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 Ex Ubris 
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 EDITED BY A FEW WELL WISHERS 
 TO KNOWLEDGE. 
 
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 N. I.
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES 
 
 AND PHILOSOPHICAL 
 
 EXPERIENCE. 
 
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 BY A PARIAH. 
 
 THIRD EDITION, ENLARGED. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. 
 1854.
 
 PEEFACE TO THE THIRD 
 EDITION. 
 
 QIXCE the Pariah first laid his Theories 
 ^ and Experiences hefore the public, some 
 thirteen years have elapsed, and a Third 
 Edition is now called for. During that 
 period the mutations in die world have been 
 neither few nor small, and it is natural that 
 the writer should scan them with an inquisi- 
 tive eye, for they are the test of his argu- 
 ments and opinions : have they or have they 
 not been such as, from these arguments and 
 conclusions, might have been expected ? 
 
 In former times when " the pilgrimage 
 from London to Canterbury" required a 
 guide ; when the journey from Chester to 
 the capital occupied eight days, even for a 
 princely cortege, and when roads were so 
 dangerous that few travelled at all, the 
 period above mentioned would have been 
 deemed far too short to confirm or to upset 
 
 2015288
 
 a theory, or to effect any great change 
 either in the moral or the political world ; 
 but railways and electric telegraphs have 
 had their influence on ideas no less than 
 on commerce and locomotion. The man 
 who can hold intercourse with France or 
 Germany in the course of a few hours, and 
 who can transfer himself from one end of 
 England to the other with less trouble than 
 he formerly took to visit a neighbour, will 
 have more elements of thought at com- 
 mand, and will form a truer estimate of 
 things, and in a far shorter time than would 
 have been possible to the most accom- 
 plished mediaeval scholar : even a working 
 railway engineer of the nineteenth century 
 has more practical knowledge of men and 
 things, and consequently has more of those 
 decided views which influence political 
 changes, than the most learned mathema- 
 tician of the thirteenth. It is not wonder- 
 ful, then, that the Pariah has lived to see 
 that test which all theoretical argument 
 requires, applied to his own, and facts be- 
 ginning to supersede theories : it is even
 
 probable that ere this meets the eyes of 
 the reader the Legislature will have been 
 engaged in earning out the views of the un- 
 known and unpatronised writer, who, under 
 as many disguises as were ever adopted by 
 the Caliph Haroun al Kaschid himself, has 
 pursued his object with undeviating perse- 
 verance. Truth has worked its way, it is 
 now acknowledged by a large and ever-in- 
 creasing number that the cottages of Eng- 
 land may be inhabited by something better 
 than a race of Helots, and that the Pariahs 
 of Society need not always remain a de- 
 graded caste. The cheers which lately hailed 
 the approach of noblemen and gentlemen 
 to the Town Hall of Birmingham to con- 
 sult on the means of redeeming even the 
 lowest and the most depraved from the 
 grasp of sin and misery, showed how well 
 the intention was appreciated by the warm 
 hearts of the British people ; and told 
 in unmistakeable language that in order 
 to unite the nation as one man, nothing 
 more is needful than, what "the Lord 
 God requires" of all i.e., to "do justice
 
 viii PKEFACE. 
 
 and to love mercy" while dealing with our 
 fellows, " to walk humbly with our God" 
 when bringing our homage to Him who 
 has given to each the talent which He ex- 
 pects to see fructifying in our hands. 
 
 What the result has been of refusing 
 this justice and mercy, and endeavouring 
 to perpetuate helotism by the strong hand of 
 power, I need not now pause to say-: it is 
 written in characters of blood throughout 
 Europe : nor can any one tell how soon a 
 fresh handwriting on the wall may record a 
 new MENE, TEKEL, for the despotic rulers of 
 oppressed nations ; but, at any rate, ENG- 
 LAND seems to have learned a better lesson, 
 and is beginning to seek prosperity where 
 it will always be found, in the brotherly 
 union of all classes. I say " beginning," 
 for much remains to be done ; yet if the 
 progress in the right direction be as great 
 in the next twenty years as it has been in 
 the last ten, the coming generation will see 
 the realisation of much which would have 
 seemed like a dream to our fathers ; and 
 which, even in our own days, has been
 
 PBEFACE. IX 
 
 scoffed at by the soi-disant "practical men" 
 who would hring down every generous feel- 
 ing of human nature to the chill calculation 
 of pounds, shillings, and pence. For the 
 comfort of such, however, let it be remem- 
 bered that the most prosperous of our manu- 
 facturers have found in the bond of Chris- 
 tian brotherhood established between master 
 and men, the surest road to wealth; and it 
 may be safely predicted that national pro- 
 sperity and political strength will follow 
 upon that union of all classes which would 
 result from affording to the labourer and 
 artisan the means of obtaining mental cul- 
 ture : such mental culture as should not only 
 enable him to lighten his toil by mechanical 
 contrivances, but give to his mind that 
 healthy employment and recreation which 
 is needful to strengthen habits of virtuous 
 industry, and which raises the man in the 
 scale of existence from the animal to the 
 intellectual being. 
 
 There is, however, a darker side of the 
 picture which must not be overlooked. 
 When the Pariah pleaded for the re-union
 
 X PBEFACE. 
 
 of philosophy with Christianity, he pointed 
 out what, to him, appeared the cause of the 
 decay of religious feeling; and was not with- 
 out a hope that others might see, as he had 
 done, that a dogmatic system which refuses 
 to plead hefore the tribunal of reason, could 
 not long retain its influence over the people. 
 He showed that it was not so taught at 
 first, and argued that it should not he so 
 taught now ; hut the warning has not been 
 heeded, and the Pariah has probably been 
 deemed presumptuous for attempting to 
 treat of a subject which was set apart for 
 business of another caste. Nevertheless, 
 so long as a man is conscious of the power 
 to judge, he will not abandon the right to 
 do so ; for who will deny that the gifts of 
 the Creator constitute the rights of the 
 creature : since Omniscience does not stul- 
 tify itself by bestowing faculties which are 
 not intended for use : and in the healthy and 
 vigorous growth of youthful Christianity 
 it never thought of adopting the heathen 
 fashion of maiming itself in honour of the 
 Deity. All that God bestowed was thank-
 
 fully used: the rationality of the Gospel 
 was freely appealed to, and when the 
 heathen was converted to the faith, it was 
 because it was more reasonable, more pure, 
 more simple, and more congenial to his 
 better nature than any of the systems with 
 which he was conversant. Out of the 
 thousands who received that faith during 
 the second century, probably not one owed 
 his conversion to any supernatural proof 
 of its truth ; but it was the religion of 
 human nature : it at once elevated and 
 satisfied man's hopes and wishes : and it 
 was worthy of a Deity infinitely holier and 
 purer than anything that the mythologies 
 of the heathen could produce, and whose 
 perfections even philosophy had but dimly 
 shadowed out. The ennobling power of 
 Christianity was not the least of its recom- 
 mendations : " For," says Tertullianus, 
 " who that witnesses the constancy under 
 suffering which our people exhibit, will 
 fail to inquire whence they gain this for- 
 titude ? and having inquired, his admiration 
 is changed into belief;" its simplicity was
 
 lii PBEFACE. 
 
 another: the " yoke was easy," the "bur- 
 then light ;" but Christian sects have vied 
 with each other in depriving it of these 
 characteristics, and overlaying the doctrine 
 whose distinguishing characteristic it was 
 that it was preached to the poor, with com- 
 plicated dogmata which the poor do not 
 understand, and are ceasing to believe. 
 
 This is no imaginary danger, conjured up 
 by a speculative writer : it is present, 
 extensive, increasing ; and we have only 
 to look into the document lately published 
 by authority to see that if the ministers of 
 the Church of Christ persist in their pre- 
 sent system, and continue to separate faith 
 from reason, they will, ere long, find that 
 their occupation is gone; for that the poor 
 have cast away altogether a system which 
 has been rendered too complicated and 
 mysterious for their simple understanding. 
 A heathen accustomed to impure and 
 wearisome observances might be struck 
 with admiration by a holier faith, and em- 
 brace it ; but he whose childhood has been 
 wearied with catechisms which he did not
 
 PREFACE. X1U 
 
 comprehend, rendered more unattractive by 
 explanations learned by rote, and perhaps 
 enforced by the cane, will most probably 
 leave his Testament and his faith together 
 on the school- desk, and abandon for ever 
 a religion which is inseparably connected in 
 his mind with wearisome lessons in unintel- 
 ligible language, and very likely, punishment 
 also. Let us hear the report of the Regis- 
 trar General, and then judge whether the 
 Pariah raised his warning voice without 
 cause. " While the labouring myriads of 
 our country," says this document, " have 
 been multiplying with our multiplied 
 material prosperity, it cannot, it is feared, 
 be stated that a corresponding increase has 
 occurred in the attendance of this class in 
 our religious edifices. More especially in 
 cities and large towns is it observable how 
 absolutely insignificant a portion of the 
 congregation is composed of artisans. 
 They fill, perhaps, in youth, our National, 
 British, and Sunday Schools, and there 
 receive the elements of a religious educa- 
 tion ; but no sooner do they mingle in the
 
 active world of labour than, subjected to 
 the constant action of opposing influences, 
 they soon become as utter strangers to 
 religious ordinances as the people of a 
 heathen country. From whatever cause 
 in them, or in the manner of their treat- 
 ment by religious bodies, it is sadly cer- 
 tain that this vast, intelligent, and grow- 
 ingly-important section of our countrymen 
 is thoroughly estranged from our religious 
 institutions IN THEIR PRESENT ASPECT. 
 Probably, indeed, the prevalence of infi- 
 delity has been exaggerated, if the word be 
 taken in its popular meaning as implying 
 some degree of intellectual effort and deci- 
 sion ; but no doubt a great extent of nega- 
 tive, inert indifference prevails, the practical 
 effects of which are much the same. There 
 is a sect, originated recently, adherents to 
 a system called 'Secularism,' the principal 
 tenet being, that as the fact of a future life 
 is (in their view) at all events susceptible 
 of some degree of doubt, while the fact 
 and the necessities . of a present life are 
 matters of direct sensation, it is therefore
 
 prudent to attend exclusively to the con- 
 cerns of that existence which is certain and 
 immediate not wasting energies required 
 for present duties hy a preparation for 
 remote and merely possible contingencies. 
 This is the creed which probably with 
 most exactness indicates the faith which 
 virtually, though not professedly, is en- 
 tertained by the masses of our working 
 population ; by the skilled and unskilled 
 labourer alike by hosts of minor 
 shopkeepers and Sunday traders and by 
 miserable denizens of courts and crowded 
 alleys. They are unconscious secularists, 
 engrossed by the demands, the trials, or 
 the pleasures of the passing hour, and 
 ignorant or careless of the future." 
 
 Such is the result of official inquiries 
 made with no view to the strengthening an 
 argument or supporting a theory inquiries 
 made by laymen and men of business, who 
 have viewed the matter as a fact and 
 recorded the information they have gained 
 for the use of the government and the 
 public ; and it may well give room for 
 P.T. b
 
 XVI PEEFACE. 
 
 uneasy thought. Were it the most igno- 
 rant and degraded class alone which had 
 thus virtually abandoned Christianity, we 
 might hope that the evil would be remedied 
 by education in some of the schools which 
 are everywhere springing up ; but a large 
 proportion of our artisans are men of 
 shrewd sense, quickened by the necessity 
 of using it in their several avocations ; 
 possessed, too, of a tolerable share of in- 
 formation and anxious for more. This 
 state of tilings, then, has not been produced 
 by mere ignorance, and it is no part of 
 wisdom to endeavour to disguise the truth. 
 The fact is, however unpalatable it may 
 be to many to acknowledge it, that 
 neither the school lesson nor the Sunday 
 sermon is suited to the needs of this "vast, 
 intelligent, and growingly-important sec- 
 tion of our countrymen." The lecture- 
 room is crowded with the very men who 
 forsake the Church ! Does not this tell in 
 sufficiently plain language that the Church 
 no longer gives the kind of instruction 
 which they require ? The simple and sub-
 
 PREFACE. XV11 
 
 lime philosophy of the Gospel, founded on 
 the deepest knowledge of human nature, is 
 ready for those who seek it why is it 
 refused to the very people to whom it was 
 intended ? At present the major part of our 
 population is as little Christian as in the 
 days of Greece and Rome, when pure 
 philosophy was taught, and professed by the 
 few, and ot TroXXot, as now, thought only of 
 the present life, and even of that took a 
 very superficial view; for, he it remembered, 
 that the mythology of the heathen was 
 rather an amusement than a faith, and was 
 maintained rather for the gain it afforded 
 than from any deep conviction of its truth. 
 When the Christians were opposed, it was 
 not because they were teaching untruths, 
 but because their tenets would put a stop 
 to sacrifices, shrine-making, and games in 
 honour of heathen deities. The established 
 religion was profitable, therefore it was pro- 
 fessed ; but it filled no place in the mind 
 of the people. And is not this, then, the 
 state of things in this country, according 
 to the authorized account of the Registrar
 
 XVU1 PBEFACE. 
 
 General ? There must be a cause for this ; 
 and I trace it to the habit of teaching in 
 childhood a creed which has no hold upon 
 the reason, which is couched in scholastic 
 language for the most part, and unintelli- 
 gible to the children so taught mysterious 
 dogmata, beyond a child's comprehension, 
 are taught to those who cannot stretch 
 their mind to any abstract idea whatever, 
 and repeated parrot-like by scholars who 
 attach no meaning to the words they utter. 
 What wonder that in after years they shake 
 off the wearisome remembrance ! for what 
 is there in it all which can appear to them 
 to be available to the business of Life ? 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood. There 
 is nothing in Christianity as it was ori- 
 ginally taught which need shrink from the 
 closest argument the most popular ex- 
 planations ; it is practical and philoso- 
 phical at once, applicable to the com- 
 monest business of life, and so founded 
 on the very nature of man that it explains 
 the most complicated phenomena of that 
 nature, and as the pure truth always must
 
 be fitted for all classes and all time. But 
 in order to this, it must be freed from 
 the formalities of another age it must be 
 allowed its expansive force, and be taught 
 as the Apostles taught it : they sent forth 
 a word which conquered the world, and 
 without one attempt to support their cause 
 otherwise than by patient endurance and 
 reasonable remonstrance, succeeded at last 
 in placing a Christian on the throne of the 
 Caesars. Is the doctrine of Christ other than 
 it was then ? Does it not still speak of the 
 easy yoke, the light burthen, the universal 
 brotherhood of man ? But even now, as 
 formerly, " God hath chosen the foolish 
 things of the world to confound the 
 wise, and the weak things of the world 
 to confound the things that are mighty." 
 It has not been among learned dignitaries 
 and university functionaries that the move- 
 ment has begun, to which I have already 
 called the reader's attention : humble and 
 illiterate men have done the work of Apo- 
 stles, and with no less success. Let the mi- 
 nisters of the Gospel take the example home
 
 XX PREFACE. 
 
 to their own hearts in the privacy of their 
 studies, and try whether they cannot by 
 abandoning the jejune instruction which 
 the people are weary of hearing, and by suit- 
 ing their preaching to the time, the place, 
 and the auditors, somewhat better than now 
 is the case recall the wandering flock 
 to the fold of Christ. It is not with such 
 facts staring us in the face that we can 
 afford to be polite ; the clergy, with some 
 bright exceptions, are behind the age 
 behind it in information behind it in 
 activity of mind, and logical precision of 
 reasoning. In order to preach to intelli- 
 gent and acute men, the preacher must 
 know what they know, and know it better ; 
 and why have we such princely establish- 
 ments connected with our national Church, 
 if it be not for the sake of affording means 
 and leisure for such mental culture as 
 would keep the clergy in advance of their 
 flocks ? The question now is, not whether 
 we are to belong to one sect or another ; 
 but whether our people are to be Christian 
 or pagan ; and a few years more of
 
 obstinate adherence to mediaeval forms of 
 thought on the part of our clergy, would 
 give rise to another question yet more un- 
 pleasant ; for it will naturally be asked, if 
 the work of Christ be thus done by laymen 
 immersed in the business of the world, 
 who yet find time for this, what is the use 
 of a set of men who teach us nothing of 
 all that we want to know : who in science, 
 history, and a knowledge of antiquity, are 
 unable to give us any of the information 
 we need, and who leave the work of God to 
 be done by other hands, the information 
 to be gained from other sources ? 
 
 Let not the Pariah in this, as in other 
 things, prove a true prophet. 
 
 March, 18, 1854.
 
 ADVEKTISEMENT TO THE 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 TTTHEN the Pariah first published his lucu- 
 * * brations to the world, he scarcely ex- 
 pected that they would meet with so favourable 
 a reception as to call for a second edition : in 
 this it appears, he had deceived himself ; and 
 he now sends his "small book" to the press a 
 second time, with the gratified feeling that he 
 has not laboured altogether in vain. He does 
 not, in the guise of writers on lesser subjects, 
 return thanks to the public for its liberal pa- 
 tronage, for profit and fame were no part of 
 his object; but he rejoices in the thought that 
 he may perhaps have contributed somewhat 
 towards the advance of that kingdom of Christ 
 on earth, which has hitherto been the object of 
 our wishes rather than our expectations.
 
 Xxiv ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The success of his small work seems to in- 
 dicate that many are beginning to feel the want 
 of something which should teach them, not 
 only the Christian faith for of such there are 
 abundance, but its rational grounds; some- 
 thing which by shewing how deeply it is rooted 
 in, and entwined with every thing about and 
 within us, may prove that the Framer of the world 
 and its Lawgiver are the same ; and thus lead 
 them to the cross of the Kedeemer,with the full 
 conviction that the lesson to be learned there is 
 no " cunningly devised fable," but that in truth 
 "the wisdom of God" no less than "the power 
 of God" was there manifested to the world. 
 
 This was the object which the writer proposed 
 to himself when he first attempted to put into a 
 portableform the result of many years' thought, 
 and experience gained through suffering. Faith, 
 without rational conviction is but like the seed 
 which fell in dry places ; it withers when the 
 hour of trial comes; for it has not rooted itself 
 deeply enough in the mind to draw thence 
 wholesome nourishment ; and hence perhaps 
 arises much of that "falling away," as it is
 
 ADVEBTISEMENT. XXV 
 
 technically termed, which occasionally scandar 
 lizes the world among professing Christians. 
 The man, on the contrary, who has cleared and 
 worked the soil beforehand, for the reception 
 of the seed sown by the Divine Husbandman, 
 is at least in a fair way of seeing it bear good 
 fruit. 
 
 To handle the spade, and root up weeds, is 
 a toil permitted, and indeed appropriated to the 
 lowest caste in society, though to turn up the 
 ground to make it ready for the heavenly seed, 
 be a task which angels might be proud of. 
 Humbly, and yet boldly, therefore, as becomes 
 one of a despised and oppressed caste on a noble 
 mission, he has addressed himself to his work ; 
 and, like a wiser and better man,* has bent his 
 knee to the Throne of all grace, and asked for 
 a blessing on his attempt. If any success has 
 attended his endeavours, he feels that it is to 
 the sanctifying effect of such a prayer on his 
 own mind that he owes it : may the reader, like 
 the writer, gain, while turning up the soil, the 
 
 * Joseph Mede.
 
 XXVI ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 treasure of a firm faith in Him who is THE 
 TBUTH AND THE LIFE, and who is always 
 found by those who seek Him. 
 
 And with this heartfelt good wish, kind 
 reader, the writer takes his leave of thee for 
 the present. 
 
 November 10, 1844.
 
 was a time when none dared pro- 
 -- fane the name of philosophy by its men- 
 tion, whose lips had not been touched with 
 hallowed flame by Alma Mater, and who had 
 not dozens of honorary letters following his 
 name, like the tail of a Highland chieftain in 
 olden days : but that time is past : men have 
 at last discovered that the conferring a degree 
 does not always confer sense, and that among 
 the undignified names which go with neither a 
 footman behind, nor a coachman before them, 
 there may be found some who have a nobility 
 of their own ; and who, amid disadvantages 
 and difficulties, have contrived to assert their 
 right to the peerage of Intellect. 
 
