- 
 vances, the more plainly is it shown that there are physical 
 and chemical processes upon which life depends. Heat is 
 produced by combustion in the organism as it is in the fire ; 
 starch is converted into sugar there, as it is in the chemical 
 laboratory ; urea, which is so constant a product of the body's 
 chemistry, can be formed artificially by the chemist; and 
 the process of excitation in a nerve, on the closure of a con- 
 stant stream, appears to be analogous to the process of elec- 
 trolysis in which hydrogen is given off' at the negative pole.* 
 The peculiarity of life is the complexity of combination in so 
 small a space, the intimate operation of many simultaneously- 
 acting forces in the microcosm of the organic cell. Knowl- 
 
 * A. von Bozold : Untersuchnnfreu ilber die electrischo Errcgung dcr 
 Ncrvcn imd Muskeln. Leipzig, ISGl. 
 
136 THE THEORY 
 
 edge cannot pass the life-boundary, because there are not 
 at present any means of follo^Ying the intimate changes which 
 take place beyond it ; there is a world there into which the 
 senses of man cannot yet enter. But, as each great advance 
 of science has followed some invention by which the opera- 
 tion of the senses has been extended, there can be little 
 doubt that the important step toward a true science of life 
 will be made with the discovery of a means of tracing the 
 delicate processes of protoplasmic activity. Microscopic phys- 
 ics and microscopic chemistry, nay, physics and chemistry 
 of a delicacy beyond the reach of the powers of the highest 
 microscope, are needed. So that it may well be that this gen- 
 eration and generations to come will have passed to their 
 everlasting rest before a discovery of the secret of vital ac- 
 tivity is made. 
 
 Before dealing with that which is considered to mark a 
 second and great peculiarity of life, namely, its aim or plan, 
 it will be well to illustrate the foregoing remarks from the 
 phenomena of conscious vitality. It is, in truth, with the low- 
 est form of vitality as it is with the lowest form of conscious 
 vitality — with the human mind in the earliest stages of its evo- 
 lution. A self-conservative impulse moves the most barbarous 
 people to regard the operation of the external forces of Nature, 
 and to adopt rude means to preserve life and to obtain comfort ; 
 the savage avoids the current which would drive his frail ca- 
 noe on the hungry breakers, and shelters his hut from the over- 
 whelming fury of the storm ; he may be said to war with ]^a- 
 ture for the maintenance of individual power, as the vital 
 force of a cell may be said to war with the nature that imme- 
 diately surrounds it. But it is obvious that man only struggles 
 successfully with the physical forces by recognizing the laws 
 of their action, and by accommodating his individual forces to 
 physical laws ; it is victory by obedience. By conscious obedi- 
 ence to the physical law, he appropriates, as it were, the force 
 thereof, in the increase of his own power ; the idea is devel- 
 oped in his mind as the correlate of the law or idea in ISTa- 
 
OF VITALITY. 137 
 
 ture ; in liis mental progress ISTature is undergoing develop- 
 ment through him. By keeping in mind this analogy of the 
 mental force the difficulty will be obviated, which there might 
 seem to be in conceiving the organic cell as a result of physi- 
 cal and chemical forces, and yet as resisting the action of 
 these forces. Every act of so-called resistance on the part 
 of the cell to the natural forces is really a phenomenon indi- 
 cating the development of them; its life is not a contrast to 
 non-living Nature, but a further complication of it. The fun- 
 damental law of life is the same for its conscious and uncon- 
 scious manifestations ; it is individuation by appropriation. 
 And, however necessary it may seem to the individual, as a 
 part of a whole looking at the rest, to represent the vital as 
 in constant antagonism to the physical, such a conception 
 does not faithfully express the condition of the whole regard- 
 ed as a whole. A just conception of Nature as one harmoni- 
 ous whole is plainly not antagonistic to the spirit of any in- 
 vestigations which may tend to prove the dependence of life 
 on physical and chemical processes. 
 
 That which is commonly said to constitute the specialty of 
 life is the maintenance of a certain definite plan ; and accord- 
 ingly Coleridge, following Schelling, defined life as "the 
 principle of individuation." Given the difi*erent kinds of 
 force and of matter, and how, it is asked, is the pattern de- 
 termined and worked out? As every individual is in life 
 weaving out some pattern "on the roaring loom of time," 
 though " what he weaves no weaver knows," so the lowest 
 form of vitality manifests a definite energy, and is said to 
 accomplish a definite plan. A crystal would go on increasing 
 if suitable materials and the conditions of its growth were 
 present, " but it has been provided that trees do not grow up 
 into heaven." Life works according to an aim, said Aristotle. 
 Admitting all this, we are not therefore called upon to admit 
 a special contrast to the rest of Nature. Liebig compares the 
 living body to a building which is constructed after a definite, 
 preordained plan; but it is obvious that exactly in the same 
 
138 THE THEORY. 
 
 sense might the positive biologist say of the chemical atom, 
 that it is constructed and displays energy according to a pre- 
 ordained plan; or even of the crystal, that it works out a 
 certain pattern, seeing that it cannot overstep the laws of 
 its form. The plan is the law of the matter, and the law is not 
 something outside the matter, but it is inherent in it. Organic 
 matter, like the chemical element, has an activity given to it- 
 self which it must display ; the law of causality is true of it 
 as of inorganic matter ; and the organic effect, the so-called 
 accomplishment of the plan, is the necessary result of a cer- 
 tain molecular constitution and certain intimate combinations 
 which exist in the organic molecule or cell or monad, or 
 whatever else we choose to name the ultimate unit of life. 
 
 The direct denial of a special vital force has been the 
 natural reaction against that dogmatism which assumed a vital 
 principle that Avas self-generating, did any thing it liked, and 
 was not amenable to investigation. That any force should 
 be self-generating in inexhaustible quantity is really an in- 
 conceivable supposition. If the axiom, that force, like matter, 
 is not capable of annihilation, be accepted, and we find, as 
 we do, that organic bodies incorporate, or somehow cause to 
 disappear, inorganic matter and force, and thereby themselves 
 increas-e, it is an unavoidable conclusion that the organic 
 matter and force must represent the converted inorganic 
 matter and force. To suppose that the vital force was self- 
 produced would be to suppose a disturbance of the equilib- 
 rium of Nature, and it might not then be unreasonable to 
 fear lest the earth, by the increase of its repulsion force, 
 should break througli the hinges of gravitation and float off 
 into space, or burst into fragments, as a planet between Mars 
 and Jupiter is supposed at one time to have done.* 
 
 * Science, in its view of life, seems to be following the course of develop- 
 ment in Humboldfs mind. In his earlier writings he defined vital force as 
 the unknown cause which prevents the elements from following their origi- 
 nal attractive forces. (Aphorism, ex doct. Phys. Chem.Plant.) " Reflection 
 and prolonged study," he says, in his "Aspects of Nature," "in the depart- 
 ments of physiology and chemistry, liave deeply shaken my earlier belief in 
 
OF VITALITY. 139 
 
 TMien, however, it is said that a minute i)ortion of living 
 matter converts inorganic matter into its own nature, and 
 thus develops new organic matter which has the power of 
 doing likewise, it is evident that a great and peculiar poten- 
 tiality is assumed in the living molecule. AVhat power is it 
 which transforms the matter and force ? Some who have ad- 
 vocated the correlation of the vital force with the physical 
 forces seem not to have given due attention to this question ; 
 they have laid such great stress on the external force as to 
 have fallen into an error almost as great as, though the oppo- 
 site of, that of the advocates of a self-generating vital force. 
 External circumstances are the necessary conditions of in- 
 vrard activity, but the inward fact is the important condition 
 — it is the determining condition, and, so far as we know 
 yet, it can only he derived from a like living mother struct- 
 ure. Nevertheless, even in that inherited potentiality there 
 is not a contrast to that Avhich happens in the rest of Nature. 
 When heat is converted into electricity, or any force into 
 another, the change is not self-determined; the determining 
 force lies in the molecules of the matter, in the so-called 
 statical force, that which Aristotle in his division of causes 
 names the material cause. And if it be objected that a little 
 life is able to do such a great deal, the answer is that a like 
 thing happens in fermentation. When a certain organic sub- 
 stance makes the inorganic matter in contact with it become 
 organic, it may be that it does so by a kind of infection or 
 fermentation by which the molecular relations of its smallest 
 particles are transferred to the particles of the inorganic just 
 as in the inorganic world forces pass from matter to matter. 
 