 The Writer of this Work, as the title-page 
 shows, is below even this ; he is a Pariah, of a 
 despised caste ; unthought of even when the 
 ten pounds householders of Stroud or Tamworth 
 have the honor of hearing speeches from, and 
 asking questions of, the great men who in this
 
 country are seized with a periodical fit of humi- 
 lity about once in four or five years. He has 
 no pretensions to academical honors, lectures to 
 no institution, is no hereditary legislator, no limb 
 of representative wisdom : but he has known 
 poverty, sickness, and sorrow; he has bent 
 over the graves of those he loved, and turned 
 again to life to struggle for his own existence, 
 and in this rude school he has learned a lesson 
 which, perhaps, may be not unuseful to his 
 fellow-creatures ; he has learned that happiness 
 may be attained under circumstances which 
 seem to forbid it ; wrongs borne patiently 
 without losing dignity ; privations endured 
 with a gay heart. The philosophy which has 
 done this has made its last and best step, it 
 has become practical. It is no longer the 
 barren speculation of the metaphysician or the 
 idle logic of the schools, but healthy intellec- 
 tual science, grounded on the great facts of 
 human nature, and available in all the circum- 
 stances of our varied existence. 
 
 There was a time too, how much of late has 
 sunk in the troubled ocean of human affairs 
 even in the space of one not very long life ! 
 there was a timewhen intellectual science under 
 the name of metaphysics, was the mark for
 
 every witling to try his young jests on, sure of 
 a favorable reception from the great body of his 
 hearers. It is one of the singular facts of our 
 social state, that there are always some few 
 things which no one who pretends to enter good 
 society ought to know ; and if all these pet 
 ignorances had had their tombstones erected, 
 and epitaphs duly written by their admirers, 
 it would be hard to conceive a more amusing, 
 though in truth melancholy record of human 
 folly. In the days of Addison, no well-bred 
 lady would venture to know how to spell; in 
 later times the prohibition only extended to any 
 cultivation of the intellectual powers, which for 
 a long time was most religiously attended to 
 by all the fair votaries of fashion. In the 
 days of Fielding, it would seem that a very 
 pretty gentleman indeed, might gain a grace by 
 misquoting Latin sufficiently to show that he 
 despised the dull routine of school education. 
 Later yet, a mineralogist or a botanist walked 
 a few inches higher, if he could avow himself 
 ignorant of metaphysics, and make some clever 
 jest on the cobweb speculations of its admirers ; 
 and all, learned or ignorant, wise or foolish, still 
 unite in thinking it the properest thing in the 
 world to be totally ignorant of the properties of
 
 drugs, or their effect on the human body. True 
 it is that a healthy mind in a healthy body is a 
 thing worth having; few deny that: and intel- 
 lectual and medical science may do somewhat 
 towards the preservation of both ; this also is 
 allowed: but to attempt to If now any thing about 
 the matter is really too fatiguing for polished 
 people, who can afford to pay tutors and physi- 
 cians. But the writer is a Pariah, and having 
 said thus much, he need hardly assure his 
 readers, if any of that so-named "gentle" race 
 ever take up these pages, that he never was 
 great, or fashionable, or scientific enough, to 
 have a pet of this kind : it would have been 
 a troublesome, sometimes an expensive, always 
 a disagreeable companion, a great hinderance 
 to all rational employment, and no help to 
 one who not unfrequently has found his wits 
 his best heritage. 
 
 If such an one cannot afford to keep a pet 
 ignorance, so neither can he afford to carry on 
 abstract speculations which lead to no practical 
 result : corporeal wants must be attended to : 
 the difficulties of this life must be met and van- 
 quished; and if in the midst of the struggles 
 requisite to avoid being trodden under foot in 
 the crowd, those great questions which sooner
 
 or later occur to every reasonable mind, pre- 
 sent themselves, it is not as curious contempla- 
 tions, matters of philosophical research merely, 
 which may occupy a portion of the time which 
 is gliding away in the lap of ease and luxury, 
 but as problems whose solution involves every 
 thing worth caring for in time or in eternity ; 
 problems whose due solution may gild a life 
 which has no other gilding, may set fortune 
 at defiance, direct our steps in difficulties, and 
 like oil upon the waves, spread calm where all 
 was turmoil and danger before : it is then that 
 intellectual science loses its character of barren 
 speculation; every step in advance raises us 
 farther above the mists of earth; and the heart 
 warms, and the limbs grow strong, at seeing 
 the prospect brightening in the distance, un- 
 der the unclouded beams of truth and love. 
 
 It seems, nevertheless, to be necessary that 
 science, as well as man, should pass through its 
 different stages of growth ; at first, theoretic 
 and fanciful, then abstruse, and finally, vigorous 
 and practical. Astronomy has so proceeded ; 
 many a small wit jested at the idle "star- 
 gazing" of Flamsted and Halley as satisfac- 
 torily as the same genus has scoffed from age 
 to age at the "unintelligible" reveries of So-
 
 6 
 
 crates, or any other seeker of the truth, from 
 Pythagoras down to Dugald Stewart and The- 
 odore Jouffroy; but no small wit now tries to 
 ground his fame on a successful scoff at " star- 
 gazers ;' ' even Butler' s " Elephant in the Moon' ' 
 has followed the fate of the jests of lesser men, 
 it is neither quoted, nor perhaps by the gene- 
 rality of the world remembered; and the science 
 which guides the mariner over an untracked 
 ocean with all the assurance of a mapped coun- 
 try, sits enthroned in the affections no less than 
 the respect of the present generation. It is 
 time that metaphysical, or, as I would rather 
 term it, intellectual science,* should take a like 
 
 * " Taken in its largest comprehension, as the know- 
 ledge of abstract and separate substances, Aristotle 
 raises the philosophy of mind above all other parts of 
 learning. He assigns to it the investigation of the prin- 
 ciples and causes of things in general, and ranks it not 
 only as superior, but also as prior in the order of Nature, 
 to the whole of Arts and Sciences. But ' what is first 
 to Nature is not first to Man.' Nature begins with 
 causes, which produce effects. Man begins with effects, 
 and by them ascends to causes. Thus all human study 
 and investigation proceed of necessity in the reverse of 
 the natural order of things ; from sensible to intelligible, 
 from body, the effect, to mind, which is both the first and 
 final cause. Now physic being the name given by the 
 Peripatetic to the philosophy of body, from this neces- 
 sary course of human studies, some of his interpreters
 
 place, for it has in its power to do a greater work 
 than this: it can map the gulph between earth 
 and heaven, and teach man, amid the conflicting 
 opinions of the pilots who undertake to steer 
 his bark, to choose and follow the straight 
 course which will lead him over that untracked 
 ocean in safety. The great men whose lives 
 were spent in the pursuit of abstract truth, have 
 left the results of their labours to us, and as 
 the fanciful dreams of proportion in numbers, 
 pushed at last to the exactness of mathematical 
 science, have given us practical astronomy, so it 
 is for us now to avail ourselves of the severe 
 truth to which they have reduced the more ima- 
 
 called that of mind, Metaphysic, TWV fiira TO. ipvyiica, 
 implying also by the term, that its subject being more 
 sublime and difficult than any other, as relating to 
 universals, the study of it would come most properly 
 and successfully after that of physics. Talcing it, how- 
 ever, in its natural order, as furnishing the general 
 principles of all other parts of learning which descend 
 from thence to the cultivation of particular subjects, 
 Aristotle himself called this the First Philosophy ; but 
 as its subject is universal being, particularly mind, 
 which is the highest and most universal, he gave it also 
 the appellation of the Universal Science, common to all 
 the rest ; and lastly, to finish his encomium of this 
 First and Universal philosophy, he honoured it with 
 the exclusive name of 'Wisdom.' " Tatham's Chart 
 and Scale of Truth, Vol. 1. p. 17.
 
 ginative Greek philosophy, and draw from it 
 practical metaphysic. 
 
 Had any one else appeared inclined to un- 
 dertake the task, the Writer would willingly 
 have left it in the hands of the learned and the 
 illustrious in science; but no such attempt 
 seems likely to be made, and as there are but 
 too many of the Pariah race, who, like himself, 
 may find that something more than the trite 
 instruction of the school-room, or even the 
 pulpit, is wanting to brace the mind to resist 
 the rude buffets of the world, he at length 
 steps forward, not as thinking himself wise, but 
 as feeling himself experienced : 
 
 "Nee nos via fallit euntes : 
 
 Vidimus obscuris primam sub vallibus urbem 
 Venatu assiduo, et totum cognovimus amnem."
 
 INTRODUCTORY INQUIRIES. 
 
 THERE are some few important questions 
 which have been constantly agitated from 
 the earliest period that we have any record of 
 man's history. The answers attempted have 
 been various ; but none, as yet, have been so 
 generally satisfactory as to prevent them from 
 being agitated afresh by every new generation, 
 for to every new generation they present them- 
 selves with a never-fading interest. 
 
 Man goes forth at his entrance into life, 
 confident in powers which, to his youthful fancy, 
 seem to know no limit; he feels the happiness 
 that his nature is capable of, and that it sighs 
 for, and he rushes on to grasp and to enjoy it; 
 but he soon perceives that a power, exterior to 
 himself, limits, and often thwarts his endea- 
 vours; he finds himself at the mercy of circum- 
 stances which he can rarely guide, or at best 
 only in a very slight degree; and amid the 
 anguish of disappointed hope he asks himself,
 
 10 LSTBODTJCTOBY INQOETES. 
 
 " What is this power which I can neither con- 
 trol nor escape from ?" 
 
 But he is young; he has probably expected 
 to find his happiness in the pleasures of the 
 senses; and a voice within him says that these 
 are gross, and unworthy of the god-like nature 
 which he is conscious of possessing. He 
 launches into the pursuits of the man ; forces 
 himself to acquire science and greatness at the 
 expense of exertions which exhaust his physical 
 strength ; and then, when almost sinking under 
 the fatigue of labors which, nevertheless, have 
 notgiven him all that he sought,he asks himself 
 again, "What is this restless power within, which 
 despises corporeal enjoyment, and triumphs in 
 compelling the sacrifice of bodily comfort for 
 an object which, after all, none attain ?" 
 
 Insurmountable obstacles limit his progress; 
 the perverseness of men thwarts his views for 
 their benefit no less than his own ; he looks 
 round him in querulous displeasure, and again 
 exclaims, "Why is evil in the world ?" But 
 old age now approaches, "his thoughts" must 
 "perish" ere he has accomplished half that he 
 has proposed to himself ; he must " go hence 
 and be no more seen," before he has even at- 
 tained the fruit of his labors ; he seems to have
 
 IKTEODrCTOET rS'QriRIES. 11 
 
 " walked in a vain shadow, and disquieted him- 
 self in vain ;' ' and then, when all that has filled 
 his great aspirations seems shrinking from his 
 grasp, when all appears "vanity and vexation of 
 spirit," he once more asks in a sort of concen- 
 trated despair, "Why does man propose ends to 
 himself which he can never compass ? What is 
 the good which his nature demands, and how is 
 it to be attained ? Is it sensual enjoyment ? 
 No ! such pleasures pall oil the senses, and end 
 in disgust. Is it intellectual ? The limited 
 powers of men make the pursuit of science la- 
 borious, and death comes ere he has reached 
 what he sought. Is it in the innocent enjoy- 
 ments of social life ? These are soon buried in 
 the graves of those he loves." 
 
 These are the questions which every man 
 not wholly brutalized must sooner or later ask 
 himself. These are the questions in fact, which 
 have agitated mankind in all ages, and whose 
 solution forms the basis of all systems of reli- 
 gion and philosophy. They all may be resolved 
 into three; namely, 
 
 1. What is the nature of the power exterior 
 to oui'selves ? 
 
 2. What is the nature of the power within 
 ourselves ?
 
 12 INTRODUCTORY INQUIRIES. 
 
 3. What, with reference to these two, is the 
 nature of the good which man ought to propose 
 to himself as his aim and object ? 
 
 The solution of the first two questions forms 
 the subject of all metaphysical, or in other 
 words, intellectual science. That of the third 
 gives the practical result. Systems of religion 
 decide these questions authoritatively, systems 
 of philosophy solve them by rational argument, 
 and as, however numerous these systems may 
 be, there can be but ONE TRUTH, so we are 
 justified in assuming that the religious and the 
 philosophical system must tally, or that one or 
 the other is in error. There is, however, this 
 difference between the two, viz., that the autho- 
 ritative system is necessarily delivered in the 
 form of dogmata to be received, not of argu- 
 ments to be tried and weighed ; and these dog- 
 mata are couched in words which, as no pre- 
 vious course of reasoning is recorded, are liable 
 to be misinterpreted by the prejudices of man- 
 kind. The philosophical system, on the con- 
 trary, is obliged to prove its assertions step by 
 step; and if an undue leaning to any precon- 
 ceived notion should lead to the adoption of a 
 weak argument, the first dispassionate man who 
 goes over the same ground will perceive and
 
 INTBODUCTOBY EfQUIBIES. 13 
 
 overthrow it: thus, though in the case of suffi- 
 ciency of external evidence to prove the preten- 
 sions of the first to be well grounded, it is the 
 shorter process, and therefore most acceptable 
 to man's indolence; yet the second is the more 
 certain one. To be completely satisfactory, the 
 two should be joined together; but though oc- 
 casionally a voice has been raised to call for 
 this auspicious union, unfortunately for the 
 world, the guardians of the former have gene- 
 rally held her to be too rich a bride to be be- 
 stowed on a mate who had no better inherit- 
 ance than Socrates' old cloak and worn sandals, 
 and have " forbidden the banns." The conse- 
 quences have been disastrous: philosophy, like 
 a wild youth, has run through a course of licen- 
 tiousness; and religion, like a wealthy heiress, 
 has become the prey of designing men. It is, 
 perhaps, not too late to rescue both. Let us 
 then begin with philosophy, whose morals, 
 whatever they might have been while he was 
 Socrates' pupil have in later times been 
 thought by no means faultless. 
 
 It would be a long, and to a reader a weari- 
 some task, to go over all the disputes which have 
 agitated the learned through so many centuries, 
 as to moral perceptions, innate ideas, &c. He
 
 14 rSTBODrCTOBY 
 
 who would map a country must explore the 
 by-roads; but he who uses the map, if he finds 
 the road laid down lead to the place he wishes 
 to arrive at, will not think it needful to traverse 
 every lane on his way. It will suffice, there- 
 fore, to assume as an axiom, what nobody 
 probably will deny, that truth is reality, 
 namely, what really is; error, an unfounded 
 persuasion of something that is not. Now what 
 is, must be either within or exterior to our- 
 selves ; and to know what is exterior to ourselves 
 truly, that is, in its reality, we must examine 
 it by the evidence of our senses, or by that of 
 our reasoning faculties, or by both conjointly. 
 There is no other process by which we can 
 arrive at a certainty of knowledge. Thus then, 
 as an innate idea is one which must be received 
 in the mind as truth without previous evidence, 
 an innate idea of what is exterior to ourselves 
 is a contradiction, and the common voice of 
 mankind has decided on the point, by cha- 
 i racterizing those who receive the persuasions 
 1 of the imagination in the room of evidence as 
 : insane. Nor is the impressing itself on the 
 ; mind without previous evidence the only neces- 
 sary character of an innate idea ; it must also 
 be found in the minds of all mankind as a con-
 
 rS'TEODUCTOBT INQUIRIES. 15 
 
 stituent part of their nature, otherwise it cannot 
 be innate. It will soon be seen that there is 
 only one idea which can answer to this descrip- 
 tion, namely, that of individuality, whose de- 
 monstration rests on that very individual con- 
 sciousness, an evidence so unhesitatingly allowed 
 by all mankind, that were any one to attempt 
 to overthrow it by arguing that assertion is 
 no proof, he might make good his position, and 
 yet convince no one : for all feel that in order 
 to assert individual existence it is requisite 
 that a man should exist. But all impressions 
 received by this individual .consciousness are 
 exterior to it, and consequently require to be 
 examined; and thus intellectual science, like 
 all others, becomes the subject of experiment 
 and inquiry, and can only make progress by 
 being classified and arranged so as to enable 
 different individuals and succeeding generations 
 to pursue and record their observations upon 
 different portions of it. Even that part which 
 Bacon himselfhesitated to subject to the rules of 
 his experimental philosophy, namely, religious 
 knowledge, must submit to the same sort of 
 examination: for from whatever quarter the 
 authoritative dogma comes, it is presented to 
 the senses from without, and cannot be received
 
 16 TXTHODrCTOET INQUIRIES. 
 
 as authority, without sufficient evidence, both 
 external and internal, to satisfy the mind of 
 its truth ; and as in classifying, the most natural 
 arrangement is always the most intelligible, so 
 the great questions which man's experience in 
 life never fails to suggest to him, afford at once 
 the simplest and the best division of the subject. 
 
 I. What is the nature of the power exterior 
 to ourselves ? 
 
 Man's first step, when this inquiry has sug- 
 gested itself to his mind, is to look round on the 
 objects amid which he moves, and which often 
 appear to be the active agents in causing him 
 either enjoyment or suffering. Does the power 
 which controls him exist there ? The untaught 
 savage perhaps answers, yes, and selects his 
 fetiche from the first thing that strikes his 
 fancy. A little more cultivation sends him from 
 the fetiche to something less tangible, and of 
 greater apparent energy, and the heavenly bodies 
 are adored : but when the question occurs in an 
 age of more advancement, a very different pro- 
 cess must be resorted to, in order to satisfy a 
 mind accustomed to the severity of demonstra- 
 tion required by real science. We perceive an 
 universe whose slightest movement we are un- 
 able to regulate; after ages of thought and
 
 IXTRODUCTOET I3TQT7IBIES. 17 
 
 observation, we think it our glory that we have 
 arrived at the discovery of the laws by which 
 it coheres; but they are so totally beyond our 
 power to alter, that we can only hope to effect 
 our purpose by shaping it in conformity to 
 them. We have subjected these laws to the 
 strictest examination; we cannot doubt that we 
 have arrived at the truth, but these immutable 
 laws provide only for the regular movement of 
 inert matter. We look round again; we are 
 surrounded by organized bodies, and we have 
 not yet discovered the law by which they exist. 
 We converse with our fellows, and find some- 
 thing beyond organized life merely; we find 
 intellect, that subtle agent by which our inquiries 
 are carried on, itself offering a problem of no 
 small difficulty. The conclusion from all this, 
 ascendingby a legitimate process of induction 
 from what we see and hear to what we cannot 
 discern by any of our external senses, and can 
 only apprehend by means of our reasoning 
 faculties, is, that some power must exist 
 capable of giving birth to all this ; and as "ex 
 niliilo nihil fit," had there ever been a time 
 when there was nothing, there never could have 
 been a beginning of existence, therefore that 
 power must be eternal ; and as there is nothing 
 
 P. T. C
 
 18 rNTHODTJCTORT 
 
 but inorganized matter that bears a character 
 of permanency, and the notion of an eternal 
 series is an absurdity; so to produce organized 
 and intelligent beings, that eternal power must 
 be intelligent. How much superior the creating 
 intelligence must be -%o that created, the man 
 who has constructed a steam-engine may guess ; 
 for he knows at what an inconceivable distance 
 in the scale of being he stands from the 
 machine he has put together. 
 
 The power exterior to ourselves, then, is 
 eternal and intelligent, and what is eternal, is 
 of necessity self-existent. Now it is a necessary 
 consequence of self-existence that such a being 
 must be unlimited both in power and know- 
 ledge; for as he himself exists by his own will, 
 therefore his own nature, no less than all other 
 natures existing by his will, must be perfectly 
 kliown to him, and entirely under his control, 
 and what is unlimited must be One ; for to 
 suppose a second eternal principle would be to 
 suppose a second individual will and purpose, 
 which must produce a constant warfare, and 
 would derange all the operations of nature, 
 whose laws, on the contrary, we find to be im- 
 mutable. For an incorporeal being can have 
 no individuality but in will and purpose, and
 
 INTRODUCTORY IjrQTTIEIES. 19 
 
 if the will be one, then there is an amalgama- 
 tion of nature. Thus hy a legitimate course of 
 reasoning, we arrive at the certainty of one 
 eternal, self-existent, all-wise, and all-powerful 
 Being, whom our simple ancestors, with a degree 
 of philosophical accuracy which no other nation 
 seems to have reached, named 5<5b, i.e. good, 
 for to such a heing alone could the perfection 
 helong which justly deserves that appellation. 
 
 But we have not even yet exhausted the con- 
 sequences of this chain of reasoning : for the all- 
 wise and all-powerfulBeingmustbe able to effect 
 his will, whatever it may be. We may again look 
 round us, and judge from what we see, what 
 that will is. We see a profusion of means to 
 convey pleasure; a profusion of creatures seem- 
 ingly made to enjoy it, especially among the 
 lower grades of organized beings. We have 
 already proved that the eternal Intelligence 
 can effect his will, whatever it be; then if that 
 will were malevolent, we should see and feel 
 nothing but destruction and misery; but we 
 do not see it; then that will is not malevolent. 
 
 But the sad questionerwho began the inquiry 
 as to the nature of this eternal power, may 
 perhaps again inquire, "If the will of the 
 Creator be benevolent, why am I controlled in
 
 20 IXTKODrCTOHT INQUIBLES. 
 
 my wishes, limited to a life which is too short 
 for my projects, and often made miserable dur- 
 ing that short life by sickness or by the loss 
 of what I had centred my whole joy in?" But 
 who has assured you that these few years 
 elapsing between the cradle and the tomb are 
 all? The will of the eternal Being is not male- 
 volent, beings of a far lower grade fulfil the end 
 of their being and are happy; you aspire to 
 something which the short span of life never 
 gives. Is it not a proof that your nature is 
 not bounded by that span ? Turn then to the 
 next question, for it is now time to do so. 
 
 II. What is the nature of the power within 
 ourselves ? 
 
 Our only way of investigating an intangible 
 and invisible power is by its effects; we can, 
 therefore, only judge of what the power within 
 ourselves is,by noting the phenomena of human 
 nature ; these, on a little consideration, will be 
 found to resolve themselves into three classes. 
 
 1. The instinctive emotions and appetites, all 
 arising involuntarily, attended with a sensible 
 bodily effect, and causing derangement of 
 bodily health when in excess; anger, fear, &c. 
 all take their place among these.
 
 rS'TRODrCTOKY INQUIRIES. 21 
 
 2. The faculties ; which are exercised by 
 choice, but suffer fatigue in the exercise, require 
 rest, and exhibit other symptoms of their ani- 
 mal origin, but nevertheless slumber, if not 
 called into activity by a voluntary act. 
 
 3. The acts of a restless undivided will, 
 which requires no repose, suffers no fatigue ; is 
 as strong in the child or the dotard, as in the 
 mature man ; which claims for itself the whole 
 individuality of existence, and speaks of my 
 body, iny faculties, but never seems to have the 
 most distant conception that this body or these 
 faculties are identical with itself. 
 
 It is quite clear that neither of the two first 
 classes of phaenomena can be referred to that 
 power within whose nature we are seeking to 
 ascertain, for this often curbs and contradicts 
 the instinctive emotions, and impels the facul- 
 ties to continued exertion, when weariness, and 
 pain even, show how much they need repose 
 Animal nature does not seek to destroy itself 
 knowingly, but man knows that his life is the 
 forfeit of a particular course of action, and yet 
 he pursues it : then the impelling power is of a 
 different nature from the powers which it im- 
 pels. It is this impelling individual will, then, or
 
 22 INTEODUCTORT INQUIRIES. 
 
 " personal power," (as it has been aptly termed 
 by a philosopher* whose works deserve to be 
 more known than they are,) that must form the 
 subject of our inquiry ; for on its real nature 
 depends the answer to the last question as to 
 what the good is which man has to seek, and 
 what are the means to obtain that good. 
 
 The first indication of this power is seen in 
 the infant angry at its own helplessness, and 
 evincing its discontent by passionate struggles 
 and cries. The individual will has come into a 
 scene which it does not understand, has organs 
 which are insufficient for its desires, and in 
 mere wayward spite, beats the nurse for not 
 comprehending what is the matter. Watch the 
 growing child ; questions, curious observations, 
 obstinate persistence in its own views, show a 
 power which is rather seeking information for 
 its own guidance, than by any means partaking 
 in the immaturity of the childish bodily form. 
 Stronger beings have a will also, which they 
 enforce by the infliction of punishment ; the 
 child resists till pain teaches him to choose the 
 lesser evil, and the point is yielded just when 
 
 * Theodore Jouffroy. " Melanges Philosophiques 
 Des facult^s de l'me humaine."
 
 INTRODUCTORY INQUIRIES. 23 
 
 pain or privation has reached the point of being 
 more irksome than the concession demanded :* 
 this concession very generally being not the 
 sacrifice of any instinctive desire, but some en- 
 deavour at independence inathingwhich isitself 
 
 * It may be objected by some, that the higher ani- 
 mals exhibit some traces of this independent will ; but 
 before this objection be allowed weight, it ought to be 
 considered that there is an animal will, the result of 
 mere organization ; the impulse of sensation mechani- 
 cally propagated through the nerves and brain, until the 
 nerves of voluntary motion in their turn receive and pro- 
 pagate the excitement to the muscles ; which is, in 
 fact, the whole mystery of instinct. It will be difficult to 
 show that in animals anything more than this instinctive 
 will is ever discovered, but even supposing there were, 
 let the argument have its weight : it might go to prove, 
 perhaps, that the occasional sufferings of the animal 
 creation are parts of a system not yet fully developed, 
 but it alters not the case as regards man, for we cannot 
 argue from unknown premises ; and before we can draw 
 any deduction from animal nature to apply to our own, 
 we must know much more about it than we do. The 
 pride of man has disclaimed the fellowship of the animal 
 creation, but we should be puzzled to find any sufficient 
 proof one way or the other ; let us then be contented 
 to leave this matter where we found it, and argue only 
 from what we know, satisfied that man will suffer no 
 deterioration, even if 
 
 " in that distant sky 
 His faithful dog should bear him company."
 
 24 INTRODUCTORY INQUIRIES. 
 
 of little consequence. The child arrives at ma- 
 turity, and a fresh struggle for freedom com- 
 mences. Life is thrown away as mere dust, to 
 cast off slavery or preserve free institutions ; for 
 man has discovered practically that his nature 
 only arrives at its highest point in a state of 
 rational independence. Old age and sickness 
 supervene ; does this restless power, then, yield 
 to circumstances? No. Impatience at the failure 
 of the organs which have been wont to do its 
 bidding, is the usual concomitant of these, and 
 if we do not find impatience, it is only because 
 it is curbed by the knowledge which the impe- 
 rious spirit has at last gained, that this worn 
 and enfeebled body is not its home, and that 
 brighter days are approaching. When Maske- 
 lyne, amid the wreck caused by old age and 
 palsy, blessed the child that sought him with 
 affection, and could only utter " great man 
 once," was the personal power less strong ? 
 Those few words showed what he would again 
 have done, had he but had the organs requisite 
 for the work. In sleep even, this voluntary 
 power slumbers not ; it resigns the reins, in- 
 deed, for a time, on the repeated petition of 
 eyes, limbs, and brain, all declaring that they 
 can do no more ; but it remains on the watch to
 
 IXTRODUCTOET INQUIRIES. 25 
 
 use whip and spur again the moment it finds its 
 servants capable of action. If any one doubt 
 this, let him only strongly resolve at going to 
 sleep, to wake at a particular hour, or a particular 
 sound ; and without any other known cause than 
 the will, behold the man wakes, though, in any 
 other case, he would have slept to a much later 
 hour, or continued asleep through much louder 
 sounds. This is a thing of too common occur- 
 rence to require particular instances to be given. 
 Finally, in death itself, the last symptom of life 
 that we see, is usually an ineffectual effort to 
 do or say something which the dying person 
 evidently thinks of importance, disappointment 
 at being unable to do it is visible, and the man 
 dies. 
 
 We have traced the body from helplessness 
 to death : it varies in its powers ; first some 
 instincts prevail, then others : then the faculties 
 are developed, and then they fail. We can easily 
 conceive that this waxing and waning power 
 mayreturn to its elements andberecompounded 
 in afresh form; buttheunchangedindividuality 
 which neither grows nor decays, how is this to 
 perish ? What seeds of mortality can we find 
 in that ? The anatomist traces nerves of sen- 
 sation, influencing in their turn the nerves of
 
 26 rN'TBODrcTOKY INQUIRIES. 
 
 voluntary action, and shows a beautiful arrange- 
 ment thus made for the preservation of the 
 animal, but the individual power steps in, says 
 to sensation, " You may stimulate the nerves of 
 voluntary action, but I forbid it ;" and to the 
 nerves of voluntary action, " You shall not wait 
 for the stimulus of sensation ; I command, and 
 you shall do my bidding." In what part of 
 bodily organization then is this power seated? 
 The philosophical seeker of the truth must an- 
 swer, It is not a part of bodily organization ; it 
 shares not in the growth or decay of the body ; 
 then by analogy, neither does it share in its 
 death ;* it sighs for other joys, despiseswhat the 
 body offers, spurns at tbe limited span of life. 
 What is this but an indication of its destiny ? 
 Happiness consists in the full development of 
 all the powers of Nature : no animal seeks that 
 
 * In proportion as science advances, the great truths 
 of Christianity stand forth in a clearer light. In former 
 times the life and the soul were considered as identical, 
 and many a puzzling question arose out of this mistake. 
 Now, physiology has shown that the vital power, in- 
 scrutable as its nature has hitherto been found, is never- 
 theless the same in the animal and the vegetable ; con- 
 sequently that life is not dependent on the soul, but is a 
 perfectly distinct force, acting by its own peculiar laws. 
 But though the soul and the life be different, still the
 
 1NTHODUCTOKY EN'QTIIBIES. 27 
 
 which it is unable to enjoy the fish remains 
 quiet in the water without seeking to quit it 
 to share the pleasures of the quadruped or the 
 fowl. Man sighs for the felicity of the Deity ; 
 then man is of a kindred nature. We proceed 
 therefore to the final question. 
 
 III. What, with reference to the two powers 
 already treated of, is the nature of the good 
 which man ought to propose to himself as his 
 aim and object ? 
 
 Our inquiry here will not be long. What- 
 ever other orders of intelligent beings there 
 may be, there are only two that we can form 
 any judgment of: The One, the subject of 
 our first, the other that of our second question. 
 We assume it as an axiom in philosophy that 
 the felicity of the being must consist in the 
 full development of its natural powers, and we 
 
 former is an acting force which the physiologist is obliged 
 to acknowledge ; for it not unfrequently contends with 
 the vital force, and occasions much disturbance in the 
 system. One of the most distinguished scientific writers 
 of the present age. when treating of organism, distinctly 
 reckons this disturbing force among the different indepen- 
 dent causes of the phsenomena of man's being. Thus it 
 is that science and religion, the two great inscriptions 
 on God's fabric of creation; always tell the same tale, 
 though it be written in different characters.
 
 28 LSTBODUCTOBY INQTJIBIES. 
 
 see this to be the case with all the inferior 
 grades of animals : we turn to man, and we see 
 that the development of his animal powers 
 does not satisfy him, he asks for more ; he asks 
 for knowledge, greatness, immortality, andthese 
 are the felicities of the Deity ; then, the good 
 which he has to seek can be none other than 
 the development of an intelligent, and not an 
 animal nature. We have already seen that 
 the individuality is concentered in that interior 
 power whose nature we have been examining ; 
 that interior power is akin to the Deity ; then, 
 the felicity of the Deity in kind, though not in 
 degree, may be his, and no rational man will 
 propose to himself any other. 
 
 Such are the conclusions of philosophy, such 
 were its conclusions from the time when these 
 questions were first agitated, and wise and good 
 men, long before our ra, had suffered exile, 
 imprisonment and death, rather than abstain 
 from promulgating these great truths. Who 
 now will dare to stand forward and say that 
 there is any "just cause or impediment" why 
 philosophy and Christianity should not plight 
 their troth to each other, and bless the world 
 hen ceforward by their holy union ? Once more 
 "I publish the banns," and defy man to put
 
 INTRODUCTORY INQUIEIES. 29 
 
 asunder those whom God has willed should be 
 joined together. " Fecisti nos tibi et manet 
 cor irrequietum donee restat in te,"* was the 
 sentiment of Augustine. " Ex vita ita discedo 
 tanquam ex hospitio non tanquain ex domo," 
 says Cicero in the character of Cato. " O prse- 
 clarum diem cum ad ilium divinum animorum 
 concilium, ccetumque proficiscar ; cumque ex 
 hac turba et colluvione discedam !"f Where 
 is the difference between the philosopher and 
 the Christian? 
 
 I have now gone over the general outline of 
 the classification which I propose to make of 
 intellectual science. I have, I think, proved in 
 answer to the first question that there exists 
 an eternal, self-existent, creating Intelligence ; 
 all- wise, all powerful, and benevolent; and the 
 portion of intellectual science which treats of 
 this Being I propose to call Theology. % 
 
 * " Thou hast made us for thyself, and the heart is 
 unquiet till it rests in Thee." 
 
 t " I depart from life as from an inn, not as from 
 home. O what a delightful day will it be when I shall 
 join that company of divine souls when I shall quit 
 this throng and this mire !" 
 
 J The term Theology has been so long applied to a 
 peculiar department of literature that the meaning of
 
 30 INTRODUCTORY INQUIRIES. 
 
 I have, I think, proved in answer to the 
 second question, that the individuality of man 
 consists in a restless, undying intelligence, 
 akin in its nature to that of the Deity ; and I 
 propose to call the portion of intellectual science- 
 which relates to the functions of this intelli- 
 gent, individual power, Psychology. 
 
 I have drawn as a conclusion in answer to 
 the third question, That such being the nature 
 of that individual power, the good it has to seek 
 is, assimilation to the Deity in will and kind 
 of felicity. The titles given to this part of the 
 science have been various. Some have called it 
 Morality, some Religion; but as unfortunately 
 
 the word is in great measure forgotten. I reclaim for 
 it the original sense ; for as Conchology means the science 
 which tells of the nature of shells, or Geology that which 
 tells of the nature of the earth, so Theology in strictness 
 means the science which tells of the nature of God ; and 
 it is misapplied when used to classify works which mix 
 up the moral duties and the prospects of man, with the 
 abstract science of the Divine Essence. The word 
 would be novel, but it would aid us to define the limits 
 and objects of the science much better, if we were to 
 include all that relates to the mission of Christ to man, 
 and the obligations therefrom resulting, under the 
 general term Christoloyy.
 
 IKTRODUCTOET IKQTJIETES. 31 
 
 these two terms have been set up as rivals to 
 each other, neither conveys the exact meaning 
 to men's minds which I would wish. It would 
 be easy to coin another Greek compound, and 
 Agatliology would not ill express that part of 
 the science which relates to the nature of this 
 "summum bonum" and the means of attaining 
 it; but for a plain man a plain word is better, 
 and I would rather head the last division as the 
 practical result of the two former. In what 
 I have to say further, I shall consider these 
 divisions as applicable no less to the authorita- 
 tive, than the philosophic system. The exter- 
 nal evidence of the former I take for granted ; 
 Christianity must have had an origin, and it is 
 far less outrage to common sense to suppose its 
 outset was such as its first promulgators assert, 
 than to allegorize Christ and his apostles into 
 the sun and the signs of the zodiac, or any 
 thing else as strange and as improbable. The 
 existence of Christianity is too notorious to be 
 denied; and if, as a system, it offers all that 
 man's best reason has been able to discover, 
 if it offer as a perfect whole, comprehensible to 
 the meanest capacity, what no single man, how- 
 ever great, quite accomplished, then it is no im- 
 posture, it is THE TflUTK ; that truth which
 
 32 EfTEODUCTOKT DfQFIEIES. 
 
 Socrates died for, and which armed Cicero's 
 timid nature to meet his assassins with the 
 courage of a hero. It is in vain that we attempt 
 to reject it; the man who professes to cast aside 
 Revelation altogether, still, if he he not a vicious 
 man, lives as a Christian, has a Christian's 
 henevolence ; a Christian's hopes ; it is in his 
 nature; his instincts oblige him to love his 
 fellows ; his faculties compel him to ackriow- 
 ledge a First Cause, his dearest wish is immor- 
 tality : Christianity comes but to second the 
 dictates of his better self, and to give a sanction 
 to his hopes; but with this advantage, that he 
 whose mind has not been enough cultivated to 
 reason out a foundation for these hopes, or to 
 argue man's duties from his nature, finds plain 
 precepts for his guidance which embody all and 
 somewhat more than philosophy could have 
 taught him : if this system be not divine, at 
 any rate had the Deity given a revelation to 
 man, he could have given no other. 
 
 It will be my endeavour now to show how 
 the one truth which forms the centre of both 
 the authoritative and philosophical systemswill 
 be reflected back from each in turn, so as to 
 throw light upon the other; and if, in so doing, 
 I may set at rest some few of the angry feelings
 
 ETTBODUCTOBY IKQUIBIES. 33 
 
 which are too apt to prevail on subjects where 
 they are the most misplaced, if but one heart 
 should learn to feel with me that where all are 
 eagerly looking for the truth, that circumstance 
 ought to make us rather friends than enemies, 
 and that the path we take matters far less than 
 the place we are going to; I shall have at 
 least one cheering thought to go with me to 
 my grave, brightening my path as all else 
 grows darker.
 
 THEOLOGY. 
 
 ONE of the most fruitful sources of angry 
 discussions on this subject on the one 
 hand, and idle scoffs on the other, has heen the 
 disposition so prevalent among men, to a species 
 of Anthropomorphism in their notions of the 
 Deity: for though all will not go the length of 
 the Egyptian monks who nearly murdered their 
 hishop for endeavouring to persuade them that 
 God had not actual hands and feet, as they 
 alleged they found written in the Scripture, 
 yet many would go nearly that length with him 
 who should dare to assert that God has no more 
 of the vindictive passions than of the bodily 
 form of a man. Yet we must see clearly that 
 one is nearly as absurd a fancy as the other, 
 if we consider that a pure spiritual existence 
 has no individuality but in will, and purpose, 
 and feeling ; and that therefore any of those 
 changes in mood which are in truth a part of 
 the animal nature of man would be equivalent
 
 THEOLOGY. 35 
 
 to a change of individuality in the Deity ; for a 
 change of purpose is a change of person, where 
 there is no animal nature to create or suffer 
 that change. Philosophy asserts this, so does 
 Christianity; in God "is no variableness, nei- 
 ther shadow of turning," yet men in all ages 
 have misapprehended a few eastern hyperboles 
 in the language of the Scripture, till they have 
 made a Deity for themselves such as we should 
 not select, even for a human friend. " I defy you 
 to say so hard a thing of the devil," said John 
 Wesley when speaking of Whitfield's doctrine 
 of Eeprobation; yet Wesley was not free from 
 the prevailing anthropomorphism himself. 
 