 But there are further considerations. Admitting that tlie 
 vital transforming matter is at first derived from vital struct- 
 
 peculiar so-called vital force." And again : " The difficulty of satisfactorily 
 referring the vital phenomena of organism to physical and chemical laws 
 depends chiefly (and almost in the same manner as the prediction of mete- 
 orological processes in the atmosphere) on the complication of the phenom- 
 ena, and on the great number of the simultaneously-acting forces, as well as 
 the conditions of their activity." 
 
140 THE THEORY 
 
 nre, it is evident that tlie external force and matter trans- 
 formed does in turn become transforming force — that is, vital. 
 And if that takes place after the vital process lias once com- 
 menced^ is it, it may be asked, extravagant to suppose that a 
 similar transformation might at some period have commenced 
 the process, and may even now be doing so ? The fact that in 
 growth and development life is continually increasing, from a 
 transformation of physical and chemical forces, is after all in 
 favor of the presumption that it may at first have so origi- 
 nated. And the advocate of this view may turn upon his 
 opponent, and demand of him how he, with a due regard to 
 the axiom that force is not self-generating, and to the fact 
 that living matter does increase from the size of a little cell 
 to the magnitude of a human body, accounts for the continual 
 production of transforming power? A definite quantity only 
 could have been derived from the mother structure, and that 
 must have been exhausted at an early period of growth. The 
 obvious refage of the vitalist is to the facts that it is impossi- 
 ble now to evolve life artificially out of any combination of 
 pliysical and chemical forces, and that such a transformation 
 is never witnessed save under the conditions of vitality. 
 
 Thus the argument stands. Meanwhile, those who do 
 believe in the origination of life from non-living matter hope 
 to succeed in artificially producing the upward transforma- 
 tion, and may say reasonably enough that it is not to be ex- 
 pected that such transformation should now take place as a 
 regular process in Nature, except under conditions of vitality. 
 Such a supposition is as unnecessary as it would be to assume 
 that the savage must continue to rub together his sticks, after 
 he has obtained the spark, in order to make the fire burn. 
 What only is necessary is that the spark of fire, or the spark 
 of life, once evolved, should be placed under suitable condi- 
 tions, and it will then go on increasing. The minutest portion 
 of living matter really now contains implicitly, as it were in a 
 microcosm, the complexity of chemical and physical combina- 
 tions and the conditions which were necessary for the first 
 
OF VITALITY. 141 
 
 production of life in the macrocosm, and it supplies these as 
 the conditions of further vital transformations. In fact, Na- 
 ture, having accomplished a result, does not need on each fu- 
 ture occasion to go through the preliminary steps by which 
 the result was first arrived at. And in this relation it is very 
 interesting to observe how much use is made of the force 
 supjdied by the destruction of certain organic matter in rais- 
 ing other matter to a higher stage. It is supposed, for ex- 
 ample, that urea is partly produced by the oxidation of an 
 excess of so-called albuminous matters in the blood, without 
 these having entered into the formation of tissue ; and the 
 force thus supplied in the retrograde metamorphosis will be 
 available, and probably is used, for the exaltation of other 
 elements. 
 
 It needs but little consideration to see that the living cell 
 cannot supply all the force which is used in increasing and 
 advancing life — in the multiplication and transformation of 
 cells; heat and other external conditions are necessary, as 
 being, so to speak, material for transformation. It is a mis- 
 take, however, to say, as some have said, that heat and ex- 
 ternal conditions determine the rate of growth. The rate of 
 germination, for example, certainly varies according to exter- 
 nal conditions, but the limits of variation are fixed by the 
 inherent properties of the structure. The seeds of a begonia 
 taken from the same pod will, as Mr. Paget has pointed out, 
 germinate, some in a day, some at the end of- a year, and 
 some at various intermediate times, even when they are all 
 placed under the same external conditions. And the same 
 author has pointed out other indications of self-dependent 
 time-rates in the lower organisms. There are, in fact, inter- 
 nal as w^ell as external conditions of growth, and the former 
 are the more important, for they are really the determining 
 conditions. It is with the organic cell and its conditions as 
 it is with the individual and his circumstances ; the latter may 
 greatly modify character, and are necessary for development, 
 but the essential fact, which determines the limit of the modi- 
 
142 THE THEORY 
 
 fjing power of circumstances, is the nature implanted in the 
 individual. 
 
 It is easy to perceive how impossible it is, in the present 
 state of science, to come to any positive conclusion with re- 
 gard to the nature of the vital force. . All that can be said is, 
 that advancing knowledge more and more clearly proves the 
 dependence of life on physical and chemical processes, and 
 tends to show that vital action does not contrast with the 
 kind of action exhibited by inorganic Nature. Living matter 
 displays, in fact, the energy of colloidal and the plan of crys- 
 talloidal matter. When vital force undergoes resolution into 
 inferior force, simultaneously with the decomposition of sub- 
 stance, it is into heat, chemical force, and electricity, that we 
 find it, as it were, unfolded; it is a natural conjecture, there- 
 fore, that the conditions of the artificial production of vitality 
 must be a high and complex chemistry to represent the stat- 
 ical correlative, and some mode of repulsion force, as heat 
 or electricity, or both, to represent the dj-namical correla- 
 tive. It is certainly extremely unphilosophical in the present 
 condition of knowledge to refuse to accept vitality as a 
 si^ecial mode of manifestation of force ; the special character 
 of its phenomena demand that, whatever its real nature may 
 be, vital force should for the present be received as a distinct 
 force on the same terms as chemical force or electrical force. 
 The facts of observation, as well as a priori considerations, 
 unquestionably demand also that it should be regarded as 
 subject to the laws of the correlation and conservation of 
 force. 
 
 As, then, vital force is plainly by far the highest force in 
 dignity, a small quantity of it will correspond in value to a 
 much greater quantity of an inferior force ; one equivalent 
 of vital force, in fact, will correspond to many equivalents 
 of the lower forces. An immense amount of force is re- 
 quired to raise matter from its elementary state to that con- 
 dition in which it is described as organic ; and the upward 
 transformation evidently only takes place through the inter- 
 
OF VITALITY. 143 
 
 mediate action of cliemical force. But vital force surpasses 
 chemical force apparently in as great a degree as chemical 
 force surpasses physical force. How great, then, must be its 
 mechanical equivalent! Who can measure the power of a 
 great idea? Armies fight in vain against it, and nations 
 yield to its sway. What wonder that life was the last and 
 highest development of Nature, and that it was produced 
 only after the inferior forces had been long in existence ! 
 "What ground, furthermore, it might be asked, have we for 
 supposing that it is destined to be the last development of 
 force ? Is it not possible that a still higher manifestation of 
 force than that which we call vital may ultimately result 
 from the complexity of forces and conditions which are now 
 present on earth? The hypothesis of Laplace was, that in 
 primeval times a large quantity of nebulous matter was 
 spread through space. This nebulous matter was through 
 gravitation aggregated into solid masses. Immense heat must 
 have been thus produced, and this heat might then produce 
 light, and develop electricity as it does now when acting on 
 the thermo-electric plates. Electricity might appear again 
 as heat or as light, or as chemical force, as it does in the de- 
 composing cell of a voltaic battery. The correlation of these 
 forces we are able to trace now, and it is not difficult to con- 
 ceive how they mutually excited and affected one another in 
 the primeval times when the earth was, as vre are told, 
 without form and void. But there was a time when no life 
 existed on the earth. So that as we can now obtain one 
 force from another up to the point where life begins, when 
 we are at fault, similarly considerable time elapsed in I^ature 
 before vital force followed on the physical and chemical 
 forces. Science may, then, claim that in its difficulty and 
 delay it only reflects a corresponding difficulty in ]^ature. 
 
 But there are other important considerations with regard 
 to vitality. It does not follow, because we recognize a special 
 vital manifestation, that there is but one kind thereof; it is in 
 reality necessary to admit different degrees, if not different 
 
144 THE THEORY 
 
 kinds, of vitality. As with organic matter so with organic 
 force, we trace an advance from the most simple and general 
 to the most complex and special. The tissue of the simple 
 protozoon is uniform and exhibits no trace of structure ; its 
 active relations are equally simple. In the ascending scale 
 of life continuous differentiation of tissue corresponds with 
 increasing specialty and complexity of relation with the ex- 
 ternal, until in man we observe the highest example of a 
 unity of organism proceeding from manifold varieties of ele- 
 ments, and of unity of action from the coordination of many 
 forces. And as it is with the animal kingdom, so it is with the 
 elementary structures which form it ; there is a scale of dignity, 
 a hierarchy of tissues ; the lowest appear first, and are neces- 
 sary steps for the evolution of the highest. All the force of 
 ISTature could not develop a nerve-cell directly out of inor- 
 ganic matter; and the cell of the Protococcus nivaUs, or the 
 molecules of the Amoeba, could not, under any possible cir- 
 cumstances, energize as nerve-force. Between the vitality 
 of thought and the vitality of the fungus there is scarcely a 
 comparison possible ; the former is dependent upon the widest 
 and most complex, and at the same time the most intense and 
 special relations with external Nature, while the latter exhibits 
 only a few general and comparatively simple relations there- 
 with. Between the relations of a nerve-cell and an epidermic 
 cell with their surroundings, there is as much difference as 
 there is between the relations of a Ehizopod and those of a 
 Cephalopod with external Nature. And the relations of a 
 nerve-cell with its surroundings are, it must be remembered, 
 dependent on the maintenance of the relations of all the in- 
 ferior elements of the body which intervene in the descending 
 scale between it and the inorganic. 
 
 Whatever, then, may be the fact in animal development, 
 it is certain that transformation of species takes place in the 
 structural elements. "When a tissue takes material from the 
 blood, it does not merely aggregate, but it assimilates it — 
 that is, it makes it of tlie same Hnd with itself. In develop- 
 
OF VITALITY. 145 
 
 iiicnt, a higher tissue constantly proceeds from a lower one, 
 and demands the lower one as a necessary antecedent to its 
 production ; it has thus, as external conditions, not only 
 those which are general, but the intimate and special influ- 
 ences of the tissue which is before it in the order of existence. 
 In the latter are supplied the special and essential conditions 
 for the exaltation and transpeciation of force and material. 
 But all exaltation of force is, as it were, a concentration of 
 it ; one equivalent of the higher force corresponds to many 
 equivalents of the inferior force which has been transformed. 
 Hence it is that the power of reproducing tissues or parts in 
 animals is diminished much more by development than by 
 growth ; and the law which describes the reparative power 
 in each species of animal as being in an inverse ratio to its 
 position in the scale of life, though not strictly proved, is yet 
 true as a general proposition. 
 
 If, now, the degree of dignity of an element represents a 
 corresponding degree of vitality, it is obviously right to speak 
 of the life of the blood, without any design of placing its life 
 on the same level with that of nerve. In the decomposition 
 of material and the correlative resolution of force which take 
 place when the blood-cell returns to the inorganic state, there 
 will be much less force liberated than when a nerve-cell un- 
 dergoes the retrograde metamorphosis. As a great expendi- 
 ture of force is needed to raise matter from the inorganic to 
 the organic state, so a further greater expenditure is required 
 to raise matter from a low organic to its highest organic con- 
 dition. The nerve-cell is, so to say, the highest parasite 
 which thus sucks up the life of the blood ; and, if the process 
 of its decomposition were accurately observed, it would be 
 found that all the force w^hich had been consumed by it in its 
 upward transformation was given back to Nature in its down- 
 ward metamorphosis. 
 
 The retrograde metamorphosis of organic elements is con- 
 stantly taking place as a part of the history of life. In the 
 function of nerve-cell, a nerve-force is liberated which excites 
 
146 THE THEORY 
 
 muscular force, and is ultimately given back to external liga- 
 ture as motion ; the coincident " waste " of substance is re- 
 ceived into the blood, and ultimately also passes back to 
 I^ature. It is probable, however, that this " waste " does 
 not pass always directly out of the body, but that it may be 
 first used as the nutriment of some lower element. Thus, as 
 there seemed reason to believe that, in the economy of Na- 
 ture, animal matter did not undergo the extreme retrograde 
 metamorphosis into inorganic matter before being used as food 
 by vegetables, so in the animal body the higher elements do not 
 appear at once to undergo the extreme retrograde metamor- 
 phosis, but are first used as the nutriment of lower organic 
 element. How admirably does Nature thus economize in the 
 body! Just as on a larger scale the carbonic acid exhaled 
 by animals is taken up by vegetables, and a poison thus re- 
 moved from the atmosphere in which the animal lives, so by 
 one organic element of the body the blood is purified from 
 the waste matter of a higher element which would be poison- 
 ous to it. 
 
 The parts impaired by activity, as all parts mast be, are 
 repaired during rest in a condition of health. And it is 
 very interesting to observe, as Mr. Paget has pointed out, 
 that the organic processes of repair in each tissue are ad- 
 justed to a certain time-rate, which is variable according to, 
 but is not determined by, external conditions. The time-rate 
 is determined by the implanted properties, and "for each 
 unit of nutrition might be reckoned a unit of time." The 
 periodicities of organic life appear to be prominent instances 
 of the law ; and the rhythmic motions of the heart, or the 
 motions of cilia, are, Mr. Paget supposes, due "to a method 
 of nutrition in which the acting parts are, at certain peri- 
 ods, raised with time-regulated progress to a state of instabil- 
 ity of composition from which they then decline, and in their 
 decline may change their shape and move with a definite velo- 
 city, or (as nervous centres) may discharge nerve-force." * In 
 
 * On the Chronometry of Life. By J. Pa^et, F. R. S. (Croonlan Lec- 
 ture bcforo the Royal Society, 1857.) 
 
OF VITALITY. 147 
 
 this recognition of the chronomctry of organic processes, 
 there is iinquestionahly great promise for tlic future ; for it 
 is plain that the observance of time in tlio motions of organic 
 molecules is as certain and universal, if not as exact, as that 
 in the motions of heavenly bodies. Each organic process 
 has its definite time-rate ; and each cell has its appointed pe- 
 riod of life different for different kinds of cells. The exer- 
 cise of its energy is the accomplishment of the life-task of the 
 gland-cell of the stomach, and its existence ends therewith — it 
 discharges its duty with its life ; but it is not so with other 
 cells. It is not known, for example, how soon the blood-cell and 
 other cells die. The blood-cell may be ephemeral, and after 
 the manufacture of its material straightway perish, supplying 
 in the products of its decomposition material for the coloring 
 matters of the bile; or it may accomplish its function more 
 than once, and live therefore for some time. Certain facts 
 do, indeed, point to a short duration, as, for example, the de- 
 struction of the nucleus in the blood-cell, the analogy of the 
 cells of the stomach and milk-glands, and of the sebaceous 
 and spermatic cells, and the great production of blood-cells ; 
 but nothing positive is known, and the subject is one which 
 awaits, and ought to receive, careful attention. 
 
 Such, then, is the general process of life physiologically 
 regarded. But there is nothing special in disease. Although 
 the destructive cancerous mass seems at first sight to admit 
 of no sort of comparison with the beneficial formation of a 
 developing organ, yet the production is governed by laws of 
 organic growth and activity. No new forces nor new laws 
 appear in the organism under the circumstances which are de- 
 scribed as disease. " 'Tis as natural to die as to be born,'' says 
 Sir T. Browne ; and, if we choose to ac 3ept the doctrine of final 
 cause, we must acknowledge that the disease w^hich leads to 
 death is as natural, as much in the purpose of Nature, as the 
 physiological processes which constitute health. An indi- 
 vidual exists in certain relations with the external, and the 
 harmonv which results from the maintenance of these rela- 
 
148 THE THEORY 
 
 tions is health, while a disturbance of them, whether from a 
 cause in the organism or in the external circumstances, or 
 partly in one and partly in the other, is discord or disease. 
 The phenomena of morbid action may therefore, when prop- 
 erly regarded, be serviceable as experiments illustrating the 
 character and relations of vital action. 
 
 As each cell has its appointed period of life, and each 
 species of cell its natural degree of life, and as there are 
 many cells and many kinds of cells in the human body, it is 
 evident that disease will be more easily initiated in it than in 
 an organism with less differentiation of tissue, and less com- 
 plexity of structure. For the life of the organism is the sum 
 of the life of its individual parts, and superiority of vitality 
 signifies more numerous, special, and complex relations with 
 the external. In the lowest organisms, where there is a 
 similarity of structure, one part is independent of another, 
 and dependent only on the maintenance of certain general 
 and simple relations with the external ; there is, therefore, 
 comparatively little liability to disturbance.* "When the parts 
 are, however, unlike, and there is a definite subordination of 
 them, so that the well-being of the highest structure is de- 
 pendent on the well-being of all the structures which inter- 
 vene in the descending scale between it and inorganic Nature, 
 there is plainly abundant room for disturbance. As in the 
 state, 80 in the organism, the vitality of the government flows 
 from, and rests upon, the well-being of individuals. 
 