 The very first step then, if we would wish 
 either to understand what is predicated of the 
 Deity in our Scriptures, or to know how we our- 
 selves stand with regard to this exterior power, 
 whose will evidently must control us something 
 in the same way that the parent controls the 
 child, is, to ascertain what are the necessary 
 conditions of eternity and self-existence, for it 
 is in vain to say that the Deity is utterly beyond 
 the reach of our reasoning faculties. We can 
 conceive eternity, we can conceive self-existence; 
 every strong and cultivated mind that hasturned 
 its attention to these subjects knows this;
 
 36 THEOLOGY. 
 
 though it is one of those parts of individual 
 consciousness which admits no other proof than 
 the feeling that we can. "We can conceive, 
 that is, though unahle to comprehend, (using 
 the word in its sense of the entire grasping of a 
 subject,) we can apprehend, or reach to and lay 
 hold on, the great features of the case: we can 
 arrive in thought at an approximation to the 
 nature of an immaterial existence, though we 
 cannot fathom all its depths; and that we can 
 do so is perhaps one of the strongest, though 
 least conspicuous proofs that we have a sort of 
 imperfect specimen within us of what immaterial ' 
 existence is ; for experience shows that man is 
 unable to conceive what he has no exemplar of. 
 The wildest imagination, while endeavouring to 
 form a monster, has never done more than take 
 disjointed parts of known things, and put them 
 together. The essence of eternity and of self- 
 existence is, that it is boundless, for, as I have 
 already observed, if we suppose any other like 
 power, we must either suppose a difference, or 
 an agreement of individxial will and purpose: if 
 a difference, then there must be discord and 
 destruction : if agreement, then, as there are no 
 bodily parts to prevent entire union, there is an 
 amalgamation, and the power is one; one, in its
 
 THEOLOGY. 37 
 
 individuality, that is, but, as some ancient 
 Christian philosophers have well observed, not 
 necessarily one in its parts or functions, since 
 the individuality, the wisdom,* and the actively 
 exerted will, are distinct principles appertaining 
 to the same essence : for it is clear that the 
 individuality might exist for ever without any 
 active exertion, yet the power of exertion is in it, 
 and capable of being manifested at any time; and 
 though the individuality, the wisdom and the 
 exerted will, are distinct parts or functions of the 
 one self-existent Being, they are necessary con- 
 ' sequences of each other, and being each perfect, 
 can be susceptible of no change; for the know- 
 ledge which directs the will being entire, the 
 choice consequent upon it must be always the 
 same, nor can there be any other essential part 
 or function affirmed of the eternal self-existent 
 Being than these three ; all the rest must be 
 mere negatives consequent on them. Thus God 
 cannot be mistaken in the means to an end, or 
 find his purpose changed by unexpected cir- 
 
 * The mere English reader is not aware, and even 
 some scholars scarcely consider that the term Xoyof, 
 which hi the Gospel of St. John is translated " Word," 
 has the meaning in the Greek of the " Reasoning 
 Power," or " Wisdom in active operation."
 
 38 THEOLOGY. 
 
 cumstances ; because perfect knowledge forbids 
 both. Nor can God suffer pain or grief, be- 
 cause either the one or the other results from 
 the action of some force, exterior and superior 
 to the being so suffering : a thing which per- 
 fect power equally forbids. 
 
 Again, there can be no distinction of past 
 or future with the Deity. Man measures time 
 by the revolutions of the earth, and by his own 
 waxing and waning powers. Give him an eter- 
 nal day and an unaltered body, what then will 
 be his past and future ? The past is what he 
 has done and knows, the future what he has 
 not yet done, and therefore does not know : but 
 the Deity knows all, where then is his dis- 
 tinction of time? To him it is one unbounded 
 present, and all the events of the world, no less 
 than its component parts, he spread before him 
 as in a map; save that our map only represents 
 material objects, whereas it is the mind of man 
 which the Deity looks through, sees the mo- 
 tives which operate there, and bends the events 
 of nature so far to control the actions resulting 
 from them, so as to make even evil intentions 
 conducive to some good end. It is an earthly 
 and a human notion which figures to itself the 
 Deity arranging the affairs of the world by
 
 THEOLOGY. 39 
 
 patching here, and mending there, as if any 
 event could take the Creator by surprise. And 
 here arises the question which has been repeated 
 through all ages, " Why then is there evil ? 
 Why is there suffering in the world ?" for if 
 an all-powerful Deity sees and permits, it is 
 equivalent to the causing it. Even in human 
 law, the man who stands by and sees a murder 
 committed, without endeavouring to prevent 
 it, is held a party to the crime. 
 
 The answer to this is to be found in the 
 nature of the beings in question. There is one 
 thing which even to the Deity is impossible. 
 The self-existent cannot make another self-ex- 
 istent, and what is not self-existent is bounded ; 
 for there is an antecedent and a greater power . 
 and what is bounded is imperfect ; for there is 
 something which it does not know, and there- 
 fore it can commit errors. Now experience 
 shows us that there is no happiness but in 
 voluntary action : minerals have chemical affi- 
 nities and combine necessarily, but there is no 
 sensation of pleasure ; the heart performs its 
 functions involuntarily, and there is no sen. 
 sation of pleasure in their performance ; the 
 goods of life as they are called, such as health, 
 riches, &c., when in quiet possession, give no
 
 40 THEOLOGY. 
 
 pleasure further than they afford the means of 
 seeking it, which is voluntary action. To make 
 a being capable of a high degree of happiness 
 then, he must have a free and intelligent will; 
 and thus he is akin to the Deity, and capable 
 of tasting the same felicity. This necessarily 
 imperfect being, therefore, has a complete free- 
 dom of choice, consequently the power of erring 
 in his choice ; what then would be the course 
 pursued by unbounded benevolence to preserve 
 him from error? Would it not hedge him 
 round with difficulties at every step towards 
 that wrong path ; with inward discomfort, pain, 
 and a long train of evil consequences to prevent 
 him from pursuing it ? Would it not school 
 him, as a parent does his child, by allowing 
 him to suffer from his thoughtlessness to make 
 him wiser in future? An imperfect being 
 might not know how to prize or to enjoy the 
 Divine felicity, till taught its worth by having 
 tried in other directions and found himself 
 wrong. Is there then actual evil in the world 
 if we except that of the perverse will of man ? 
 I think a short consideration will show that 
 there is not. I think that there is no man who 
 has attained middle age, who will not acknow- 
 ledge that in the irremediable events of his life
 
 THEOLOGY. 41 
 
 there has always been either a grief avoided, or 
 a good to be gained, if he chose to lay hold on 
 it. A friend, the beloved above all others, dies 
 perhaps ; is it long before we can see cause to 
 thank heaven that he is safe from the evil which 
 he would otherwise have had to endure from 
 evil men ? His death has changed all our view& 
 and aims; do we not find that in this change 
 of views and aims we have gained more than an 
 equivalent for what we have, after all, lost but 
 for a time ? We have gained probably a further 
 power of doing good ; have formed fresh con- 
 nexions over whom we may exercise a beneficial 
 influence; are becoming more capable of intel- 
 lectual happiness ourselves, and of leading 
 others to enjoy it ; more assimilated to God, 
 and more fitted for a joyful reunion with those 
 whom He has taken to Himself. If our con- 
 clusion as to the real nature of man be just, 
 (and I know not how we are to avoid acknow- 
 ledging it to be so), then what passes in the 
 short span of bodily existence is but one part 
 of a great whole; and in passing through that 
 state which is the school of our intellectual 
 nature, enjoying pleasure while pursuing the I 
 right course, and suffering pain when follow- I 
 ing the wrong one, we are only undergoing a 1
 
 42 THEOLOGY. 
 
 A necessary preparation for a higher degree of 
 happiness ; after which, having gained the 
 experience necessary to enable us to choose 
 aright, we may find in the bosom of the Di- 
 vinity and in the society of others perfected 
 like ourselves, the entire felicity which we 
 have sighed for. 
 
 Thus far philosophy speaks. Christianity 
 goes farther, though in the same tone. Chris- 
 tianity says, " Man's path, even though thus 
 fenced, may be mistaken," and it proceeds to 
 offer a set of precepts which make that path 
 still plainer ; it offers more yet, it sets before 
 him an exemplar of human virtue, made per- 
 fect by the indwelling of the Deity, and by 
 showing how lovely such a life might be, even 
 with no circumstance of worldly grandeur or 
 pleasure to recommend it, has brought every 
 feeling of man's heart into accordance with his 
 true interests. " Never man spake like this 
 man," "All were astonished at the gracious 
 words which proceeded out of his mouth," &c. 
 &c. sufficiently show how that bright pattern 
 of excellence laid hold on the minds of the 
 most indifferent. 
 
 Nor is this all: we have already seen that -the 
 qualities of the Divine nature may be argued
 
 THEOLOGY. 43 
 
 out by a sound philosophy. Man finds himself 
 in a certain degree a partaker of that nature, 
 therefore, by the necessary law of all existence, 
 his happiness must be of the same kind ; and 
 to seek any other would be but the insanity of 
 a man who should plunge into the arctic seas 
 to follow the whale. If then, convinced of this 
 truth, he school his mind to wish what the 
 Deity wills; to seek, in short, the same felicity, 
 he will no longer have to complain of his finite 
 nature ; for Infinite Power is already accom- 
 plishing his wish, almost before he has known 
 how to shape it. He has no dread that the 
 attainment of his object will be defeated ; for 
 he knows that if the scheme he has devised 
 prove vain, it is only because it was not in 
 reality calculated to promote the end he had in 
 view, and his inmost heart thus becomes a 
 spring of never-failing content and satisfaction, 
 a well of living water, freshening and beautify- 
 ing all around as well as all within. 
 
 None who have not tried are aware of the 
 large influence which a soul thus constituted 
 has, even upon the bodily health, though phy- 
 sicians have not unfrequently observed that a 
 quiet and happy mind is the best medicine in 
 illness. Sickness is one of those evils which
 
 44 THEOLOGY. 
 
 are thought the immediate infliction of the 
 Deity, though were the matter better con- 
 sidered, it would appear that it is most generally 
 of man's making; but even when thus produced, 
 it may become a blessing instead of a misfortune, 
 by steadily pursuing the same course. If in 
 health, we can imitate the perfections and seek 
 the felicity of the Deity, by diffusing happiness 
 around us, and enjoy ing the contemplation of it ; 
 in sickness we may seek the knowledge which 
 forms another part of His attributes. It is a 
 false notion that application of the mind to 
 science is impossible or hurtful, in such a state ; 
 on the contrary, it takes off the tedium of con- 
 finement, withdraws the attention from pain, 
 and makes what would otherwise be wearisome, 
 a source of enjoyment ; for those who have 
 active duties to fulfil, often have scanty leisure 
 for acquiring what nevertheless they sigh for. 
 In the quiet of a sick chamber knowledge may 
 be sought and yet no duty neglected; and with 
 convalescence comes the additional pleasure of 
 feeling that we go forth to our duties with a 
 mind strengthened by its high contemplations, 
 and with increased powers of usefulness from 
 the acquisition of knowledge. This is no 
 imaginary picture; if the philosophy which the
 
 THEOLOGY. 45 
 
 writer now presents to those who, like him, 
 need it for practical use, be worth any thing, 
 let him who profits by it remember that it was 
 so acquired. It was during months of illness 
 that he stole time to hold intercourse with the 
 master-minds of antiquity; and often has he 
 hailed, almost with delight, the respite thus 
 afforded him from worldly toil. If then, to an 
 individual deeply involved in all the perplexi- 
 ties caused by man's perverse will, the mere 
 schooling his wishes to the Divine similitude 
 be productive of so much peace and happiness, 
 what would be the consequence if a whole com- 
 munity were under the same influence ? The 
 question of "why evil is in the world?" would 
 not then be asked; for there would be none. 
 Health would not be worn out by extreme 
 labour; for who that loved his neighbour would 
 require or allow it ? Hearts would not be 
 broken by unkindness ; for the follower of such 
 a system "loves his brother." Disease would 
 not be brought on by excess, or transmitted in 
 the blood to an unfortunate progeny; for men 
 would no longer debase themselves by sen- 
 suality. Science would meet and control the 
 dangers arising from natural causes; and death 
 itself would be but a pleasant journey to a hap-
 
 46 THEOLOGY. 
 
 pier land, where friends and kindred were await- 
 ing us. Again I repeat that the mass of suffering 
 which man sternly mounts upon to arraign the 
 Deity, is heaped up by himself only, and might 
 be swept away again by the same hands that 
 placed it there. Three generations of a wise 
 and virtuous race would nearly efface the mis- 
 chiefs of all the ages of sin and sorrow which 
 had preceded them. There is nothing in all 
 this, probably, that has not been said before, 
 and perhaps better said; but unfortunately, the 
 necessity of using words as the medium of 
 thought frequently leads us to forget that they 
 are only the medium and not the ideas them- 
 selves. Thus we find it daily repeated that God 
 is eternal, self-existent, almighty: and when 
 these words are uttered it is thought sufficient. 
 Among those who utter them, who is there 
 who has accurately weighed the necessary con- 
 ditions of such an existence ? The most con- 
 tradictory propositions are brought forward and 
 insisted on, and none perceive the contradiction 
 unless the very word should bear it upon its 
 face. Thus, he who should assert that God is 
 wise and ignorant, powerful and weak, at the 
 same time, might be doubted ; but he who 
 asserts such changes of purpose in the Deity,
 
 THEOLOGY. 47 
 
 as we find resulting from the want of power or 
 of knowledge in man, gains credit, because it is 
 not perceived that omnipotence and omniscience 
 leave no room for any such change, and that 
 eternity and self-existence entirely forbid the 
 possibility of it : this is but one of the many pro- 
 positions of this kind which daily pass current / 
 in the world. If, therefore, an accurate notion 
 of the nature of the ruling power on whom we 
 depend be requisite to the understanding our 
 position, and regulating our actions, it is of no 
 small importance to awaken men's minds to the 
 logical consequences of their admitted creed. 
 Indeed, were this course generally followed, 
 there would be an end of the dissensions which 
 now disgrace the Christian world; for a really 
 false opinion would soon manifest itself to the 
 mind of the inquirer, by the absurdity of its 
 consequences, and all other differences which 
 arise merely from taking words for ideas and 
 then imagining that our neighbour means dif- 
 ferently, because he uses a different word 
 would merge in the one truth which all love, 
 and either seek, or think they have attained. I 
 believe that if each of the words which have 
 in turn been made the 'Shibboleth' of a party, 
 had been subjected to such a process, we might
 
 48 THEOLOGY. 
 
 now be living in peace, " one fold, under one 
 shepherd." Sure I am, that as THE TEUTH 
 can be but OKE, there must be a fault in the 
 course pursued, or those who have honestly 
 sought it could not have remained, as, alas 
 for Christian charity! many wise, and other- 
 wise good men have remained, in bitter oppo- 
 sition to each other. 
 
 " The man is otherand betterthan his belief," 
 says Coleridge: so deep a thinker ought to have 
 gone farther, and told us why it is so ; for the 
 maxim is a true one. Is it not that the con- 
 viction of the heart, from which his actions flow, 
 finds imperfect expression in words, and that 
 even those words fail to convey to others the 
 meaning he has intended to give them? His 
 words are attacked, and he defends them as the 
 visible signs of what he thinks and feels; but 
 are they so? Let any man try to express his 
 own interior conviction in accurate terms, and 
 see how many deep feelings of unseen realities, 
 how many humble prostrations of human weak- 
 ness before Divine perfection, are unsusceptible 
 of any expression at all; and when he begins 
 to attempt a definition, how his very soul groans 
 over the unsuited tools he has to use; and when 
 he has felt all this, let him, if he can, condemn
 
 THEOLOGY. 49 
 
 his neighbour's creed, when he sees his neigh- 
 bour's life, and reads in that what he must have 
 intended to express. 
 
 We have now seen what are the necessary 
 conditions of self-existence. Will either Unita- 
 rians or Trinitarians dissent from this? Athana- 
 sius, the most decided of Trinitarians, expressed 
 himself in nearly the same terms that I have 
 used. Priestley could hardly have wished for 
 any other definition. Why then have they been 
 considered of different sects? Because each 
 has attacked or defended words; and the things 
 which those words were intended to convey a 
 notion of, have not been duly considered; and 
 then, when controversy once begins, and passion 
 enters where placid reasoning alone should find 
 place, adieu to the hope of brotherly fellowship ! 
 Evil feelings are engendered; the church of 
 Christ is split; and he who endeavours to make 
 peace by showing each party that in the heat of 
 dispute both have gone too far, is looked upon 
 as lukewarm in the cause, or perhaps as a traitor 
 to that very faith which he is endeavouring to 
 preserve " in the bond of unity." 
 
 The tradition of the church tells us that when 
 the apostle John, sinking under the pressure of 
 years and infirmity, could no longer preach to 
 
 P.T. E
 
 50 THEOLOGY. 
 
 his converts, he was wont to be carried in a 
 chair into the midst of them, where he pro- 
 nounced simply these words, " Children, love 
 one another." If this was the last lesson of the 
 disciple "whom Jesus loved," of one who had 
 heard the gracious words of Him who " spake 
 as never man spake," surely we shall do well 
 to remember that " brotherly love" is ortho- 
 doxy, and that charitable indulgence, not un- 
 measured zeal, is " the fulfilling of the law." 
 
 *$!$*
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 IF Theology has been embarrassed by inade- 
 quate conceptions of the nature of the Self- 
 Existent, Psychology has suffered no less from 
 confined notions of the nature of man. Though 
 it has been very generally believed that this 
 nature is compound, and though the words 
 " soul" and"body" are inevery one's mouth,yet 
 we find no distinct ideas respecting the functions 
 of each, even among those who are the most 
 decided in their assertion that such are the 
 component parts of man. We find no great 
 laws established by experimental proof, as in 
 other sciences; no accurate classification; and 
 he who, without a previously formed theory of 
 his own to guide him through the labyrinth, 
 should take up any of the works professedly 
 written to explain the subject, would very 
 probably find himself more bewildered when 
 he had finished than when he began. 
 
 When a science is in this state of chaotic
 
 52 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 disorder, there is no chance of progress; the 
 very first step towards its advancement, there- 
 fore, must be a classification which may at least 
 reduce the subjects it embraces to something 
 like arrangement. It may be imperfect, it may 
 even be erroneous ; but at any rate, the objects 
 requiring attention will have been disentangled 
 from each other, and so placed that they may 
 be viewed separately, and examined on all sides; 
 it is easy then to shift their position if, after 
 such examination, it should appear necessary. 
 But thevery thingwhich makes classification 
 needful makes it also difficult. Whoever may 
 attempt it will be met by his contemporaries 
 with the taunt, " What new sense has been 
 given to you, that you imagine yourself able to 
 do what abler minds have not accomplished ?" 
 Those who think that the adytum of the temple 
 ought to be dark, or lighted only by the torch 
 of the mystagogue for the entrance of the 
 initiated, will denounce the endeavour to admit 
 daylight as a sacrilege. What have the people 
 to do in such matters? and what can a Pariah 
 know of them? All this and more must be 
 expected, but it alters not the case; a first step 
 must be made, or a second never can be: and 
 if the people, the multitude, the ot TroXXot (I
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 53 
 
 care not by what term of contempt I and my 
 compeers may be denominated), if the masses, I 
 say, are to be what Grod made them to be, some- 
 thing more must be done than to tell them that 
 they have instinctive feelings given them by a 
 benevolent Deity, which it is a sin to indulge ; 
 for which reason severe laws abridge their 
 gratification as far as possible; and that they 
 have a soul destined for an immortality of 
 spiritual enjoyment which they have no means 
 given them of preparing for. Something more 
 than this, I repeat, is needful to make us fit 
 denizens of heaven: we must know how much 
 of what we now feel is to go with us beyond the 
 grave, how far it is to be controlled ; how far 
 indulged. We must, in short, ascertain the 
 boundary line between the animal and the im- 
 mortal nature; and this must be done, not for 
 the/ew who have grown pale over their mid- 
 night studies, but for the many; for those who 
 can only snatch a moment from the labours of 
 the day for a short book, and whose toil has 
 made them sleep too soundly at night to allow 
 of long speculations. The philosophy of the 
 multitude must be as brief as it is practical. 
 
 We began with a slight classification of the 
 phenomena of man's nature into
 
 54 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 1. The instinctive emotions and appetites. 
 
 2. The faculties. 
 
 3. The will. 
 
 And I assumed that as the two first partook of 
 the changes which the body undergoes, they 
 were bodily; but that as the individual and 
 intelligent will partakes of none of these 
 changes, it was of a different nature. Had 
 we never heard of soul and body, so marked a 
 distinction in phenomena would have led us 
 to look for a double principle to cause it; and 
 I therefore propose to reduce man's nature to 
 its ultimate elements, by arranging the whole 
 under two simple divisions. 
 
 I. Material and animal functions subjected 
 to bodily change, and subdivided into 
 
 1. Appetites. 
 
 2. Instinctive emotions. 
 
 3. Faculties. 
 
 II. Spiritual and unchanging functions. 
 The latter division only, is, strictly speaking, 
 
 the province of Psychology: but in a nature so 
 intimately blended, the one part so influences 
 the other, that a system which should leave 
 out either would be very imperfect. I there- 
 fore proceed to consider,
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 55 
 
 I. Material and animal functions subjected 
 to bodily change. 
 
 1. I need not waste time in proving that 
 appetites, such as hunger and the like, are a 
 part of our bodily and animal nature. No one 
 denies it; and whoever should doubt it might 
 soon be convinced by trying the experiment of 
 preventing their gratification. Man would 
 perish from the earth under such a regimen. 
 