 "When, from some of the many disturbing causes which 
 initiate disease, a particular elementary constituent of the 
 body is prevented from rising to the dignity of its specific 
 constitution and energy, there will, if the disturbing cause 
 
 * Goethe, after saying that every thing living is a collection of living, 
 self-dependent beings, adds: "Je unvolkommner das GeschOpf ist, depto 
 mehr sind diese Theile einander gleich oder ahnlich, und desto mehr gleichen 
 sie dem Ganzen. Je volkommner das GeschOpf wird, desto nnShnlicher 
 werden die Theile einander. Je ahnlicher die Theile einander sind, desto 
 weniger sind sie einander suhordinirt. Die Subordination der Theile deutct 
 aaf ein volkoaunncros GeschOpf." 
 
OF VITALITY. 149 
 
 has not been so serious as to destroy the life of the part, be a 
 production of an element of a lower kind with a lower en- 
 ergy ; and that is a diseased product. It is as if the substance 
 of a polype were produced among the higher physiological 
 elements of the human body, and went on increasing there 
 without regard to relations with surrounding elements of 
 tissue. There may be a production of foreign substance in 
 larger quantity than that which should rightly be formed of 
 the natural tissue, and a greater display of force, but both 
 structure and energy are of a lower order. "What is gained 
 in quantity is lost in quality, and the vitality is intrinsically 
 less. 
 
 Inflammation in a part is really the result of a degenera- 
 tion of its vitality. "When a wound heals by the " first inten- 
 tion," there is direct adhesion of its surfaces, and no inflam- 
 mation, for the natural vitality of the part is maintained, and 
 effects the repair. When slight inflammation occurs, the vi- 
 tality of the part has undergone a certain dj.'ceneration, and 
 material of an inferior order to the proper element of the part 
 is produced ; this substiCnce binds the surfaces together, and 
 it may in process of time, on the complete subsidence of in- 
 flammation, and under the favorable conditions of surround- 
 ing healthy tissue life, even rise to the condition of the proper 
 structure. But the lymph does not appear to be thrown out 
 with any special beneficial design ; it is the simple result of 
 a deterioration of energy, is only a less degree of a positive 
 evil. When greater inflammation takes place, or when the 
 natural vitality of the part is feeble, there is a greater degen- 
 eration, and material of a still lower kind, wbich is not even 
 organizable under any circumstances, is produced. Pus is 
 poured out, and ceases to appear with the restoration of the 
 proper vitality of the tissue. If the inflammation is still 
 greater, the degeneration passes into actual destruction of 
 life, and mortification ensues. "When John Hunter, therefore, 
 speaks, as he does, of Nature calling up the vital powers to 
 produce suppuration, his words convey a false notion of what 
 
150 THE THEORY 
 
 really happens. The injury has so damaged the parts that 
 the vital action cannot rise to its specific elevation ; an in- 
 ferior kind of action is alone possible, which is really disease, 
 and only so far beneficial as it proves that the life of the part 
 has not been killed outright. As might be expected, there- 
 fore, it is in exhausting diseases that inflammation most com- 
 monly and easily occurs. How incorrect, then, is it to speak 
 of inflammation as if it were a process specially provided for 
 restoring the healthy life of parts ! When adhesive inflamma- 
 tion is said to limit the suppuration of an abscess, its occur- 
 rence is a result of diminishing mischief, and testifies to a less 
 serious degeneration of vital force. How hard it is not to be 
 blind when theories or wishes lead us ! "When adhesive in- 
 flammation fixes a piece of strangulated gut to the side of the 
 belly, so as happily to prevent the passage of fecal matter 
 into the peritoneal cavity, it is sometimes said to be a wise 
 and kindly provision of IsTature. What, then, shall be said 
 of inflammation when it glues the gut to a hernial cavity, or 
 manufactures a fibrous band which strangles the gut ? Is this 
 also a wise and beneficial design ? 
 
 That which is true of the material products of inflamma- 
 tion is necessarily true of its force ; the heat, and pain, and 
 rigors, the forces as well as the material, testify to a degenera- 
 tion of vital force. The sort of stormy rage and demonstra- 
 tive activity which characterize inflammation, though unques- 
 tionably an exhibition of force, are not really an increased 
 display of the proper vital force. Tlie latter has undergone 
 a transformation from the quiet, self-contained activity of 
 development into the unrestrained dissipation of a lower ac- 
 tivity ; and, as regards the latter, it might be said that sev- 
 eral monads of its matter, or volumes of its force, are equiva- 
 lent only to one monad of matter or one volume of force of 
 the former. Rigors, as the involuntary action of voluntary 
 muscle, are a degradation of action witnessing to a molecular 
 deterioration of vital conditions. Heat is a physical force 
 which mnst have resulted from the retrograde metamorphosis 
 
OF VITALITY. 151 
 
 of vital force. The existence of pain, where rightly there 
 should bo no sensation, testifies to a molecular deterioration 
 of statical element and a correlative exhibition offeree. The 
 increased action of inflammation in a part is, therefore, di- 
 minished vital action. Perhaps it might once for all be 
 stated, as a law of vital action, that the dignity of the force 
 is in an inverse ratio to its volumetrical display. It is indeed 
 with organic action as it is with mental action. The emo- 
 tional man displays considerable force, and often produces 
 great effects in the way of destruction, but his power is vast- 
 ly inferior to that of the man who has developed cmotiona. 
 force into the higher form of will-force, who has coordinated 
 the passions into the calm, self-contained activity of definite 
 productive aim. Surely creation always testifies to a much 
 higher energy than destruction. 
 
 The foregoing considerations unavoidably flow from a 
 conception of vitality as correlate with other natural forces, 
 and as subject to the law of the conservation of force. They 
 obtain additional weight, however, from being in some ac- 
 cordance with the important generalizations which one of 
 the most philosophical physiologists of the present time has 
 made with regard to morbid products. Yirchow has, as is 
 well known, referred all morbid structures to physiological 
 types, and maintains that there is no new structure produced 
 in the organism by disease. The cancer-cell, the pus-cell, 
 and all other disease-produced cells, have their patterns in 
 the cells of healthy structure. The cells of tubercle corre- 
 spond with the corpuscles of the lymphatic glands ; pus and 
 colorless blood-corpuscles cannot be distinguished except by 
 looking at the place whence they come ; the cells of cancer 
 in bone " are the immediate descendants of the cells in bone ; " 
 and certain colloid tumors have the structure of the umbilical 
 cord. ""Where a new formation takes place, certain histolo- 
 gical elements of the body must generally also cease to exist ; " 
 and every kind of new formation is really, therefore, destruc- 
 tive, and destroys something of what previously existed. The 
 
152 THE THEORY 
 
 connective tissue, with its equivalents, he describes as the 
 common stock of germs of the body; from them morbid 
 structures proceed by continuous development. " Heterolo- 
 gous tissues have physiological types ; and there is no other 
 kind of heterology in morbid structures than the abnormal 
 manner in -which they arise as to place (heterotopia), timo 
 (heterochronia), and quantity (heterometria)." * 
 
 The conclusions with regard to vital force, which a con- 
 sistent conception of it as a natural force seems to necessi- 
 tate, will find extensive application in the various phenomena 
 of disease. We have seen that if the resolution of the vital- 
 ity of a single nerve-cell into a vitality of a lower kind be 
 supposed — into that, for example, of polype substance — it 
 would necessarily sufiice for the production of a whole 
 polype, or perhaps of a multitude of polypes. In other 
 words, one nervous unit, monad, or molecule, is the vital 
 equivalent of many units, monads, or molecules of polype 
 substance. How idle it is, then, to dispute, as some have 
 done, as to whether epilepsy is increased vital action or 
 diminished vital action, when there exists no clear conception 
 of what is meant by the words ! l^o one can deny that there 
 is great display of force in the convulsions of epilepsy, but is 
 it increased vital force ? Is a man in convulsions a strong 
 man ? for that is the real question. Does convulsion in a 
 paralyzed limb indicate increased vital action of it ? When 
 tetanus of a muscle is produced, as Weber showed it might 
 be, by putting a loop of thread round its nerve and slowly 
 and gradually tightening it, does the violent action of the 
 muscle testify to increased vitality ? If it really does, then 
 the mechanical tetanomotor of Heidenhain might, properly 
 used, suflSce for the cure of every paralysis, and eflfect a com- 
 plete renewal of life. 
 
 In speaking of vital action, we may either consider the 
 whole organism as individual, or we may consider the cell or 
 organic monad as the individual. If we regard the organism 
 * Cellular Pnthology. 
 
OF VITALITY. 153 
 
 D3 individiuil, then when general convulsions take place in it — 
 that is, violent and aimless movements completely withdrawn 
 from the control of the will, which should rightly coordinate 
 them into definite action — it is simply to use words without 
 meaning to say that the vital action of the individual is in- 
 creased. There is not, then, individual action ; and the defi- 
 nition of vitality is not applicable to the organism as a whole. 
 The highest manifestation of individuality is in the conscious- 
 ness of man, the so-called unity of the ego ; but, when the 
 coordination of forces for a definite end is replaced by the 
 convulsions of epilepsy, there is neither subjective nor ob- 
 jective unity of action. Instead of that quiet will-force which 
 expresses conscious unity, or that unconscious unity of or- 
 ganic action which is manifest in sleep, there is the violent 
 and incoherent exhibition of inferior force. Increased action 
 is the result of a degeneration of the proper vital action. " A 
 man in convulsions is not strong, though six men cannot hold 
 him." 
 
 Like considerations apply when the single cell is regarded 
 as individual. In virtue of a certain chemical constitution 
 and a certain definite arrangement of molecules, a cell ex- 
 hibits energy as nerve-force. That special mode of energy is 
 the definite result of a certain coordination of chemical com- 
 binations and molecular relations ; and these are connoted in 
 the individuality of the cell. "VYhen, however, in place of 
 the definite process of statical attraction (nutrition) and dy- 
 namical repulsion (energy), there takes place a largo demon- 
 strative display of force — as general epileptic convulsions, 
 being the sum of the action of the individual cells, prove 
 there must — it is impossible to pronounce such force as of 
 tlie same rank or kind as the proper energy of the cell. It is 
 an inferior kind of power, and the certain indication of a de- 
 generation of the statical correlative. It is the duty of a cell, 
 50 to speak, as of an individual, to live in certain relations 
 with its surroundings — it is, indeed, its essence as an individ- 
 ual cell of specific character ; and, when it is not so living, it 
 
154 THE THEORY 
 
 is really degenerating, losing its nature or kind, passing more 
 or less quickly toward death. Its action is certainly not in- 
 creased functional action. In truth, it would be as just to 
 call the extravagant action of madness in an individual occu- 
 pying a certain position in a system of government increased 
 functional action, and to say that the government was stronger 
 for his degenerate action. A state, again, would not be pow- 
 erful, would not even exist, if each individual did as his pas- 
 sions prompted, altogether regardless of his relations to 
 others ; and it would certainly be a strange use of language 
 to say then that the functional action of that individual was 
 increased. 
 
 The phenomena of conscious vitality might be used to 
 illustrate the same principles. A passionate man is not 
 strong-minded, nor do the ravings of insanity reveal mental 
 vigor. A completely-fashioned will is the true mark of a 
 strong mind. " A character," said JSTovalis, " is a completely- 
 fashioned will." As in the order of natural development 
 there has been an ascent from the physical and chemical 
 forces to the aim- working vital force, and thence from the 
 lowest vitality to the highest manifestation thereof, so in the 
 course of mental development there is a progress through 
 sensation, passion, emotion, reason, to the highest phase of 
 mental force, a well-fashioned will. The rightly-developed 
 mind, like the healthy cell, recognizes its relations to others ; 
 self-feeling gives place to or expands into moral feeling, and 
 in the will all the phases of consciousness are coordinated 
 into calm, just, definite action. N'oise and fury surely indi- 
 cate weakness ; they are the manifestation of inferior force 
 — the tale of an idiot signifying nothing. The strongest force 
 is quiet force, and the ravings of insanity, which might not 
 unjustly be compared to the convulsions of epilepsy, do not 
 evince mental power. 
 
 May we not, then, already perceive, what advancing 
 knowledge must ever render more clear, how the conscious 
 mind of man blends in unity of development with the un- 
 
OF VITALITY. 155 
 
 conscious life of Nature ? As the revelation of Nature pro- 
 ceeds in the progress of science, the idealism of Plato and 
 the realism of Bacon will be found to harmonize as expres- 
 sions of the same truths ; the generalizations of Humboldt 
 and the poetical intuitions of Goethe may be looked upon as 
 but difterent descriptions of the same facts. Idealism and real- 
 ism blend and are extinguished in the intimate harmony be- 
 tween the individual and Nature. How great, then, the igno- 
 rance which fancies that poetry demands a rude age for its 
 successful development ! How little, again, the insight which 
 would make of science an ugly anatomy only ! After analysis 
 comes synthesis ; and, beyond the practical realization of sci- 
 ence in works which add to human comfort, there remains 
 the ajsthetical embodiment of science. Art has now opening 
 before it a field so wide that imagination cannot dare to limit 
 it, for science must plainly attain to its highest development 
 in the work of the future poet, who shall give to its reality a 
 beautiful form. Goethe indicated the path, but he Avho shall 
 accomplish it will be a greater than Goethe.* 
 
 * Perhaps the tniest estimate of science, and the most remarkable 
 prophecy with regard to it, is to be foand in that wonderful tale by Goethe, 
 "Das Mahrchen," a tale which has been described, by one who has done 
 most toward making Goethe known and understood in England, ''as the 
 deepest poem of its sort in existence— ai? the only true prophecy emitted 
 I'or who knows how many centuries.'" 
 
THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE MIMB. 
 
 By HENRY MAUDSLEY, M. i:>. 
 
 rrice, cloth, $3.00, 
 
 This is one of those works which mark the beginning of a new era in the 
 study of mental science, and at the same time it is. conceded on all sides to 
 be, in its practical portions, a most reliable guide for the diagnosis, descrip- 
 tion, and treatment of insanity. 
 
 "To effect a reconciliation between the Psycholoiry and the Pathology of the 
 mind, or rather to construct a basis for both in a common science, is the aim of Dr. 
 Maudsley's hook.'"— Lo?idan Saturday Heviezv, May 25, 1867. 
 
 " The first chapter is devoted to the consideration of the causes of insanity. It 
 would be well, we think, if this chapter were published in a separate form and scat- 
 tered broadcast throughout the land. It is so full of sensible reflections and sound 
 truths, that their wide dissemination could not but be of benefit to all thinking per- 
 sons. In taking leave of Dr. Maudsley's volume, we desire again to express our 
 gratification with the result of his labors, and to express the hope that he has not yet 
 ceased his studies in the important field which he has selected. Our thanks are also 
 due to the American publishers for the very handsome manner in which they have 
 reprinted a work which is certain to do credit to a house already noted for its valu- 
 able publications."— ^warier/y Journal of Psychological Medicine and Medical Juris- 
 prudence. 
 
 " Then follow chapters on the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of insanity, 
 each characterized by the same bold and brilliant thought, the same charming style 
 of composition, and the same sterling sense, that we have found all through. We lay 
 down the book with admiration, and we commend it most earnestly to our readers, 
 as a work of extraordinary merit and originality— one of those productions that are 
 evolved only occasionally in the lapse ol years, and that serve to mark actual and 
 very decided advances in knowledge and Bc\ence."—J!feiv York Medical Journal, 
 January, 1868. 
 
 " This work of Dr. Maudsley's is unquestionably one of the ablest and most im- 
 portant, on the subjects of which it treats, that has ever appeared, and does infinite 
 credit to his philosophical acumen and accurate observation. No one has more suc- 
 cessfully exhibited the discordant results of metaphysical, physiological, and patho- 
 logical studies of the mind, or demonstrated more satisfactorily the usclessness of 
 ari exclusive method, or the pressing need of combined action, and of a more philo- 
 Bophical mode of proceeding."— J/ec?ica/ Record, Xovember 15, 1867. 
 
 "In the recital of the causes of insanity, as found in peculiarities of civilization, 
 of religion, sex, condition, and particularly in the engrossing pursuit of wealth, this 
 calm scientific work has the solemnity of a hundred sermons ; and, after going tiown 
 into this exploration of the mysteries of our being, we shall come up into active life 
 again chastened, thoughtful, and feeling, perhaps, as we never felt before, how fear- 
 fully and wonderfully we are v[12i.^q.— Evening Gazette. 
 
 " It is long since we read a scientific work of any kind, of which the raison d'etre 
 was 80 thoroughly good and important, or which accomplished eo much toward the 
 fulfilment of a most arduous and laborious task.'''— Lancet. 
 