 2. There has been more doubt as to what I 
 here call the instinctive emotions : anger, fear, 
 and many other emotions of this kind, have 
 generally been termed passions, and referred to 
 the soul for their origin ; but when it is con- 
 sidered that they rise involuntarily in the first 
 instance, and are attended with such a change in 
 the circulation, and other bodily functions, as to 
 disorder the health, and even in some instances 
 to cause instant death, and when, moreover, it 
 is considered that these so called passions are 
 requisite to the preservation and well-being of 
 the species, for anger impels us to self-defence, 
 fear to the avoidance of danger, &c. we shall 
 be justified, I think, in giving them the appel- 
 lation I have done; since, though passion, if we 
 take it in the strict sense, means only a thing
 
 56 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 suffered passively; yet in common parlance it 
 
 has been strangely confounded in its meaning, 
 
 and is not unfrequently so used as to signify a 
 
 thing done actively. Of course from this class 
 
 C j of instinctive emotions must be rejected some of 
 
 ' ' * the feelings hitherto classed among passions, 
 
 such as Hope, which is attended with no bodily 
 
 disorder, and has therefore no claim to the title 
 
 ft f*k - s_^J 
 
 of passion, or a thing suffered. It will not be 
 necessary to specify every one of the emotions 
 " .' -thus to be classed; it is so easy to examine 
 whether any bodily disorder is ever occasioned 
 by it, or not, that none can be at a loss in 
 determining the question. 
 
 3. The faculties have been variously con- 
 sidered by different writers : but as a recapitu- 
 lation of their opinions would take much space, 
 those who wish to know what they are, must 
 consult their works. Pursuing the inquiry on 
 the same ground that I have taken with respect 
 to the instinctive emotions, I find clear indica- 
 tions of bodily origin, in the fatigue occasioned 
 to the brain by their exercise, the necessity for 
 repose ere they can again be set to work, their 
 complete derangement by bodily disease, their 
 debility in the last decrepitude of age. We 
 need hardly ask the physiologist for his assist-
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 57 
 
 ance here; common observation suffices for this 
 conclusion. And here we may notice, that as 
 the instinctive emotions are requisite for the 
 preservation of the animal, so also are the 
 faculties in a certain degree ; for though the 
 combinations effected in the brain may be ap- 
 plied to other purposes, which I shall presently 
 speak of, yet the first and most obvious use is in 
 the ministering to bodily needs; contrivances 
 for defence, for shelter, for procuring food, are 
 the result of such combinations ; and unarmed 
 with natural coveringor natural weapons as man 
 is, it is evident that without these contrivances 
 the species would soon perish. Thus far there- 
 fore we have a mere animal, with the properties 
 and capacities requisite for his preservation. 
 II. Spiritual or unchanging functions. 
 These appear to be two: i. e. the intelligent 
 will, and that species of memory which forms 
 the consciousness of identity; and which how- 
 ever ordinary recollections may be impaired by 
 the injury or disease of the brain nfever suffers 
 any change from infancy to death, and even in 
 sleep remains unaltered. 
 
 We have as yet considered man as an animal 
 only, and have seen all parts of his frame act- 
 ing harmoniously together; the appetites, and
 
 58 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 the involuntary or instinctive emotions by turns 
 stimulating the faculties to provide for the 
 needs of the body, these faculties being opera- 
 tions of the brain, and therefore coming within 
 reach of the mechanical action of the system. 
 But another power now enters upon the scene, 
 and, for good or for evil, not ^infrequently 
 thwarts and disorders the whole. The instinctive 
 emotions, which in themselves are evanescent, 
 are wrought up by this untiring energy into 
 permanent affections. The faculties which 
 naturally only act under the stimulus of bodily 
 wants, that is to say, under the impulses 
 mechanically conveyed to the brain, are now 
 seized upon by this restless inquisitive power, 
 and compelled, in spite of fatigue, and even 
 utter derangement of health in consequence, to 
 minister to its requisitions, and supply it with 
 the information it wants; untired, unchanging, 
 it drags on its weary slave with immitigable 
 determination, till at last it scornfully casts it 
 into the grave as no longer fit for its purpose, 
 and asks for other worlds, and ages yet to come, 
 to satisfy its impatient longings for wisdom or 
 for enjoyment. But though, when speaking of 
 functions, I have divided them into two, as 
 manifesting themselves differently; it is clear
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 59 
 
 that they proceed from one principle; it is the 
 conscious individual essence which pours itself 
 forth in this energetic and unwearied activity, 
 and is able, when it knows its powers, to ap- 
 propriate to its own purposes the whole of the 
 unrivalled machinery placed within its reach. 
 
 But though this nice mechanism be capable 
 of responding to the touch of that power within, 
 which makes man so godlike when his nature 
 has its full play; it is too frequently left at the 
 mercy of outward impressions, and remains the 
 mere animal to the last: for we have already 
 seen that the exertion of the intelligent will 
 over the bodily functions is not requisite to 
 their performance so as to preserve life. Man 
 may exist as an animal, or at least very little 
 removed from that state, and when the brain 
 has never been exercised in those nicer opera- 
 tions which the individual essence can at its 
 choice require from it, it becomes as unfit for 
 use as the handsof aHindoo devotee when he has 
 resolutely kept them shut forten years together. 
 Active use is the necessary condition for keeping 
 any bodily fibre in a healthy and serviceable 
 state; and we see that this active use is stimu- 
 lated by the sensations from without, which at 
 our first entrance into the world are so abundant
 
 60 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 in all directions. The first impulse of the child 
 is a restless curiosity, and at the same time an 
 endeavour to combine and arrange ideas from 
 what he sees and hears. Sensation has done 
 its work; the hrain has perceived; the individual 
 is beginning to discover the organ he has at his 
 command, and he is already directing it to the 
 inquiries needful for his information; but too 
 frequently the child has no one who can reply 
 to his inquiries; he gets weary of useless 
 question, or is reproved for it ; the brain 
 consequently becomes inactive as to all its 
 higher functions, and no farther progress is 
 made. The will is either not exerted at all, 
 for the mere action of nerves of voluntary mo- 
 tion stimulated by sensation must not be con- 
 founded with the ruling individual will, or if 
 it be exerted, having no longer power over the 
 faculties so as to acquire useful information, its 
 whole energy is devoted to the giving force and 
 permanence to the instinctive emotions, which 
 being involuntary, never can slumber as the 
 faculties are wont to do. The man becomes 
 thus the creature of passion, and that immaterial 
 essence which should have been the guide to 
 all that is excellent and noble in knowledge and 
 in feeling, panders only to the impulses of the
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 61 
 
 body, and degrades itself from its high dignity 
 merely to sink hoth below the level of the 
 brute; for the brute, when the appetite is satis- 
 fied, goes no farther; but bring the intelligent 
 will once to aid, and the jaded appetite is pam- 
 pered and stimulated ; fresh excitement is 
 sought, and the body is at last worn out by 
 the endeavours of its unwearied ally to minister 
 to its gratification. 
 
 In cases of idiocy it is evident that the brain 
 never has attained a sufficient power for sup- 
 plying the individual will with the information 
 it needs; but the proverbial obstinacy of idiotic 
 persons shows that this power is as strong in 
 them as in others; and were a careful training 
 given to such children, it would be found that 
 they are capable of much more than is supposed. * 
 I knew a family in humble life, some years ago, 
 where three of the children were thus afflicted; 
 two of them were trained as persons in that 
 rank usually are, to labour, and attend the 
 church on Sunday. The third, and youngest, 
 was the mother's darling, and nothing was re- 
 quired of him. The first two remained weak 
 in intellect, but capable of performing many 
 
 * See " Small Books," &c. No. 3. 14.
 
 62 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 manual labours; were honest and industrious 
 in their way, and were conscientious in the 
 discharge of their humble duties. The third 
 was the reckless, spiteful idiot too often seen. 
 Again, in insanity we find a no less resolute 
 will; but misled by the false report of the brain, 
 it is devoted to useless or mischievous purposes ; 
 and here too it is probable, thai? were the office 
 of the brain, of the instinctive emotions, and 
 of the ruling will, duly distinguished, this most 
 miserable of all calamities might be either 
 wholly averted, or greatly mitigated. Its origin 
 is either in a diseased state of the brain, from 
 injury, or the violent action of some instinctive 
 emotion, or a devotion of the cerebral power to 
 one subject exclusively of all others, till it has 
 no longer the power to apply to any but that. 
 Now were the ruling will in the habit of claim- 
 ing that supremacy which it can claim, it seems 
 probable that in every one of these instances it 
 might, if not prevent the evil wholly, as it 
 probably would in the two latter, yet greatly 
 mitigate it. Else how is it that we find in 
 cases of confirmed insanity the fear of pain will 
 curb the fit ? Here the will is excited to use 
 its power to avoid an evil, and for the time it 
 uses it successfully.
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 63 
 
 Few know or believe the immense power 
 which this undying energy is capable of exer- 
 cising over the body, for it is only now and then 
 that it is seen in full action; but that it is both 
 master of, and widely different from the animal 
 nature, may be sufficiently shown from those 
 instances. For example, when a man resolves 
 on putting an end to his existence by abstaining 
 from food, and this has been done, the tyran- 
 nical sway exercised over every sensation and 
 craving of the body, is complete and durable, as 
 well as in entire contradiction to every impulse 
 of the animal nature. Or if it be said that this 
 has been merely the last resort of a man wearied 
 out with suffering, let us take the case of one 
 hazarding or throwing away his own life to save 
 another from perishing. A stranger it may be, 
 one from whom he has nothing to expect, and 
 where he has no incitement but the intimate 
 conviction that a higher, and a nobler nature 
 claims the sacrifice of the mere animal. He 
 knows that he is rushing upon death, he feels 
 probably some natural shudder in doing so; yet 
 this is overruled, and he goes on with his reso- 
 lute purpose. Take away the influence of such 
 a principle within, and hah the actions of men 
 are utterly unaccountable; for it is the natural
 
 64 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 tendency of all things to accomplish the end of 
 their being; and if it be sentient, to be happy 
 in doing so. The plant blossoms and bears 
 fruit before it decays, and its life may be pro- 
 longed by preventing it from blossoming. The 
 mere animal eats, drinks, propagates its species, 
 and is satisfied ; but man is always aiming at 
 objects to which his life is frequently sacrificed, 
 and no one calls him insane. On the contrary, 
 in the proportion that he is ready with this 
 sacrifice, he is honoured and esteemed; because 
 every one has an anterior consciousness that it 
 is what his own nature aspires to. He feels 
 that he is now but the larva of himself, and 
 that he has a higher career opening before 
 him, where all that was beginning to develop 
 itself will acquire perfection, where all the 
 gentler sympathies of our nature may still 
 find place and scope, and from whence the 
 grosser animal gratifications alone will be 
 banished, along with the earthly frame which 
 required them.
 
 PRACTICAL EESULTS. 
 
 " TTTHAT is a Eeligion? and what is a 
 system of Philosophy? They are 
 two different answers to the questions most 
 interesting to man. Examine all the religions 
 which have long held sway over the minds of 
 men, all the philosophical systems which have 
 united under their banner a large portion of 
 the enlightened part of mankind, and you will 
 find that these religions and their systems have 
 one distinction common to both ; that they 
 have boldly proposed and solved the whole of 
 those problems. It is by this character that we 
 recognize a really great system, and we may 
 truly say that if one of these questions has 
 been pratermitted, it is but half a religion or 
 half a system of philosophy. Would you have 
 an example of the stretch and extent of a great 
 religion, look at Christianity ! Ask a Christian 
 " whence the human race is derived ?' ' He can 
 tell you. " What is man's object, and what his
 
 66 PRACTICAL RESULTS. 
 
 destiny ?" He can tell you. Ask a poor child 
 from school, why he is here, and what will 
 become of him after death ? He will make you 
 an answer full of sublime truths which probably 
 he may not half understand, but which are not 
 therefore the less admirable. Ask him, How 
 the world was created, and why ? How the 
 earth has been peopled ? why men suffer, and 
 how all this will end ? He can tell. He knows 
 the duties of man towards God and towards his 
 fellow-men, and when he is older, and has learned 
 the system more completely, he will not hesitate 
 at all more respecting natural, political, and 
 national rights ; for each of these parts of 
 knowledge flows as naturally from Christianity 
 as light from the sun. Such is what I call a 
 great system." 
 
 These are the words of a French philosopher 
 who himself was not a Christian,* but I can 
 
 * Perhaps I ought rather to say, that disgusted with 
 the narrow views of contending sects, he was unable to 
 find any one to which he could associate himself, and 
 thus, unphilosophic only in this, overlooked his own 
 proposition, that great systems, whether of philosophy 
 or religion, are only two modes of solving the same 
 question, not two solutions ; and that, therefore, he who 
 professes a pure and true philosophy is a Christian, 
 whether he knows it or not.
 
 PRACTICAL EESULTS. 67 
 
 find no words which would more aptly trace the 
 way in which a " great system" must influence 
 all the relations of life ; and most truly does he 
 pronounce that to be but a half doctrine which 
 is incapable of this extended rule over men's 
 minds and actions. When, therefore, I come 
 to the practical result of a scheme of philosophy 
 which walks hand in hand with the " great 
 system" which M. Jouffroy has so well described, 
 it will not be astonishing if I find myself obliged 
 to touch on many points where great differences 
 of opinion have existed. To those who may 
 not take the same view of the subject, I can 
 only say with Themistocles, " Strike if you 
 please, but hear me." Weigh at least, whether 
 there be not some truth that deserves your far- 
 ther attention in the propositions which at first 
 may seem strange, and perhaps displeasing. 
 
 We have already considered the exterior and 
 interior power in their separate nature and func- 
 tions : we now come to the mutual relations which 
 must subsist between them, and the influence 
 these have on man's position, prospects, and 
 final destiny. We have seen man endued with 
 instincts and faculties purely corporeal in their 
 origin and mode of exercise ; and yet, in the 
 midst of these corporeal instincts and faculties,
 
 68 PEACTICAL EESULTS. 
 
 we find another power introduced of a different 
 nature, capable of diverting them from their 
 natural course, and exercising an almost illimit- 
 able sway over them ; like the musical instru- 
 ments which by their regular machinery can 
 produce a set number of tunes, but yet have 
 keys annexed by which a skilful player can 
 produce harmony at his will ; and this complex 
 nature of man is the work of a Being who, 
 having all power and all knowledge, must do 
 what is best for the proposed end. 
 
 If we look through creation in every instance 
 where we have an opportunity of watching the 
 operations of nature, as writers on such subjects 
 are wont to say, or as I should say, of the 
 Framer of nature, we find no substance formed 
 with particular properties for an especial occa- 
 sion, which properties never come into use 
 afterwards. Every chemist knows that each 
 substance has its peculiar qualities and laws 
 which avail equally be it free or in combination, 
 be it part of an organized or an unorganized 
 body ; and that amid all the mutations which 
 are continually going on, nothing is wasted 
 nothing so far changed in nature that it cannot 
 be resolved again into itscomponentparts, which 
 by the same unchanging laws form fresh com-
 
 PRACTICAL RESULTS. 69 
 
 binations, each nevertheless still retaining the 
 fundamental character impressed upon it. We 
 see too that all organized beings, I am not 
 speaking now of man, have exactly those 
 qualities, organs, and impulses given them, which 
 conduce to the end of their being ; which end 
 they scarcely ever fail to accomplish ; the 
 plant, the insect, the animal, have their different 
 modes of life and production ; but they live 
 and produce ; no property inherent in them in- 
 terferes to prevent this. We further see that 
 when we have established any great law of 
 creation by reasonable induction, we can ex- 
 plain hitherto puzzling phenomena by a refer- 
 ence to these laws. 
 
 Upon these last grounds, then, I assume that 
 man's instincts and faculties are given him for 
 purposes of permanent utility extending beyond 
 this life : because it is evident that he has a 
 property inherent in him, which interferes with 
 and very frequently wholly prevents, the full de- 
 velopment of his animal nature ; and therefore 
 that animal nature, and the period of its duration, 
 is not all of man. And if any one objects that 
 man is in a fallen state, and therefore that these 
 instincts and faculties are corrupt, and that we 
 are not to look for good, but for evil from them,
 
 70 PRACTICAL BESTTLTS. 
 
 I reply, that those who make this objection 
 doubtless will allow that when man came from 
 the hands of his Maker, his nature, as well as 
 all the rest of the new world was " very good." 
 Now we have already seen that these instincts 
 and faculties are corporeal ; provided for by a 
 very simple and complete mechanism, but still 
 by mechanism, as much as the bending of the 
 joints or the growth of the body ; then these 
 instincts and faculties were in man originally 
 such as they now are, excepting in instances 
 where they are impaired by disease, and are no 
 more corrupt than his bones or his muscles ; 
 and it is only when the individual power inter- 
 feres to give intensity and duration to these 
 animal functions, that they run into excess, and 
 thus become an evil, from the due balance 
 between them being overthrow n . It is no small 
 happiness to the world that those kindly feelings 
 which bind man to man, are all found among 
 the instinctive emotions, which being consequent 
 on the very frame of man, and altogether in- 
 voluntary in the first instance, are therefore in 
 no danger of being ever wholly stifled ; while 
 the sterner part of his nature which we have 
 called the faculties, results from cerebral com- 
 binations produced by a voluntary act, and
 
 PEACTIOAL BESTJLTS. 71 
 
 therefore subsequent to the first impulse of 
 sensation. 
 
 Let us now see how the individual is likely 
 to be affected by this corporeal mechanism. He 
 enters the world inexperienced and full of wonder 
 at the scenes around him, and the first sensation 
 that is awakened after that of mere appetite, 
 is, love to the parent who cherishes him ; the 
 next, grief at the sight of an angry or a sad 
 countenance. It is only gradually that the 
 brain acquires power for its higher exercises, 
 and long ere this has taken place, the feelings 
 have taught the individual better than the most 
 luminous argument could have done, that it is 
 good to love those who are kind to us, and to 
 avoid exciting their anger or their grief ; and 
 this is become so habitual, that a deviation 
 from the usual course of feeling is painful in 
 the first instance. Here then, the very first of 
 instinctive emotions, provide a never-failing 
 source of happy intercourse ; and there is so 
 much pleasure in yielding to them, that nothing 
 further is requisite than a curbing power. The 
 individual readily abandons himself to the gentle 
 influence ; but he may follow it too far. A 
 parent or a companion may ask a wrong com- 
 pliance : it is then that the intelligent will may
 
 72 PBACTICAL EESULTS. 
 
 call in the aid of the faculties to combine argu- 
 ments, and weigh consequences ; and, sitting 
 like a sovereign at his council hoard, finally 
 resolve, that the petitioning feeling ought not 
 to he attended to. How soon the brain shall 
 be capable of thus giving counsel, depends on 
 the wholesome exercise it has had ; for where 
 no stores of knowledge have been laid up, 
 arguments cannot be found; and where the 
 habit has not been acquired by daily use, com- 
 binations of ideas are formed with difficulty. 
 It would seem that mere sensation had found 
 itself the straightest road, and that the more 
 complex convolutions in which, according to 
 some, memory and the higher reasoning facul- 
 ties are exercised, were so unaccustomed to be 
 called into use, that the parts were grown stiff 
 and inactive ; nay, as we see that size and 
 strength of limb is only gained by exercise, it 
 is not impossible that a brain never called into 
 use, may not even have its full proportions: 
 and thus, from neglect in childhood, a physical 
 incapacity may be engendered. Suppose this 
 the case, and that either from want of exer- 
 cise or of power, the faculties in their higher 
 uses are not duly developed, it follows that 
 the individual will, having no guide but the
 
 PRACTICAL RESULTS. 73 
 
 emotions, will follow them blindly, they them- 
 selves being but a blind impulse ; and when 
 " the blind lead the blind, both fall into the 
 ditch . " But this is no corruption of nature, all 
 these functions are useful and good in them- 
 selves, it is merely a neglect of one part which 
 throws the rest off their balance. 
 
 Let us now suppose that the faculties having 
 been cultivated to the utmost, the will has 
 listened to them almost exclusively: a harsh 
 character will be engendered; for no human 
 being is perfect, and if we bestow our regard 
 only in the ratio of specific merit, we shall 
 seldom find enough excellence meet our notice 
 to justify any large share of it. It is then 
 that a yet more powerful instinct steps in: love 
 between the sexes teaches at once the generous 
 self-devotion which the combinations of rational 
 argument might have been long in inculcating, 
 and perhaps have attempted ineffectually ; and 
 all the gentler social relations arise out of it to 
 sweeten life, and give a yet higher scope to our 
 wishes; for who that truly loves will be satisfied 
 that the union shall be broken at the gates of 
 the grave, which has been so sweet an one 
 through life ? And how often do we see that 
 he who cared not if his loose companions looked
 
 74 PEACTICAL EESTJLTS. 
 
 upon his vices, has shrunk from, and perhaps 
 quitted them, when he thought of the innocent 
 child whom he could not bear to contaminate! 
 And thus we see two kinds of animal functions 
 mutually balancing each other, uniting to school 
 the individual will to all that is amiable, and 
 exalted. The instinctive emotions softening the 
 sternness of the faculties, the faculties curbing 
 the animal force of the emotions ; and the will, 
 impelled by the solicitations of the one, and 
 guided by the information and caution of the 
 other, acquiring by degrees those habits of 
 judging and feeling rightly, which qualify man 
 for the spiritual felicity of his Creator. He has 
 learned the enjoyment of benevolence and the 
 excellence of knowledge, and his heaven has 
 already begun on this side the tomb ; and thus, 
 though these emotions and these faculties may 
 cease with the bodily mechanism which causes 
 them, they have stamped their impress on the 
 individual. Like metal poured from the furnace 
 into a mould, which retains for ever the form so 
 acquired, though the mould be but of earth ; the 
 will has acquired the character it will carry with 
 it into eternity, though the mould in which it 
 was cast be returned to its dust. 
 
 Can the Christian who holds Philosophy to
 
 PRACTICAL EESULTS. 75 
 
 be "foolishness," deny that these warm though 
 instinctive emotions, these aspiring faculties, 
 are in exact conformity with the rule he acknow- 
 ledges ? The God who made man was not so 
 limited in power or knowledge, or so wanting 
 in benevolence, as to have given him properties 
 unfitted for the fulfilment of his high destiny. 
 The Saviour himself has pronounced that a 
 man shall leave all else to " cleave to his wife." 
 He has given as the badge of his followers, 
 that they should " love one another" as the 
 rule of our life, that we should strive to be 
 "perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect." 
 We look into our hearts, and we find that we 
 are naturally led to love the woman of our 
 choice, beyond all other things ; that we cannot 
 be happy, or even retain a sane mind and 
 healthy body without social intercourse, and 
 that we aspire to knowledge, to greatness, to 
 immortality, to perfection in short, with a 
 longing that is never satisfied in this life, yet 
 never wholly subdued. Is that philosophy 
 foolishness, which by rational argument de- 
 duces the truths of the gospel from the very 
 nature of things, and thus leaves no room for 
 hesitation or disbelief?
 
 76 PRACTICAL EESTJLTS. 
 
 But if this be the case if a due balance of 
 instincts and faculties be needful to school the 
 Will, so as to fit it for the only felicity suited to 
 its nature what sort of training ought man to 
 have, and what must be the sensations of one 
 who feels this truth deeply, when he looks round 
 on the habits and maxims of society, and the 
 principles on which legislation is too generally 
 founded ? " The poor man must learn to re- 
 strain his passions," say political economists : 
 let them first define what passion means. It 
 is convenient when an ambiguous term hides, 
 instead of explaining the intention ; and this 
 well-sounding term means, that, because it suits 
 those who have the power, to retain the soil 
 as their own property, therefore the man who 
 is debarred from any share of it, is to be de- 
 barred also from the due perfection of his na- 
 ture. Those very instincts given to mould it 
 to benevolence and kindness are to be rooted 
 out; or, if God be stronger than man, and this 
 endeavour fail, they are to be made instruments 
 of evil instead of good, and what would have 
 been the parent of all the lovely social affec- 
 tions is to become the mere appetite of the brute, 
 indulged when the animal nature is importu-
 
 PRACTICAL EESULTS. 77 
 
 nate, but so indulged as to degrade and de- 
 teriorate, instead of improving the individual. 
 " We must have servants and labourers, 
 hewers of wood and drawers of water," say the 
 rich and the luxurious ; "it is therefore idle to 
 teach the poor what will only set them above 
 their work." I only ask, does it so really ? 
 Where are the instances of the real lover of 
 intellectual improvement, who has been in- 
 efficient in what he has undertaken? But 
 suppose it were as is objected, suppose a few 
 hours were lost, or a few shillings spent on in- 
 tellectual pleasures do we never see either 
 one or the other wasted at the beer house ? And 
 which is the better way of spending them ? 
 But setting aside all this, setting aside, what 
 I have always found, that mental cultivation 
 strengthens our power for whatever we under- 
 take ; I ask again, what right have you to cramp 
 and stifle the intellectual faculties of a large 
 portion of your fellow creatures, in order that 
 you may purchase their bodily labour, even 
 supposing that you could no 'otherwise secure 
 it? to rob men of the best gift God has given 
 them, in order that you may "fare sumptuously 
 everyday," and "be clothed in purple and fine
 
 78 PRACTICAL EESULTS. 
 
 linen . ' ' The mutes of the seraglio were deprived 
 of the power of speech, that they might not tell 
 the secrets of their master. Would you con- 
 demn as cruelty the depriving a child of one 
 bodily organ, and yet justify the cramping the 
 whole system of mental powers, merely that 
 there may be a Pariah caste a Helot race, 
 who shall never rise above the soil they tread 
 on, and look up to their masters as to beings of 
 another species ? If such were to be the en- 
 during state of society, there would be some 
 justification for those who might strive to over- 
 turn all existing institutions, in the hope that 
 human nature would find means to assert its 
 rights in the confusion. Such are not the les- 
 sons of the gospel, for " there is no respect of 
 persons" before G-od, and yet probably never 
 till now, and in this so called free land of Eng- 
 land, was the distinction of rank made to press 
 so heavily on the poor man. The slave in Greece 
 and Rome was in some things better off. He 
 was instructed that he might be serviceable ; 
 and finished, not unfrequently, by being the 
 friend and companion of his master as his freed 
 man. The mistress and her female slave sate 
 and span together. In the modern states of 
 continental Europe, even, the servant or the
 
 PBACTICAL RESULTS. 79 
 
 labourer enjoys a certain degree of familiarity; 
 and is in consequence more contented, though 
 poorer. The increase of riches and refinement 
 in England has given the upper classes a 
 character of their own ; with a selfish exclu- 
 siveness, they wish to retain this distinction ; 
 and with an instinctive feeling that intellectual 
 strength is power, however the maxim may 
 have been hackneyed and ridiculed, they hide 
 from their own hearts, even, the uneasy dread of 
 being encroached on, under the specious argu- 
 ment that for the poor man his Bible suffices. 
 A blessed and cheering book it is doubtless ; 
 but how much richer a harvest of useful precept 
 does it afford to those whose minds have been 
 enlarged by further culture: how many mistakes 
 would be avoided if the great principles of Phi- 
 losophy were better studied ; how much light 
 would be thrown on it if something were known 
 of the times, the places where, and the people 
 to whom its words were spoken. The Bible 
 alone is not enough ; the mind requires relaxa- 
 tion : the commonest events of England raise 
 curiosity respecting other lands and habits of 
 life ; and the young who hear a sailor narrating 
 the wonders of his voyages, or the soldier of his 
 campaigns, naturally wish to know something
 
 80 PBACTICAL BESTJLTS. 
 
 about the things they hear of. Why is innocent 
 pleasure to be denied them ? We should have 
 a more moral population if amusements of a 
 higher and more intellectual character were 
 placed within their reach. It is not enough to 
 give them food and raiment merely, they feel 
 the wish to be respected as men. 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood. I call for no 
 agrarian law, no equality, which if established 
 to-day, must cease to-morrow, from the very 
 difference of individual strength and inclination ; 
 but I call for justice ; I call upon legislators to 
 remember what God remembers, i. e. " whereof 
 we are made." I call upon them not to damn 
 their immortal fellow-men, by curbing with all 
 the force of stringent laws on the one hand, 
 and cold neglect on the other, the development 
 of a nature which God looked upon when he 
 had made it, and lo, "it was very good." In- 
 terested men have parted what ought to have 
 been joined. Philosophy and Christianity have 
 been severed, and both have been made to speak 
 a language foreign to their purpose ; but though 
 man for a time may obscure those eternal veri- 
 ties, it is but like the smoke which hides the 
 sun; the light must break forth again; and let 
 us thank God that it must.
 
 PEACTICAL RESULTS. 81 
 
 It may be asked what I would substitute for 
 the order of things I complain of? This is the 
 ready way of getting rid of disagreeable repre- 
 sentations, yet I will not shrink from this either; 
 but the subject is large enough to require to be 
 treated separately, and my business here is with 
 the establishment of great principles; these once 
 established, details spring naturally from them. 
 I return therefore for the present to man and 
 his nature, position,prospects, and final destiny. 
 I have assumed, upon what I think sufficient 
 ground, that all the phsenomena of our nature 
 are to be referred to animal appetite, instinctive 
 emotions, faculties, and intelligent will, coupled 
 with that memory which constitutes the percep- 
 tion of identity; and I have assumed farther, 
 that the last class of phsenomena only, can be 
 considered as properly belonging to the opera- 
 tions of the soul. I have also stated that an 
 essential part of the great Self-Existent Cause 
 of all things is a free and governing Will. Man 
 therefore in this bears the image of his Maker; 
 and inasmuch as he partakes in a certain degree 
 of the nature of his Creator, his happiness and 
 his destiny must be of a kind somewhat ana- 
 logous. The felicity of the Creator, as far as 
 we can judge, must consist in the constant 
 
 P.T. G
 
 82 PEACTICAL BESULTS. 
 
 harmony of his nature with his acts ; in the will 
 to do what is best, and the power to effect it; or, 
 in other words, in unbounded knowledge, power, 
 and benevolence. Now, though man's finite 
 nature can follow but at humble distance, it 
 can follow. He may act in conformity to his 
 nature; he may delight in conferring happiness, 
 and in seeking knowledge: and I believe all 
 who have tried the experiment will bear testi- 
 mony that this course confers, even in this life, 
 a peace of mind, a joy even in the midst of 
 the turmoils of the world, which is more akin 
 to heaven than earth. 
 
 Christianity teaches this, but in a simpler 
 manner, by precept without argument ; and it 
 might therefore seem at first sight that the ar- 
 gument was superfluous: but it is not; for those 
 who attend only to the precept are apt to con- 
 sider the command to "love our neighbour," to 
 "be conformed to Christ," to "be perfect as 
 our Father which is in heaven is perfect," and 
 the announcement of the misery that would 
 attend the neglect of these commands, as 
 merely arbitrary laws, established by the Crea- 
 tor for reasons known only to himself ; and 
 He is thus made to appear as a despotic sove-
 
 PRACTICAL BESTJLTS. 83 
 
 reign, to be feared because he has power to 
 punish the infraction of his laws, rather than 
 as an object of grateful and affectionate adora- 
 tion, no less for the good he has given, than for 
 what he has promised. Take the argument 
 with the precept shew that it is in the nature 
 of things that whatever felicity an intellectual 
 being is capable of, must be akin to that enjoyed 
 by the Deity ; and that therefore if we seek 
 happiness in any other direction, we shall neces- 
 sarily fail of our object and we immediately 
 see the fatherly kindness of the command ; and 
 the very announcement that any other course 
 would be attended with perdurable misery, 
 instead of appearing in the light of a vindic- 
 tive denunciation of punishment shews itself 
 to be what it really is the caution of an affec- 
 tionate and anxious parent, who 
 
 " metuensque moneret 
 Acres esse viros, cum dura praelia gente ;" 
 
 and does not send forth his child to the combat 
 till he has given him every counsel, and provided 
 him with every defence which the fondest con- 
 cern could dictate. 
 
 This is not, I am aware, the most usual mode
 
 84 PBACTICAI, BESULTS. 
 
 of viewing the subject, and it is perhaps because 
 it is not, that our religion is frequently cold and 
 unprofitable. If the conforming our will to the 
 will of the Deity, or in other words, the finding 
 our pleasure in the same objects, be requisite to 
 our happiness, it is clear that/ear will be a very 
 ineffectual agent in the business. Wemay choose 
 a certain course of action because we dread the 
 punishment consequent on the contrary course, 
 but we shall not do so because it is a pleasure 
 to us. Even the most unphilosophical religious 
 teacher will allow that this is not the state of 
 mind which the true Christian should aim at, 
 for says St. John, "Perfect love casteth out 
 fear;" and nothing can be juster than the dis- 
 tinction made by the late Alexander Knox, 
 between the imperfect Christian who fears, and 
 the perfect one who loves; for as the doing an 
 act under the dread of punishment is but a yield- 
 ing of the will to one of the least exalted of the 
 animal emotions, so it tends very little, if at all, 
 to the amelioration of the character. The evil 
 actions which might engender evil habits have 
 been avoided, but we have accustomed ourselves 
 to be actuated by a cowardly motive which a 
 great mind ought to despise, and a Christian to
 
 PEACTICAL BESULTS. 85 
 
 eschew. Added to all this, the emotion which 
 is the foundation of this kind of virtue is of a 
 painful nature, and therefore another instinctive 
 emotion, that of shrinking from present suf- 
 fering, very quickly counteracts it ; for in 
 proportion as the fear is great, will be the 
 effort of nature to allay or stifle it; thus the 
 small influence it exorcises over the will is 
 transitory also. 
 
 It is no new disco very of mine that we must do 
 what we like, or in other words, like what we do, 
 in order to be happy. All men know and act 
 upon this principle; can we suppose it unknown 
 to Him who made us ? and can we suppose also, 
 that knowing the conformity of our will to His 
 to be our happiness, He would take by prefer- 
 ence so inadequate an agent as fear, to lead us to 
 identify ourselves with Him? for this identity 
 of will with the Deity, it cannot be too often 
 repeated, is the sum and substance of religion 
 as well as of philosophy. We are to become, 
 as it were, a part of the Divine essence; His 
 children; one in our interests, our affections, 
 our designs : and thus identified with the Father 
 of our love, we have His wisdom for our guide, 
 His power to effect our utmost desires. A reli-
 
 86 PEACTICAL RESULTS. 
 
 gion made up of terrors offers no attraction ; we 
 only half believe it, for it is repugnant to all 
 our rational and instinctive feelings; it is un- 
 lovely ; we cannot cherish it in our hearts as the 
 source of happiness, or keep it beside us in our 
 lighter hours as our companion and guide. On 
 the contrary, the philosophic view being in itself 
 pleasant, never seems importunate or misplaced: 
 it lays hold on our feelings, and dwells with them 
 till it becomes a constant principle of action. 
 It is rational, and satisfies the intellect; and 
 the will thus learning to love what is both 
 agreeable and wise, all inclination to any other 
 course disappears. We feel that by pursuing 
 a different one we should be unhappy ; for it is 
 not till we have depraved our nature that we 
 make even a step in the wrong path without 
 pain, and what at first was weighed and judged 
 fitting, becomes at last so habitual, tnat we 
 may act almost without reflection, and act right. 
 There is always one great obstacle to the re- 
 ception of the simple religion or philosophy (for 
 I know no difference between them), taught by 
 Christ during his ministry on earth; it is its 
 very simplicity. It is hard to persuade men 
 that it is not some "great thing" that is re-
 
 PEACTICAL KESFLTS. 87 
 
 quired of them ; like Naaman, who despised the 
 order to " wash and be clean" of his leprosy. 
 Yet it is this simplicity, this conformity to com- 
 mon sense and common feeling, which proves 
 its divinity the most decidedly; for the law, and 
 the nature to he governed by that law, have 
 evidently been the work of the same hand. 
 " Est enim virtus nihil aliud quam in se perfecta 
 et ad summum perducta natura,"* said the Eo- 
 man philosopher long ago, and it is a truth well 
 worth remembering. The same objection that 
 isnow made tothe rational views of Christianity, 
 viz., that it makes its professors men of this 
 world, was made to its first great teacher; " Be- 
 hold a glutton and a wine-bibber, a friend of 
 publicans and sinners." Yet when the Saviour 
 thought it not beneath him to sit at the table 
 of Zaccheus at what we should now call a large 
 dinner party, it is evident that no sour restraints 
 are imposed on the Christian, even if he have 
 never heard of any rule of life but the following 
 His steps who was sent to be an example for us. 
 The Saviour did not sit at that table in vain ; 
 we hear of no severe reproofs; no stern lecture; 
 
 * " Virtue is nothing but the utmost perfection of 
 our nature." Cic. de Leyib. 1. i. c. ix. 25.
 
 88 PBACTICAL EESULTS. 
 
 but he who knew well what man's affections 
 could do, won the heart of Zaccheus. " The 
 half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I 
 have done any wrong to any man, I restore him 
 fourfold," was the resolution taken by the giver 
 of the feast at that dinner; and it is thus that 
 the servant of Christ, the philosopher in the 
 true sense of the word for what is love of 
 wisdom but love of the wisdom or \oyos of 
 God ? it is thus, I say, that the servant of 
 Christ may move in the world, blessing and 
 blessed. Polished, eloquent, dignified, Christ 
 exhibited, amid the world which he did not 
 fly from, a pattern of everything that was 
 attractive in man. So may, and so should the 
 Christian; and thus sanctify and purify society 
 by his presence and example, till the precepts 
 of our great Master become its precepts also ; 
 till forgiveness of injuries and purity of life 
 be thought as necessary to the character of a 
 gentleman, as truth is even now; till amuse- 
 ments and business, trade and politics, shall 
 alike own the healing influence, and " the king- 
 doms of the world" become what, notwith- 
 standing the boastful title of Christendom,* 
 
 * The domain of Christ.
 
 PEACTICAL EESULTS. 89 
 
 they never have been yet, " the kingdoms of 
 God and of his Christ." 
 
 It was the pure philosophy of Christianity, 
 its exact accordance with every want and wish 
 of our nature, that spread the doctrine of the 
 poor fishermen of Galilee through the palaces 
 and the schools, no less than the shops and the 
 farms, of Greece and Eome. It has now ceased 
 to spread, and why ? Is it not because its 
 Philosophy is forgotten ? Is it not that by 
 being made to consist in a certain set of mys- 
 terious dogmata which it is almost forbidden to 
 examine, it is put on a level with those false 
 systems which shrink from the light, because 
 they know they will suffer from being seen 
 when exposed to it ? It was not thus that 
 Christianity was first preached to the world. 
 Its teachers and its martyrs appealed to its 
 rationality, to its accordance with the highest 
 conceptions of the wisest and the best of the 
 Grecian sages . They contrasted its purity with 
 the abominations of Paganism ; the brotherly 
 love of its followers, with the ferocity, treachery 
 and hatred of the rest of the world ; they 
 shewed that there must be a God, and that He 
 could be no other than they described. The
 
 90 PRACTICAL EESTJLTS. 
 
 Eternal God, said they, must be essentially 
 rational. Exerted or not, the wisdom to know, 
 and the power to act must he co-eternal in him T 
 We do not worship two Gods, as you object to 
 us ; the Xoyoc (rational faculty) of God, ani- 
 mated a human form, and spoke to us through 
 human lips, " God was in Christ reconciling the 
 world to himself," and him we worship. We 
 do not say that our God suffered or died. 
 The body which he wore as a raiment was 
 sacrificed, but God is impassible, ONE SELF- 
 EXISTENT ETERNAL MIND.* It was thus that 
 the early apologists for Christianity explained 
 its tenets to the Pagan world ; and the Pagan 
 world received them. What have we gained 
 by abandoning the philosophy of these Martyrs 
 of the truth ? We have abundance of technical 
 terms ; but have we the Spirit of the Gospel ? 
 Do we bear the badge of Christ, " hereby shall 
 men know that ye are my disciples, that ye love 
 one another ?" If we do not if rich and poor, 
 Dissenter and Churchman, Eomanist and So- 
 cinian, are, as it were, separate classes that hold 
 no fellowship together then is our Christianity 
 
 * Vide Tertullian, Athenagoras, Arnobius, &c. &c.
 