 "Dr. Maudsley's work, which has already become standard, we most urgently 
 x'ocommend to the careful study of all those who are interested In the physiology and 
 pathology of the hraln.''— Anthropological Revietc. 
 
THE ORIGIN OP CIVILIZATION; 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 PRIMITIVE CONDITION OF MAN 
 By SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart., M. P., F. E. S. 
 
 3SO rages. Illiastrated.. 
 
 This interesting work is the fruit of many years' research 
 by an accomplished naturalist, and one well trained in mod- 
 ern scientific methods, into the mental, moral, and social con- 
 dition of the lowest savage races. The want of a work of 
 this kind had long been felt, and, as scientific methods are 
 being more and more applied to questions of humanity, there 
 has been increasing need of a careful and authentic work de- 
 scribinor the conditions of those tribes of men who are lowest 
 
 o 
 
 in the scale of development. 
 
 *' This interesting work — for it is intensely so in its aim, scope, and the 
 ability of its author — treats of what the scientists denominate anthropology^ 
 or the natural history of the human species ; the complete science of man, 
 body and soul, including sex, temperament, race, civilization, etc." — Provi- 
 dence Press. 
 
 "A work which is most comprehensive in its aim, and most admirable in 
 its execution. The patience and judgment bestowed on the book are every- 
 where apparent ; the mere list of authorities quoted giving evidence of wide 
 and impartial reading. The work, indeed, is not only a valuable one on ac- 
 count of the opinions it expresses, but it is also most serviceable as a book 
 of reference. It offers an able and exhaustive table of a vast array of facts, 
 which no single student could well obtain for himself, and it has not been 
 made the vehicle for any special pleading on the part of the author." — 
 London AihencBum. 
 
 " The book is no cursory and superficial review ; it goes to the very heart 
 of the subject, and embodies the results of all the later investigations. It is 
 replete with curious and quaint information presented in a compact, luminous, 
 and entertaining form." — Albany Evening Journal. 
 
 *' The treatment of the subject is eminently practical, dealing more with 
 fact than theory, or perhaps it will be more just to say, dealing only with 
 theory amply sustained by fact." — Detroit Free Press. 
 
 " This interesting and valuable volume illustrates, to some extent, the 
 way in which the modern scientific spirit manages to extract a considerable 
 treasure from the chaff and refuse neglected or thrown aside by former in- 
 quirers." — London Saturday Review. 
 
 B. APPLETON & CO., Publishers. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, 
 
 By CHARLES DARWIN. 
 
 A new Americau edition of "The Origin of Species," later than the latest 
 English edition, has just been published, with the author's most recent cor- 
 rections and additions. 
 
 In the whole history of the progress of knowledge there is no case so re- 
 markable of a system of doctrines, at first generally condemned as false and 
 absurd, coming into general acceptance in the scientific world in a single 
 decade. From the following statements, the reader will infer tlic estimate 
 that is now placed upon the man and his works by the highest authorities. 
 
 "Pei'sonally and practically exercised in zoology, in minute anatomy, in 
 geology ; a student of geographical distribution, not on maps and in museums 
 only, but by long voyages and laborious collection ; having largely advanced 
 each of these branches of science, and having spent many years in gathering 
 and sifting materials for his present work, the store of accurately-registered 
 facts upon which the author of the ' Origin of Species' is able to draw at 
 will is prodigious." — Prof. T. H. IIuxley. 
 
 " Far abler men than myself may confess that they have not that untiring 
 patience in accumuhiting, and that wonderful skill in using, large masses of 
 facts of the most varied kind — that wide and accurate physiological knowl- 
 edge — that acuteness in devising, that skill in carrying out experiments, and 
 that .admirable style of composition, at once clear, persuasive, and judicial, 
 qualities which, in their harmonious combination, mark out Mr. Darwin as 
 the man, perhaps of all men now living, best fitted for the great work he 
 has undertaken and accomplished." — Alfred Kussell Wallace. 
 
 In Germany these views are rapidly extending. Prof. Giekie, a distin- 
 guished British geologist, attended the recent Congress of German Natural- 
 ists and Physicians, at Innspruck, in which some eight hundred savants 
 were present, and thus writes : 
 
 "What specially struck me was the universal sway which the writings 
 of Darwin now exercise over the German mind. You see it on every side, in 
 private conversation, in printed papers, in all the many sections into which 
 such a meeting as that at Innspruck divides. Darwin's name is often men- 
 tioned, and always with the profoundest veneration. But even where no al- 
 lusion is specially made to him, nay, even more markedly, where such allusion 
 is absent, we see how thoroughly his doctrines have permeated the scientific 
 mind, even in those departments of knowledge which might seem at firc>t 
 sight to be farthest from natural history. 'You are still discussing in Eng- 
 land,' said a German friend to me, ' whether or not the theory of Darwin can 
 be true. We have got a long way beyond that here. His theory is now our 
 common starting-point.' And, so far as my experience went, I found it to 
 be so." 
 
 33. ^X>I>lL.ICXON & CO.. Fvi-blisliers. 
 
D. Appleton & Company''8 Pvhlications. 
 
 LAY seemoj:^^, 
 
 ADDEESSES, AND EEYIEWS, 
 
 By THOMAS HEXRY HUXLEY. 
 Cloth, 12mo. 390 pages. Price, $1.75 
 This is the latest and most popular of tlie works of this in- 
 trepid and accomplished English thinker. The American edition 
 of the work is the latest, and contains, in addition to the English 
 edition, Professor Huxley's recent masterly address on " Spon- 
 taneous Generation," delivered before the British Association for 
 the Advancement of Science, of which he was president. 
 The following is from an able article in the Independent : 
 
 The " Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews " is a book to be read 
 by every one who Avould keep up with the advance of truth — as well by 
 those who are hostile as those who are friendly to his conclusions. In 
 it, scientific and philosophical topics are handled with consummate abil- 
 ity. It is remarkable for purity of style and power of expression. No- 
 where, in any modern work, is the advancement of the pursuit of that 
 natural knowledge, which is of vital importance to bodily and mental 
 well-being, so ably handled. 
 
 Professor Huxley is undoubtedly the representative scientific man of 
 the age. His reverence for the right and devotion to truth have estab- 
 lished his leadership of modern scientific thought. He leads the beliefs 
 and aspirations of the increasingly powerful body of the younger men of 
 science. His ability for research is marvellous. There is possible no more 
 equipoise of judgment than that to which he brings the phenomena of 
 Nature. Besides, he is not a mere scientist. His is a popularized phi- 
 losophy ; social questions have been treated by his pen in a manner most 
 masterly. In his popular addresses, embracing the widest range of top- 
 ics, he treads on ground with which he seems thoroughly familiar. 
 
 There are those who hold the name of Professor Huxley as synony- 
 mous with irreverence and atheism. Plato's was so held, and Gahleo's, 
 and Descartes's, and Newton's, and Faraday's. There can be no greater 
 mistake. No man has greater reverence for the Bible than Huxley. No 
 one more acquaintance with the text of Scripture. He believes there is 
 definite government of the universe ; that pleasures and pains are distrib- 
 uted in accordance with law ; and that the certain proportion of evil 
 woven up in the life even of worms will help the man who thinks to bear 
 his own share with courage. 
 
 In the estimate of Professor Huxley's future influence upon science, 
 his youth and health form a large element. He has just passed his forty- 
 fifth year. If God spare his life, truth can hardly fail to be the gainer 
 from a mind that is stored with knowledge of the laws of the Creator's 
 operations, and that has learned to love all beauty and hate all vileness of 
 Nature and art. 
 
SFE^''GER8 SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 By HERBERT SPENCER. 
 
 This great system of scientiflc thou.i^ht, the most ori^'inal and important men- 
 tal undertaking of the age, to which Mr. Spencer has devoted his life, is now well 
 advanced, the published volumes being: First Principles, The Principles of Bi- 
 ology^ two volumes, and Tlie Principles of Psyclwlogy, vol. i., which will be 
 shortly printed. 
 
 This philosophical system differs from all its predecessors in being solidly 
 based on the sciences of observation and induction ; in representing the order 
 and course of Nature ; in bringing Nature and man, life, mind, and society, under 
 one great law of action ; and in developing a method of thought which may serve 
 for practical guidance in dealing with the affairs of life. That Mr. Spencer is the 
 man for this great work will be evident from the following statements : 
 
 " The only complete and systematic statement of the doctrine of Evolution 
 with which I am acquainted is that contained in Mr. Herbert Spencer's ' System 
 of Philosophy ; ' a work which should be carefully studied by all who desire to 
 know whither scientific thought is tending."— T. n. Huxlet. 
 