 PBACTICAL EESULTS. 9J 
 
 as faulty as our philosophy we have " ike form 
 of Godliness," but not " the power thereof," 
 and however we may boast " the temple of the 
 Lord" (and, blessed be God, it does yet afford 
 shelter to some whom their Lord at his coming 
 will own as his true disciples), we may find at 
 last that phrases are of less importance than 
 motives ; and see, Heaven grant that it may 
 not be too late ! that " God is no respecter of 
 persons," but that "in every nation he that 
 feareth him and worketh righteousness is ac- 
 cepted with him." 
 
 f 
 
 * 
 
 $ 
 
 SAVILL AND EDWABDS, PBINTEBS, CHANDOS-STBEET.
 
 TBoofcs on threat 
 
 EDITED BY A FEW WELL WISHERS 
 TO KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 r 
 
 N. II.
 
 THE CONNECTION BETWEEN 
 
 PHYSIOLOGY AND 
 INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 COMMUNICATED TO THE MEMBERS AT 
 
 THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN, ON 
 
 FRIDAY EVENING, MAY UTH, 1841. 
 
 BY JOHN BARLOW, M.A. 
 
 OP TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; FELLOW OF THE ROYAL, LINNjEAN 
 
 AND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETIES; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL 
 
 INSTITUTION; RECTOR OF LITTLE BOWDEN, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, ANL 
 
 MINISTER OF DCKE STREET CHAPEL, WESTMINSTER. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 WILLIAM PICKERING. 
 
 1842.
 
 
 
 
 CHISWICK, PRINTED BY C. WHITTI.VGHAM.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 IN complying with the wish of those 
 friends who requested me to offer this 
 Lecture to the Public, I am extremely 
 anxious to serve what I believe and hope 
 to be an increasing class of my country- 
 men. It is my strong desire to benefit 
 those who, though eager for information, 
 cannot afford much time or much money 
 for the prosecution of philosophical inqui- 
 ries. It is then to the intelligent artizan, 
 who prefers the Mechanics' Institution to 
 the poisonous atmosphere and contami- 
 nating society of the gin-shop : it is to the 
 agriculturist and the tradesman, who have 
 discovered that an evening spent in the 
 smoking-club is not productive of enjoy- 
 ment equal to that derived from the perusal 
 of such books as awaken a spirit of re- 
 search in their children, that I dedicate 
 this volume.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 In revising it, I have been aided by the 
 works of many eminent physiologists, and 
 to the advice of many kind contemporaries. 
 Among the latter, I may reckon the Author 
 of " Philosophical Theories and Philoso- 
 phical Experience," to whose work, through 
 the medium of a friend, I had access while 
 it was yet in manuscript, and whose object 
 it has been, in common with some other of 
 his intimates, to bring philosophy into a 
 form that might benefit the mass of man- 
 kind, instead of being the mere luxury of 
 a few learned men. 
 
 But to name the authors I have con- 
 sulted, and the persons to whom I owe 
 obligations, would be mere ostentation. 
 It is enough to say that I have not know- 
 ingly neglected any source of accessible 
 information. While I have striven to 
 make these pages familiar and intelligible 
 to all, I have never been led to adduce a 
 doubtful in preference to a sounder theory, 
 by the greater ease with which the more 
 questionable doctrine might be expressed. 
 At the same time I have avoided entering
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 on any controverted subject ; and therefore 
 I have neither engaged with the interesting 
 speculations of the phrenologists, nor with 
 the excitomotory system of Dr. Marshall 
 Hall, powerfully and attractively as it has 
 been advocated by that philosopher, by 
 Mr. Grainger, and other eminent physio- 
 logists.
 
 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 I. 
 
 1. r I ^HERE is probably no man who ever 
 -* thinks at all, who does not sometimes 
 ask himself how that thought is accomplished ; 
 how he is so linked to, yet separate from, the 
 exterior world ; and how and why he is diffe- 
 rent from the tribes of sentient beings which 
 surround him. He has seen the progress of 
 human nature almost unlimited ; yet a disease, 
 the work of a moment, leaves this half godlike 
 creature a helpless and unreasoning animal. 
 He shrinks with a kind of instinctive horror 
 from a state which would yet be the natural 
 and happy one of many of those classes of 
 sentient beings, and anxiously asks himself, 
 "What then is his destination? What the 
 ultimate object of his existence? These are 
 a few of those riddles of life, which however 
 little they may form the topics of general 
 conversation, lie uneasily in the secret recesses 
 of most men's minds; and if in our subject 
 B
 
 2 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 of this evening I can solve some of them, my 
 hearers will probably not think their attention 
 ill bestowed. 
 
 2. The earth, the water, and the air, are 
 thickly peopled with various forms of living 
 creatures : it is therefore desirable no less for 
 the common intercourse of life than for scien- 
 tific purposes, that these animated beings 
 should be grouped together on some principle 
 of mutual resemblance : accordingly, systems 
 of classification have been in use from the 
 very earliest periods. I do not now purpose 
 to enter into the history or the comparative 
 merits of these modes of classification ; it is 
 sufficient to select the one which I believe to 
 be most philosophical, which I know to be 
 best adapted to make my views intelligible, 
 and which originates from the most eminent 
 physiologists of our time. It is based on 
 the difference of the nervous system in the 
 respective classes, which is more and more 
 developed in each, till it arrives at its final 
 perfection in man. 
 
 a. Crypto -neura, the hidden -nerved. Ru- 
 dolphi* 
 
 * Beytriige sur Anthropologie, quoted by Jones, Ge- 
 neral Outiiiie of Animal Kingdom, p. 6.
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. U 
 
 This includes coral insects, madrepores, 
 sea - anemones, sea - nettles, hydatids, 
 flukes, some abdominal worms, &c. 
 
 In these animals,* "The neurine or 
 nervous matter, if existing at all, being 
 incorporated with the other tissues, can- 
 not be demonstrated as forming a sepa- 
 rate system." 
 
 b. Nemato-neura, the thread-nerved. Owen. 
 This includes many of the infusorial and 
 
 microscopic animalcules, and (what the 
 ordinary observer is more familiar with) 
 star-fishes, sea-urchins, &c. 
 
 In these animals there is usually found 
 a threadlike ring round the gullet, from 
 whence minute filaments occasionally 
 proceed to other parts of the body. 
 
 c. Homogangliata, animals whose ganglia are 
 
 symmetrically arranged. Owen. 
 This division comprehends (together with 
 less known animals) leeches, earth-worms, 
 scolopendras, insects, scorpions, spiders, 
 lobsters, crabs, &c. This division is 
 characterized by having the nervous 
 masses (ganglia) distributed over the 
 
 * Solly on the Human Brain, p. 5.
 
 4 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 body at regular intervals, corresponding 
 to its well-defined segments. 
 
 d. Heterogangliata, animals in which the ar- 
 
 rangement of the ganglia is not symmet- 
 rical. Owen. 
 
 In this division are found barnacles, oysters, 
 muscles, snails, cuttle-fish, &c. 
 
 In this large group of animals, that 
 symmetrical arrangement of parts so con- 
 spicuous in the ray of the star-fish, the 
 segment of the insect, &c. is no longer 
 observable ; and the nervous system is as 
 irregular in its distribution as the organs 
 which it supplies are disproportionate to 
 each other in their size. 
 
 e. Myelencephala, animals possessing a brain 
 
 in a bony skull. Owen. 
 This group requires no additional de- 
 scription at present; it comprehends 
 fishes, frogs, reptiles, birds, mammalia, 
 and at the head of these, Man. 
 3. It will be observed in the foregoing 
 table that a nervous system has been traced 
 in all animals (that is, in all beings that can 
 feel and move) except in those comprehended 
 in the division a. But it is extremely pro- 
 bable that this system also exists in the crypto-
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 5 
 
 neura, although its presence has not yet been 
 detected in them,* since they exhibit sensation 
 and voluntary powers. The nervous system 
 consists 
 
 1. Of nerves and irregularly shaped masses 
 of nervous matter, called ganglia. 
 
 2. Of a superadded brain, or as some have 
 considered it, a collection of ganglia, 
 connected with the organs of sense. 
 This brain is always defended by a bony 
 case, or skull. It is found only in the 
 animals of division e. 
 
 When examined by the naked eye and the 
 finger, a nerve is a soft, white, thread-like 
 substance. In its course it resembles a leaf- 
 less branch. It spreads out into small nerve- 
 lets or filaments, and thus diminishes or in- 
 creases in size according as it is traced from, 
 or towards the central cord or ring in which it 
 originates. But when carefully viewed by 
 the microscope, f each nerve is found to be a 
 mere bundle of extremely small tubular fila- 
 ments, containing a sort of half fluid pith. 
 These are separately enclosed and connected 
 
 * Carpenter's Inaugural Dissertation, p. 76. 
 t Carpenter's Principles of Physiology, p. 42.
 
 6 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 together by a covering of a very delicate 
 texture, and the whole is cased in a thin 
 membranous sheath. These fibrils sometimes 
 unite with; sometimes cross over each other, 
 sometimes form new groups with detach- 
 ments from other bundles, sometimes are 
 twisted over each other: but in no instance 
 does the minutest fibril so penetrate another 
 that there can be a mixture of their component 
 particles. Therefore, although the number 
 of nervous filaments is immense, there can be 
 no confusion in the discharge of their func- 
 tions. This is extremely important, as prov- 
 ing that there is no point of any bodily organ 
 without an entire nervous apparatus exclu- 
 sively appropriated to it. 
 
 4. Experience has shown that the inter- 
 vention of nerves is absolutely necessary to 
 the continuance of animal life, the reception 
 of sensation, and the production of movement. 
 Of these functions, the first named is also 
 first developed. Organic life is possessed no 
 less by the rooted zoophyte, which seems 
 scarcely to have any consciousness of the ex- 
 terior world, than it is by man. But as all 
 the actions of man are more or less under the 
 control of his rational faculties, it is necessary
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 7 
 
 that all the human nerves, even those which 
 would seem to have no other office but to 
 maintain the spontaneous actions of organic 
 life, should be in connection with .the instru- 
 ments of the mental faculties. Accordingly, 
 the series of nerves and ganglia which send 
 out branches to every part connected with 
 respiration, nutrition, and circulation, and 
 constitute what is called the sympathetic 
 system, are united by interchange of fibres 
 with the spinal cord, and are thus connected 
 with the brain. 
 
 5. The analysis of animal bodies gives 
 about four elementary substances (hydrogen, 
 oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen), which are 
 found in like manner to compose the air that 
 we breathe and the food that we eat : yet no 
 human art has succeeded in compounding 
 from them the smallest particle of organized 
 matter, and we remain in great measure igno- 
 rant of the exact nature of the changes which 
 convert food and air into the texture of the 
 body. All that we know is, that the sympa- 
 thetic system is the immediate instrument of 
 effecting these changes, and that by some yet 
 undiscovered properties of its nerves and 
 ganglia, inanimate matter is made to share
 
 8 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 the life of the part to which it is assimilated. 
 It is remarkable that, unlike all other nerves, 
 those connected with the system we are de- 
 scribing are neither susceptible of sensation 
 so long as they continue in a healthy state, 
 nor do they require an effort of the mind to 
 keep them in action. The organs supplied by 
 the sympathetic nerves are equally unlike the 
 other members of the body in properties and 
 in structure. For the limbs are disabled for a 
 time by fatigue after long continued exertion, 
 whereas the heart, lungs, &c. whose vital ac- 
 tion is sustained by this system, never require 
 rest, although always in exercise. As it is 
 essential to our existence that the operation 
 of these organs should be un intermitting, it is 
 most fortunate for us that they so rarely excite 
 our notice; for we should never enjoy a mo- 
 ment's repose, were it necessary to keep up the 
 circulation, respiration, &c. by a constant at- 
 tention to them. And yet though this system 
 exacts so little from our intellectual powers, 
 rejects the control of our will, and rarely 
 disturbs us by exciting a sensation, it never- 
 theless does strongly sympathize with our 
 bodily and mental feelings. The heart whose 
 unwearied and unfelt movements are the
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 9 
 
 result of its influence, throbs uneasily during 
 the period of anxious and fearful expectation, 
 and so forcible is the impulse given by power- 
 ful emotion, as sometimes to rupture the parts 
 by a rush of blood. I have already touched 
 on the connection of nerves by which this is 
 effected, and it must be noticed again when 
 we come to treat of instinctive emotions. 
 
 6. Such then is the apparatus of mere or- 
 ganic life. But this life requires support and 
 defence in all but the very lowest division of 
 the animal kingdom. The crypto-neura are 
 indeed, without exception, inhabitants of 
 fluids ; they therefore depend for subsistence 
 on the casual nutriment that may be floated 
 towards them : their bodies too, like plants, 
 may be mutilated to a great extent, and yet 
 preserve their vitality, as they are capable of 
 reproducing a severed part: but it is not so 
 with the higher orders of animals : with them 
 dismemberment is fatal, or at best irreparable. 
 These also have to select or to seek their food, 
 and must be warned against the approach of 
 danger : a further apparatus of nerves is ac- 
 cordingly provided, by which they can take 
 cognizance of external objects, and these 
 nerves are usually termed the nerves of the
 
 10 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 senses. I shall not stay to inquire in how 
 large a degree the inferior orders of animals 
 possess them ; in the higher they consist of 
 smell, sight, hearing, taste, and touch. For 
 all but the last named, a system of nerves 
 within the skull, and in direct communication 
 with the brain, is provided ; whereas, the 
 sense of touch being distributed over the 
 whole body, is conveyed to the common 
 centre of sensation by an immense number of 
 nervous filaments, which either plunge into 
 the spinal cord through small openings in the 
 bone provided for them, and thus find their 
 way to the brain, or are immediately con- 
 nected with it. 
 
 7. Thus far we have described the ma- 
 chinery of life and sensation only, but it is 
 further necessary that the living sentient ani- 
 mal should have the means of preserving his 
 existence, of seeking pleasure, and of avoiding 
 pain. This is accordingly provided for by 
 another set of nerves, the nerves of voluntary 
 motion. The operation of these nerves how- 
 ever is, in respect of direction, opposite to 
 that of the nerves of sensation. It is by means 
 of the latter that constant communications 
 from all parts of the body to the brain are
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 1 1 
 
 carried on. The nerves of motion on the 
 contrary issue from the brain, and convey its 
 mandates to whatever part it would control. 
 This constant interchange somewhat resembles 
 what is carried on between the provinces and 
 the capital by the mail-trains. The nerve of 
 sensation, like the train which conveys letters 
 to the capital, receives continual contributions 
 from the tracts which it passes through, until 
 the whole, compressed into the smallest com- 
 pass, is delivered at the central post-office: 
 and in like manner the nerve of motion, like 
 the out-train, keeps sending forth its district 
 mails at each successive station, until the 
 most distant one is delivered at the terminus. 
 
 8. Thus we have three distinct systems of 
 nervous mechanism in the living body, each 
 dependent on the other, namely, 
 
 i. The unconscious involuntary nerves of 
 
 life; 
 ii. The conductors of external and internal 
 
 feelings to the brain ; 
 in. The conveyers of volition from the 
 
 brain to the organs fitted for action ; 
 which are respectively termed the sympathetic, 
 the sensitive, and the motor nerves. 
 
 9. The brain therefore, in connection with
 
 12 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 the spinal cord, may be considered as forming 
 the great central apparatus of life and action. 
 Its substance differs only in its arrangement 
 from that of the nerves and ganglia ; both 
 consist of a while and a gray matter. Minute 
 blood vessels abound in the gray substance, 
 which, when observed with a high magnifying 
 power, consists of extremely small fibres, 
 interspersed with granules. The white sub- 
 stance shows continuations of these fibres 
 gradually enlarging in their dimensions, and 
 here the blood vessels are much rarer. 
 
 10. The ganglia and nerves of the sympa- 
 thetic system, which, as we have already seen, 
 acts mainly by its own energy, are largely 
 supplied with the gray matter; the spinal 
 nerves are chiefly composed of the white ; 
 hence, and from other observations, it has 
 been conjectured with considerable show of 
 reason, that the gray substance is a generator 
 of action while the white is only a conductor.* 
 If this be so, we may regard the gray matter 
 as the sovereign power, receiving informa- 
 tion from, and sending out mandates to all 
 parts by means of the white medullary matter 
 
 Solly on the Human Brain, pp. 19, 94, 401.
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 13 
 
 of the brain and nerves ; but in different pro- 
 vinces delegating its power to a set of vice- 
 regal ganglia, with which nevertheless it keeps 
 up some communication in order that all 
 parts of the empire may be governed by 
 the same laws. Among the lower tribes of 
 animals this substance is much less abundant, 
 the surface of the brain being much less con- 
 voluted, whereas in man, it appears as if 
 crumpled together so as to pack the largest 
 quantity into the smallest possible space.* 
 
 11. Having now given a description of the 
 organs which carry on the functions of life 
 and intelligence, it remains to show from a 
 few facts that such is really their office : and 
 here we must enter into the melancholy details 
 of disease and suffering. For as long as all 
 the organs of our bodies continue to execute 
 their functions duly, it is difficult to say where 
 the power is generated in that nicely adjusted 
 machine. It is not till we see unwonted effects 
 produced on the particular nerves by disease 
 or violent injury, that we can distinguish their 
 use. It is too well known that living animals 
 have been mutilated in the prosecution of 
 
 * Solly OQ the Human Brain, pp. 19, 94, 401.
 
 14 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 these researches ; I will not shock your feel- 
 ings by the details of experiments which I 
 trust will never be repeated ; for physiologists 
 as well as legislators seem now to be con- 
 vinced that what is extorted by tortures is not 
 to be relied on. Pain and loss of blood must 
 evidently disorder the whole frame too much 
 to allow any certain inferences to be drawn 
 from the results of injuries to particular parts, 
 even supposing, what no one has completely 
 proved, that the fibril conveying the sensa- 
 tion of touch conveys also the sensation of 
 pain ; for instances are known where the one 
 sensation has been lost without losing the 
 other. To the honour of our country be it 
 said that English philosophers have been the 
 first to denounce these mutilations for their 
 uselessness as well as their barbarity : they 
 have taught us that physiology, like other 
 sciences, must rest on patient, accurate, and 
 recoi'ded observations; and until these obser- 
 vations have been carried on for a longer 
 time, though we may gather from facts that 
 certain faculties are the functions of the brain 
 as a material organ, we can hardly attempt 
 to go into the minute details of their location 
 there.
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 15 
 
 12. It is to the reports of the hospital that 
 we must refer for proofs of the different 
 functions of the nervous fibres, and the influ- 
 ence of the brain over them ; and for this pur- 
 pose* it is sufficient to notice that in palsy, 
 which results from an injury within the skull, 
 the limbs of one side, or of the whole body, 
 according as the injury is more or less exten- 
 sive, are deprived sometimes of motion, retain- 
 ing sensation ; sometimes of sensation, retain- 
 ing motion that the division of one nervous 
 trunk issuing from the brain will impede 
 digestion ; of another, will no less disorder 
 respiration that by a tumour on one part of 
 the cavity of the skull, the muscular power of 
 one side of. the face will be lost, so that the 
 odd spectacle may actually be seen of a man 
 laughing on one side of his mouth ; in another, 
 the sensation on one side of the face will be so 
 lost that the eye becomes insensible of the 
 presence of dust or straws while the other side 
 retains it.f 
 
 13. As a proof that sensation travels from 
 the- extremities of the body along the nerves 
 to the brain, we may mention the fact that 
 
 * Bell on Nerves, p. 114. t Solly on H. Mayo.
 