 " Of all our thinkers, he is the one who has formed to himself the largest new 
 scheme of a systematic philosophy."— Prof. Masson. 
 
 " If any individual influence is visibly encroaching on Mills in this country, it 
 is bis." — Ibid. 
 
 " Mr. Spencer is one of the most vigorous as well as boldest thinkers that 
 English speculation has yet produced." — John Sttjart Mill. 
 
 '' One of the acutest metaphysicians of modern times." — Ibid. 
 
 " One of our deepest thinkers."— Dr. Joseph D. Hooker. 
 
 It is questionable if any thinker of fi.ner calibre has appeared in our coun- 
 try."— George Henry Lewes. 
 
 "He alone, of all British thinkers, has organized a philosophy."— TJ/cZ. 
 
 " He is as keen an analyst as is known in the history of philosophy ; I do not 
 except either Aristotle or Kant."— George Kiplet. 
 
 "If we were to give our own judgment, we should say that, since Newton, 
 there has not in England been a philosopher of more remarkable speculative and 
 systematizing talent than (in spite of some errors and some narrowness) Mr. Her- 
 bert Spencer."— Zoftc?on Saturday Review. 
 
 " We cannot refrain from offering our tribute of respect to one who, whether 
 for the extent of his positive knowledge, or for the profundity of his speculative 
 Insight, has already achieved a name second to none in the whole range of Eng- 
 lish philosophy, and whose works will worthily sustain the credit of English 
 thought in the present generation,"— Fes^/nzn^^^r Revieic. 
 
Works of Herbert Sjoencer published by D. Appleton <& Co. 
 The JPMJosoj)hy of Herbert Spencer, 
 
 FIRST PRINCIPLES; 
 
 IN TWO FAMTS: 
 
 l THE UNKNOWABLE. II LAWS OF THE KNOWABLE, 
 
 In one Volume. 518 pages. 
 
 "Mr. Spencer has earned an eminent and commanding position as a metaphysioian, 
 ftui his ability, earnestness, and profundity, are in none of his former volimies so oon- 
 Bp««uous as in this. There is not a crude thought, a flippant fling, or an irreverent in- 
 6in.iation in this book, notwithstanding that it has something of the character of a 
 daring and determined raid upon the old philosophies." — Chicago Journal. 
 
 " This volume, treating of First Principles, like all Mr. Spencer''s •writings that have 
 fallen imder our observation, is distinguished for clearness, earnestness, candor, and 
 that originality and fearlessness which ever mark the true philosophical spirit. Hia 
 treatment of theological opinions is reverent and respectful, and his suggestions and 
 arguments are such as to deserve, as they will compel, the earnest attention of all 
 thoughtful students of first truths. Agreeing with Hamilton and Mansel in the gene- 
 ral, on the unknowableness of the unconditioned, he nevertheless holds that their being 
 ia in a form asserted by consciousness." — Christian Advocate. 
 
 '• The literary world has seen but few such authors as Kerbert Spencer. There hava 
 been metaphysical writers in the same exalted sphere who before him have attempted 
 to reduce the laws of nature to a rational system. But in the highest realm of philo- 
 Bophical investigation he stands head and shoulders above his predecessors ; not perhaps 
 purely by force of superior intellect, but partly owing to the greater aid which the 
 light of modern science has afi'orded him in the prosecution of his difficult task."— 
 Boston Bulletin. 
 
 "Mr. Spencer is achieving an enviable distinction by his contributions to the coun- 
 try's literature ; bis system of philosophy is destined to become a work of no small 
 renown. Its appearance at this time is an evidence that oiu* people are not all absorbed 
 la war and its tragic events."— <97a'o State Journal. 
 
 " Mr. Spencer's works will undoubtedly receive in this country the attention thoy 
 nimt. There is a broad liberality of tone throughout which will recommend them to 
 ihlnking, mquiring Americans. Whether, as is asserted, he has established a new sya- 
 tsm of philosoBhy, and if so, whether that system is better than all other systems, ia 
 70t to bo decided ; but that his bold and vigorous thought will add something valuabl* 
 fad permanent to human knowledge is undeniable." — Utica Herald. 
 
 "Herbert Spencer is the foremost among living thinkers. If lees erudite thai 
 Hamilton, ho is quite as original, and Is mora comprehens'vo and catholic than Mas 
 BcL"— rniversalul). 
 
Works publkJied bu R Applcton <k Co. 
 
 THE CORRELATION AKD CONSERVATION 
 
 FORCES. 
 
 SERIES OF EXPOSITIONS BY GROVE, MAYER, HELMHOLTZ, 
 FAEADAY, LIEBIG, AND CARPENTER. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION. 
 
 BT E. L. YOUMAIirS 
 
 The work embraces : 
 
 I.— THE CORRELATIOK OF PHYSICAL FORCES. By 
 W. R. Geove. (The complete Avork.) 
 
 II.— CELESTIAL DYNAMICS. By De. J. R. Mates. 
 
 ni.— THE INTERACTION OF FORCES. By Peof. Helm- 
 
 nOLTZ. 
 
 IV. — THE CONNECTION AND EQUIVALENCE OB 
 FORCES. By Peof. Liebig. 
 
 v.— ON THE CONSERVATION OF FORCE. Br Dr. 
 Faeaday. 
 
 71.— ON THE CORRELATION OF PHYSICAL AND VI 
 TAL FORCES. By Dr. Carpenteb. 
 
Works publUJied by D. Appkton db Co. 
 
 HEAT, 
 
 COXSIDEPvED AS A MODE OF MOTION, 
 
 Being a Course of Twelve Lectures delivered before tho 
 Royal Institution of Great Britain. 
 
 BY JOHN TYimALL, F. E. S., 
 
 PK0FE8S0B or NATXHIAL PHtLOSOPHT IN THE EOTAL INSTTniTION— AUTHOB 0» UU 
 "GLACrEES OF THE ALPS," ETC. 
 
 With One Hundred Illustrations. 8vo, 480 pages. Price, $2. 
 
 From the American Journal of Science.— "With all the skill which haa 
 made Faraday the master of experimental science in Great Britain, Professor Tyndall 
 enjoys the advantage of a superior general culture, and is thus enabled to set forth his 
 philosophy with all the graces of eloquence and the finish of superior diction. "With a 
 simplicity, and absence of technicalities, which render his explanations lucid to un- 
 scientific minds, and at the same time a thoroughness and originality by which he in- 
 Btructs the most learned, he unfolds all the modem philosophy of heat. His work takes 
 rank at once as a classic upon the subject 
 
 New York Times.— Professor Tyndall's course of lectures on heat is one of the 
 most beautiful illustrations of a mode of handling scientific subjects, which is com- 
 paratively new, and which promises the best results, both to science and to literature 
 generally ; we mean tke treatment of subjects in a style at once ^ro/bwnc? and popu- 
 lar. The title of Professor Tyndall's work indicates the theory of heat held by him, 
 and indeed the only one now held by scientific men — it is a mode of motion. 
 
 Boston Journal. — He exhibits the curious and beautiful workings of nature iu 
 a most delightful manner. Before the reader particles of water lock themselves or fly 
 asunder with a movement regulated like a dance. They form themselves into liquid 
 flowers with fine serrated petals, or into rosettes of frozen gauze ; they bound upward 
 In boiling fountains, or creep slowly onward in stupendous glaciers. Flames burst into 
 music and sing, or cease to sing, as the experimenter pleases, and metals paint them- 
 selves upon a screen in dazzling hues as the painter touches his canvas. 
 
 New York Tribune.— The most original and important contribution that ha« 
 yet been made to the theory and lileratm^e of thermotics. 
 
 Scientific American. — The work Is written in a charming style, and Is the 
 most valuable contribution to scientific literature that bia been published In many 
 ye^rs. It is the most popular exposition of the dynamical theory of heat that has yet 
 appeared. The old material theory of heat may be said to be defunct. 
 
 ZiOuisville Democrat.— This is one of the most delightful Bcientiflc works we 
 heve ever met. The lectures are so full of life and spirit that we can almost imagic* 
 the lecturer before us, and see his brilliant experiments in every stage of their progress. 
 The theory is so carefully and thoroughly explained that no one can fail to understani 
 It. Buch books as these create a love for science. 
 
 Independent. — Professor Tyndall's expositions and experiments are remarkably 
 thoughtful, ingenious, clear, and convincing ; portions of tho book have almost tl>« 
 Interest of a romance, so startlins are the descriptions and elucidations. 
 
" One of the most accomplished Writers of the Age." 
 HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EISE AKD INFLUENCE 
 
 OF THE SPIRIT OF 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 By -W. E. H. LECIvY. IVI. A. 
 2 Vols, small 8vo. Cloth, $4. 
 
 [From the Eclinlurgh Eecieic] 
 
 " "We open&d these volumes, never having heard the name of their author, and 
 entirely Ignorant of his pretensions to a place in English literature. "Wo closed 
 them with the conviction that Mr. Lecky is one of the most accomplished writers 
 and one of the most ingenious thinkers of the time, and that his book deserves 
 the highest commendation we can bestow upon it. Indeed, it has seldom been 
 our good fortune to take up an essay by an unknown, and we presume, a young 
 author, so remarkable for the purity and elegance of its style, so replete -with 
 varied erudition, appropriately introduced to enliven argument, or so distinguished 
 for broad and dispassionate views. ****** This book well deserves to be 
 universally read and carefully studied, for if the eye is dazzled at first by the bril- 
 liancy of the fervor, the mind is interested and occupied by the subtlety and per- 
 Bpicuity of a thousand observations which escape notice on a first perusal. In a 
 word, we hope to see this work take its place among the best literary productions 
 of the age, and we doubt not that it will powerfully conduce to the ultimate tri- 
 umph of that cause to which it is devoted." 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 
 
 80, 82 & 94 Gbakd Street, New Youk. 
 
D. APPLET ON et CO:S PUBLICATIONS 
 
 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF MAN; 
 
 DESIGNED TO 
 
 EEPEESENT THE EXISTING STATE OF PHYSIOLOGICAL SCIENOB, 
 AS APPLIED TO THE FUNCTIONS OF THE HUMAN BODY. 
 
 By ^TJSTIN injL,IN"T, Jr., l^t. 33. 
 
 Alimentation; Digestion; Absorption; Lympli and Ohyl©. 
 1 volume, 8vo. Cloth. Price, $4.50. 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE SERIES 
 
 BY 
 CONTAINING 
 
 Introduction; The Blood; The Circnlation; Eespiration. 
 1 volume, 8vo. Cloth. Price, S4.50. 
 
 " Profcsf5or Flint is engaged in the preparation of an extended 
 work on liuman physiology, in which he professes to consider all the 
 subjects usually regarded as belonging to that department of phys- 
 ical science. The work will be divided into separate and distinct 
 parts, but the several volumes in which it is to be published will form 
 a connected series." — Providence Journal. 
 
 It is free from technicalities and purely professional terms, and 
 instead of only being adapted to the use of the medical faculty, 
 will be found of interest to the general reader who desires clear 
 and concise information on the subject of man physical." — Eoenmg 
 Post. 
 
 " Digestion is too little understood, indigestion too extensively 
 suffered, to render this a work of supererogation. Stomachs will have 
 their revenge, sooner or later, if Nature's laws are infringed upon 
 through ignorance or stubbornness, and it is well that all should un- 
 derstand how the penalty for 'high living' is assessed." — Chicago 
 Evening Journal. 
 
 "A year has elapsed since Dr. Flint published the first part of 
 bis great work upon human physiology. It was an admirable treatise 
 —distinct in itself — exhausting the special subjects upon which it 
 vr ca tod . ' ' — Ph iladelph i^ Inq uirer. 
 
*'A BOOK WHICH IS A3 READABLE AS A NOVEL: 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPEAN MORALS, 
 
 Fro^n Atigustus to Charlemagne, 
 
 By W. E. n. LECXY, M. A. 
 2 vols., 8vo. 500 pages each. Price, $0.00. 
 
 CONTENTS : 
 
 The Utilitarian School— Objections to the School— Consequence of actini' 
 on Utilitarian Principles— Utilitarian Sanctions— Intuitive School— Alleged 
 Diversities of Moral Judgment— Each of the Two Schools of Morals relared 
 to the General Condition of Society— The Order in which Moral Feelings 
 are developed. 
 
 THE PAGAN EMPIRE. 
 
 Stoicism— Growth of a Gentler and more Cosmopolitan Spirit In Rome- 
 Rise of Eclectic Moralists— The People still very corrupt— Causes of the 
 Corruption— Effects of Stoicism on the Corruption of Society— Passion for 
 Oriental Religiona—Neoplatonism. 
 
 THE CONVERSION OP ROME. 
 
 Examination of the Theory which ascribes part of the Teaching of the 
 Hated Pagan Moralists to Christian Influence— Theory whicli attributes the 
 Conversion of the Empire to the Evidence of Miracles— The Persecution the 
 Church underwent not of a Nature to crush it— History of the Persecutions. 
 
 FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 First Consequence of Christianity, a New Sense of the Sanctity of Hu- 
 man Life— The Second Consequence of Christianity, to teach Lniverpal 
 Brotherhood— Two Qualifications of our Admiration of the Charity of the 
 Church— The Growth of Asceticism— The Saints of the Desert— Decline ol 
 the Civic Virtues— General Moral Condition of the Byzantine Empire— Dis- 
 tinctive Excellences of the Ascetic Period— Monachism— Relation of Mona- 
 chism to the Intellectual Virtues- The Monasteries the Receptacles of 
 Learn in 2;— Moral Condition of Western Europe— Growth of a Military and 
 Aristocratic Spirit— Consecration of Secular Rank. 
 
 THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 
 
 The Courtesans— Roman Public Opinion much purer— Christian Influ- 
 ence—Relation of Christianity to the Female Virtues. 
 
 D. APPLETCN & CO., Publishers, 
 
 90, 92 & 94 Grand St., New York. 
 Bent free by mail to any address In th^ United States on receipt of tJu pnc4 
 
THE N"KTV 
 
 AMERICAN CYCLOFiEOIA 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO., 
 
 90, 92 & 94 GKAND ST., HEW YOEK. 
 
 HATE NOW UEADT THE 
 
 NEW AMERICAN CYCLOPAEDIA, 
 
 A POPULAR DICTIONARY OF GMERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 GEORGE RIPLEY and CHARLES A. DANA, 
 
 AIDED BY A 
 
 ICiimcrous Select Corps of Writers In all Bruuchcs of Solenee^ Art* 
 and Literature, 
 
 TN 16 L^Ti&E VOLXJiMES, 8vo, 
 ToO double-column Pa^es in each Yolume. 
 
 From the New York Times. 
 
 ** It ia a work written by Americana for Americans. It proffers them tho 
 knowledge they most require, selected and arranged by those who are compe 
 tent to the task, because they themselves had experienced the want they now 
 endeavor to supply. It is minute on points of general interest, and condensed 
 in those of more partial application. Its information is the latest extant, and 
 In advance of any other book of reference in the world. Tho best talent in tha 
 country has been engaged in its production." 
 
 PRICE OE THE WORK : 
 
 In Extra Cloth, per vol., $5 00 
 
 In Library Leather, per vol., 6 00 
 
 In Half Turkey Morocco, black, per vol., 6 50 
 
 In Half Eussla, extra gilt, per vol., 7 50 
 
 In Full Morocco, antique, gilt edges, per vol., 9 00 
 
 (n Full Kussia, 9 00 
 
 Tho price of the work will, for the present, remain as above, but if them 
 shall be any great advance in paper and material tho price must be increased 
 To preve.it disappointment, orders should be at once forwarded to the publish- 
 ers or to the agents of the work in different parts of the country. 
 
 To those who have not already Subscribed for the Work 
 
 Many persons have omitted to subscribe for the "Work during its progresi 
 through the Press, owing to an unwillingness to subscribe for an incomplew 
 *rorlt. They may now obtain complete sets in any of the above Stylos. 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 
 
 90, 92 k 94 Grand Street, New York. 
 
RETURN TO the circulation desk of any 
 University of California Library 
 
 or to the 
 
 NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 BIdg. 400, Richmond Field Station 
 University of California 
 Richmond, CA 94804-4698 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 • 2-month loans may be renewed by calling 
 (510)642-6753 
 
 • 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing 
 books to NRLF 
 
 • Renewals and recharges may be made 
 4 days prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 JAN 1 1 2006 
 
 FEB 2 2007 
 
 I(p/b4q<^-^ 
 
 .EY 
 )00 
 
 DD20 6M 9-03 
 
c^ 
 
 I nil mil mil mil mil mil mil mil 
 
 i v/ 
 
 i^r^^f^^'^ ^^