 16 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 when a part containing the termination of any 
 nerve is amputated, the pain felt in the extre- 
 mities of the now shortened fibres of that 
 nerve, is referred by the patient to the member 
 which in their perfect state they supplied. 
 Thus when a limb, for instance, has been cut 
 off, the patient not unfrequently complains 
 of pain in the fingers which he no longer 
 possesses.* It is not in fact till experience 
 has taught us that a distinct sensation belongs 
 to each point of the body, that we refer to that 
 part as the seat of the feeling. This view is 
 further confirmed by what I heard stated by 
 Sir Charles Bell, in his lectures at the College 
 of Surgeons. The operation for what is termed 
 hare-lip is sometimes performed on a very 
 young child ; in this instance it is not neces- 
 sary to confine the hands of the little sufferer, 
 for although the pain occasioned is acute, not 
 having yet learned to refer the sensation from 
 the brain to the wounded part, he knows not 
 where he is hurt, and therefore makes no effort 
 to defend himself. Thus, while the face ex- 
 presses great agony, the arms, as much unin- 
 structed in their own power as the sufferer 
 
 * Miiller, 746.
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 17 
 
 with regard to the seat of sensation, make no 
 other movement than that occasioned by the 
 involuntary convulsions of pain. Here, then, 
 \ve have on the one hand instructed sensation 
 rendered fruitless by the absence of the part 
 to which it refers ; on the other, the power of 
 movement unserviceable because that sensa- 
 tion is as yet uninstructed. In the animal 
 whose existence depends on the instant com- 
 munication between the sensitive and motor 
 nerves, and whose less complex brain allows 
 it, we find no hesitation of this kind ; the 
 movement is instinctive: in man it is rational, 
 and until reason knows where to locate the 
 sensation, the movement is of the most limited 
 kind. 
 
 14. Three distinct systems of nervous 
 mechanism have already been noticed (par. 
 8.) as essential to the existence of the indi- 
 vidual. The neryes belonging to them are 
 spread over the wljole body, for there is no 
 portion of the livil\ machine so minute as 
 not to need blood vessels to nourish, sensations 
 to give warning of danger, and power of move- 
 ment to avoid it. In the second of these 
 divisions we find a set of nerves subservient 
 to yet higher purposes ; these are what are 
 c
 
 18 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 usually called the nerves of special sense, i. e. 
 smell, taste, sight, and hearing. Every one 
 knows that the nostrils, mouth, eyes, ears, are 
 the organs through which the sensations are 
 received, and most are aware that, unlike the 
 nerves of touch, which are dispersed over the 
 whole surface of the body, those of special 
 sense are spread over a comparatively small 
 space, and limited to their respective organs, 
 which, by their situation on the skull, are 
 placed in immediate communication with the 
 brain. Each of these organs has its own nerve 
 assigned to it, which receives and transmits 
 the impressions belonging to that particular 
 sense, and no other ; for the sensations of 
 touch or of pain are provided for by branches 
 of other nerves. Every surgeon knows the 
 fact that the needle of the operator produces 
 only the perception of a flash of light when 
 it touches the fibrils of the optic nerve, and 
 that pain and sensibility to touch remain after 
 the optic nerve itself has perished. The like 
 may be observed of all the other nerves, of 
 especial sense. So far therefore is clear 
 enough ; but the mode of conveying impres- 
 sions is more mysterious, and it is not impro- 
 bable that we may never arrive at more than
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 19 
 
 a conjectural explanation of it. The optic 
 nerve when observed with a powerful mag- 
 nifier, appears to be formed of innumerable 
 minute fibrils which pierce through the deli- 
 cate membrane at the back of the eyeball, 
 called the retina, and show themselves on its 
 
 PORTION OF THE OPTIC NERVE MAGNIFIED. 
 
 surface, for the most part in the form of small 
 globules or papillae easily detached, and which 
 appear to close the ends of the hollow fibres. 
 The auditory nerve has something of the same 
 appearance, though the fibres are less minute 
 than those of the optic nerve, and the points 
 which show themselves on the membrane they 
 penetrate, differ slightly from these in their 
 form. It seems probable that both these 
 nerves are destined to receive impressions^ 
 from different undulatory movements, the one
 
 20 CONNECTION BETWEEN'PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 conveying the sensation of light, the other of 
 sound ; and though it would be presumptu- 
 ous to say that the modus operandi can be 
 certainly or distinctly stated, yet a very simple 
 illustration may perhaps give some notion of 
 it to those who have not time to pursue the 
 study further. When a hollow tube is filled 
 with liquid, the slightest pressure at one end 
 is instantly perceived at the other. If, then, 
 as modern observers assert, the nerves be 
 hollow fibres filled with a half fluid substance 
 which may be seen issuing from them if 
 divided, then it is easy to comprehend that 
 the impression made at one end of the fibril 
 may be conveyed through every fibril con- 
 nected with it down to the extremest point of 
 the motor nerves. What the difference of struc- 
 ture is, which makes this impression in the 
 one instance convey colours, in another sounds, 
 and, when propagated further, produces that 
 irritation of the muscles which causes move- 
 ment, has as yet eluded observation ; but it 
 is evident from the result, that some decided 
 difference must exist. Time was indeed when 
 " the nerves of the senses were looked upon 
 as mere passive conductors, through which 
 the impressions made by the properties of
 
 AND IN'TELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 21 
 
 bodies were supposed to be transmitted un- 
 changed to the sensorium. More recently, 
 physiologists have begun -to analyse these 
 opinions. If the nerves are mere passive con- 
 ductors of the impressions of light, sonorous 
 vibrations, and colours, how does it happen 
 that the nerve which perceives is sensible to 
 this kind of impression only, and to no others, 
 while by another nerve odours are not per- 
 ceived; that the nerve which is sensible to 
 the matter of light or the luminous oscilla- 
 tions is insensible to the vibrations of sonorous 
 bodies ; that the auditory nerve is not sen- 
 sible to light, nor the nerve of taste to odours; 
 while, to the common sensitive nerve, the 
 vibrations of bodies give the sensation, not 
 of sound, but merely of tremours? These 
 considerations have induced physiologists 
 to ascribe to the individual nerves of the 
 senses a special sensibility to certain impres- 
 sions, by which they are supposed to be 
 rendered conductors of certain qualities of 
 bodies, and not of others. 
 
 "This last theory, of which ten or twenty 
 years since no one doubted the correctness, on 
 being subjected to a comparison with facts, 
 was found unsatisfactory. For the same 

 
 22 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 stimulus, for example, electricity, may act 
 simultaneously on all the organs of sense, 
 all are sensible to its action; but the nerve 
 of each sense is affected in a different way, 
 becomes the seat of a different sensation ; in 
 one, the sensation of light is produced ; in 
 another, that of sound ; in a third, taste ; 
 while, in a fourth, pain and the sensation of 
 a shock are felt. Mechanical irritation excites 
 in one nerve a luminous spectrum ; in another, 
 a humming sound ; in a third, pain. An 
 increase of the stimulus of the blood causes 
 in one organ spontaneous sensations of light ; 
 in another, sound ; in a third, itching, pain, 
 &c. A consideration of such facts could not 
 but lead to the inference that the special 
 susceptibility of nerves for certain impressions 
 is not a satisfactory theory, and that the nerves 
 of the senses are not mere passive conductors, 
 but that each peculiar nerve of sense has 
 special powers or qualities which the exciting 
 causes merely render manifest."* 
 
 15. It has been noticed above, that the 
 immediate vital functions are carried on by 
 
 * M tiller's Elements of Physiology, translated from 
 the German by William Baly, M.D. Sec. iv. chap. 1.
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 23 
 
 the sympathetic system. In like manner, 
 the nerves of special sense seem to be con- 
 nected with the instinctive emotions. Any 
 accurate observer of animals may soon con- 
 vince himself of this. Without insisting on 
 the complete exactness of the illustration just 
 given of the mode in which these nerves con- 
 vey the impressions they receive, it may at 
 least afford a point of view from whence to 
 contemplate the operations of instinct. An 
 organ made, not only to receive, but to pro- 
 pagate a particular sensation, receives it ; the 
 shock is sent in a moment through the less 
 complete, or, as in the case of the savage, the 
 less exercised brain to the motor nerves, and 
 movement ensues as a necessary consequence. 
 According to Mayo, there is no evidence that 
 animals exert any volition beyond this ne- 
 cessary contraction of the muscles consequent 
 on received sensation. If so, the actions 
 which we choose to call ferocious, crafty, 
 cowardly, &c. among the brute creation, are 
 wholly undeserving of this blame. They are 
 feelings inseparable from perceptions con- 
 veyed by the organs of smell, sight, and hear- 
 ing, and necessary to the sustenance and the 
 safety of the creatures which possess them.
 
 24 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 16. But the actions which the emotions 
 consequent on these perceptions instigate, 
 are, in many instances exactly such as intel- 
 ligence would suggest. The young calf seeks 
 the udder as soon as it is born, but it is evi- 
 dent that he is merely led thither by the sense 
 of smell ; for instead of at once reaching the 
 spot, he pushes his nose awkwardly hither 
 and thither, and it is only when his mouth is 
 touched, and the nerves of another sense 
 thus excited, that he begins to suck. The 
 movements of a lamb following its mother, 
 of a dog hunting its prey, of a bird building 
 its nest, result in the same way from impres- 
 sions on the nerves of sense. To these well 
 known instances of instinctive action, I would 
 add a very remarkable fact, which, not being 
 so familiar or so easily explained, has been 
 distrusted by many. The circumstance, how- 
 ever, is not only unquestionably true, but 
 may be received as a necessary consequence 
 of the principles we would establish. There 
 is an old horse belonging to a printer in 
 London, and employed by him to turn the 
 mill that grinds the materials of his ink. 
 During the six days of the week this animal 
 may be observed going round and round in
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 25 
 
 one direction, straining against a resistance. 
 Such is his work. Sunday is of course his 
 day of rest. Xow few would conjecture in 
 what manner this animal sets about reposing 
 himself. He may be seen in the printer's 
 orchard, not standing still, or lying down, or 
 ranging about, but moving in a circle, exactly 
 as he is driven in his mill, the only difference 
 of the movement being that it is in the oppo-. 
 site direction. An eminent zoologist has 
 justly referred this strange practice of the old 
 horse to the nerves ; not of special but of 
 general sensation. He suggests that greater 
 relief would be afforded to muscles long 
 exerted in one direction by employing them 
 for awhile in the opposite direction, than 
 would be derived from their being absolutely 
 at rest. What then seems at first a delibe- 
 rate though an unaccountable movement, is 
 in fact nothing more than a spontaneous 
 impulse resulting from uneasy weariness. 
 
 17. But although the animal actions we 
 have mentioned, when their nature is consi- 
 dered, seem to be as intelligent as if human 
 reason had instigated them, it may easily be 
 proved that the sagacity from which they 
 proceed is extremely limited in its extent.
 
 26 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 For whenever any cause leads the animal to 
 transgress those bounds, it is then seen at 
 once how different reason is from instinct. 
 Such is the case of a puppy when rubbing 
 its nose on a brick floor to bury a bone ; of 
 a hen sitting on a stone instead of an egg : 
 such likewise was the case with the beavers 
 which Frederick Cuvier kept in a cage. These 
 animals, on being supplied with materials, 
 employed themselves in building that par- 
 ticular structure which, essential as it is to 
 their existence when at large, and in their 
 natural state, was then utterly without use or 
 meaning. 
 
 The obvious conclusion from hence is, that 
 whatever faculty the instinctive impulse 
 elicits, is incapable of advancing beyond a 
 certain point in this class of creatures, and 
 is unserviceable for any other act of intelli- 
 gence. "Cette pensee qui se considere elle- 
 meme, cette intelligence qui se voit et qui 
 s'etudie, cette connaissance qui se connait, 
 forment evidemment un orclre de pheno- 
 menes determines d'une nature tranchee, et 
 auxquels nul animal ne saurait atteindre. 
 C'est la, si 1'on peut ainsi dire, le monde 
 purement intellectuel, et ce monde n'appar-
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 27 
 
 tient qu' a 1'homme. En un mot, les animaux 
 sentent, connaissent, pensent; mais 1'homme 
 est le seul de tous les etres crees a qui le 
 pouvoir ait ete donne de sentir qu'il sent, de 
 connaitre qu'il connaie, et de penser qu'il 
 pense." * 
 
 18. But though the animal intelligence, 
 with whatever labour it may be cultivated, 
 be unfit for any speculative purpose, this 
 defect is compensated for by its fitness for 
 practical purposes without any previous ex- 
 ercise. The cause of this is the comparatively 
 small compass of apparatus connecting sen- 
 sation with action in the lower tribes ; and as 
 they are thus in great measure exempt from 
 the painful apprehension of danger, and from 
 perplexity at the time that it occurs, it is in 
 their case decidedly beneficial. In man, the 
 relations between the sensitive and motor 
 fibres of the nerves issuing from his brain 
 are liable to be confused with those of higher 
 intelligence in consequence of the more com- 
 plicated functions of that organ. This struc- 
 ture of his nervous system exposes him to 
 
 * Resume analytique des Observations de Fr6de"ric 
 Cuvier sur 1'Instinct et 1'Intelligence des Animaux. Par 
 P. Flourens, p. 55.
 
 28 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 inconvenience and hazard, which other ani- 
 mals are exempt from. The dizziness pro- 
 duced by looking down a precipice is known 
 to every one ; were we to try to cross a chasm 
 on a narrow plank, our limbs would probably 
 begin to tremble so violently, that the body, 
 unable to retain its balance, would fall into 
 the depths beneath, and yet we should walk 
 steadily along the same board placed on the 
 floor. This has sometimes been accounted 
 for by assuming that the perception of an 
 horizon by the eye is requisite to enable the 
 limbs to maintain an erect attitude, or go on 
 in steady progression. A philosophical friend 
 has ingeniously, as I think, conjectured that 
 little or no unsteadiness would be experienced 
 in crossing a deep lake on a causeway no 
 more than a foot wide, if the surface of the 
 water were exactly level with this narrow 
 path ; but that if the lake could be emptied 
 before we had passed over, and we were to 
 find ourselves on the top of a wall forty or 
 fifty feet high, we should be very apt to lose 
 our balance and fall. In this case it is quite 
 evident that our real condition would not be 
 changed ; but that the danger would arise 
 entirely from the difference in the perception
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 29 
 
 received by the eye. It is important to ob- 
 serve that throughout the animal kingdom 
 this timidity seems to increase with the de- 
 gree of intelligence belonging to the creatures 
 placed in such situations. Goats and ibexes 
 stand at the edge of precipitous rocks, and 
 gaze fearlessly on the depths beneath ; but 
 the carnivorous animals, which are more in- 
 telligent* than the ruminating tribes, show 
 considerable alarm when exposed to this 
 danger, though on other occasions they are 
 more courageous. Cats, for example, though 
 accustomed to climb, are frightened and un- 
 steady when put on the bough of a tree at 
 any considerable height, and there can be 
 little doubt that the instability of the human 
 frame, under the circumstances described, is 
 augmented by the disturbed state of the 
 reasoning faculties arising from foreseeing 
 the probability that our alarm will increase. 
 I am also inclined to think that where the 
 disturbance in the functions of the motor 
 fibres is not caused by fear, it arises from the 
 want of some near and steady object by look- 
 ing at which we may adjust the body so as 
 
 * Floureus.
 
 30 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 to poise it duly. A distant horizon with no 
 intermediate near object, such as it is in 
 looking from a precipice, or a rapid current, 
 does not afford this, and we falter ; for in the 
 given case of crossing a lake, on a narrow 
 causeway, the slightest ripple on the surface 
 would very soon prevent us from keeping our 
 equilibrium. And this probably is one cause 
 of reeling in drunkenness : the functions of 
 the optic nerve are disturbed by the unwonted 
 pressure of blood on the brain, and every 
 thing appears to be in motion: accordingly, 
 having nothing steady before him, the drunk- 
 ard reels. The narrowest ledge on the side 
 of a precipice may be crossed safely, by look- 
 ing steadily at the rock beside us, instead of 
 at the chasm below. 
 
 19. Before quitting this part of the subject, 
 it will be well to observe that the fibrils which 
 converge from every part of the body, from 
 the trunks of the nerves, never in any instance 
 unite with each other. Thus every one carries 
 its report from the part which receives the 
 impression, distinctly and separately to the 
 brain ; and, as the white substance of that 
 organ, in whatever form it appears, is also 
 composed of minute fibres sustained and
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 31 
 
 clothed by a most delicate membrane, so we 
 have good reason to suppose that the sensa- 
 tion carried by the finest fibril from the re- 
 motest part of the body, is communicated to 
 its own especial fibril in the brain, and through 
 it duly transmitted to the corresponding motor 
 fibre. 
 
 20. But another circumstance is here to be 
 observed.* The sum of all the fibrils in the 
 nerves does not by any means amount to the 
 volume of the brain even in the lower order 
 of animals ; still less in man, in whom, though 
 the volume of the brain be proportionally 
 greater, the nerves are less : thus there must 
 be many fibres destined to some other purpose 
 than that of mere conductors of sensation. 
 But it is likewise remarked that they have a 
 flexiform arrangement ; and thus the simple 
 fibril of sensation, though not mixing with 
 any other, may nevertheless, by its intercross- 
 ing, communicate whatever shock it may 
 receive through a different series of nerves, 
 and so give rise to those varieties of action 
 which sometimes excite our surprise when we 
 
 * On Fibres of Spinal Marrow and Sympathetic in 
 Rana esculenta. Dr. A. VY. Volkman, Brad. Med. Rev. 
 Vol. Tii. p. 541.
 
 32 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 see them in the brute creation, because they 
 seem to partake of the nature of reason. But 
 if the reasoning faculties be, as I shall pre- 
 sently show, the mere function of an organ, 
 then, in proportion as that organ is developed, 
 its properties will also be developed, and it is 
 at the option of the will which directs them 
 to make those properties available or not to 
 other and higher purposes than those relating 
 to mere animal life. I have already noticed 
 that we have no proof of any will in the animal 
 beyond the mechanical one resulting from u 
 shock transmitted through the nervous circle. 
 Of the will of man, as it belongs to a second 
 class of functions, I shall speak by and by. 
 
 21. It remains now that I prove from facts, 
 as in the case of the sensitive and motor 
 nerves, that a certain part of the brain actually 
 is the organ of thought ; and in order to make 
 what follows more intelligible, I must beg 
 your attention for a moment to a slight sketch 
 of its figure. You will perceive that the 
 whole upper part consists of two rounded 
 masses forming two segments of a half-globe. 
 These are usually termed the hemispheres of 
 the brain. These are furrowed with deep 
 convolutions, apparently intended to give a
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 33 
 
 1. Great transverse commissure. 2. Commissnra mollis. 
 
 3. Anterior commissure. 
 
 4. Commencing fibres of the inferior longitudinal cora- 
 
 missure or fornix. 
 
 5. Hemisphere of the brain. 6. Cerebellum. 
 
 larger extent to the gray or cortical substance ; 
 and at some distance below the surface various 
 transverse and longitudinal bands unite them 
 as it were into one acting whole. The under 
 surface of the brain consists partly of the 
 hemispherical surface, and partly of a collec- 
 tion of thin fibres which are distributed through 
 the body as nerves of motion and sensation. 
 If these tracts of nervous matter are injured, 
 palsy of the, limbs results. 
 
 22. A considerable analogy may be traced 
 between the arrangement of the brain and
 
 34 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 that of the organs of special sense. Thus as 
 we have two eyes, two ears, two nostrils ; so 
 we have also two hemispheres of the brain, 
 and we may remark as a consequence of this, 
 that a serious injury, amounting nearly to the 
 removal of one hemisphere, does not neces- 
 sarily abolish the function of thought, any more 
 than the loss of one eye or the failure of one 
 ear produces absolute blindness or deafness. 
 I have heard an instance of a young boy who 
 was dashed on the ground by a fall from 
 his horse, with such violence as to shiver one 
 side of his skull, and a large quantity of the 
 brain nearly amounting to the magnitude of 
 one hemisphere actually issued from the 
 wound. When this young gentleman had 
 recovered, he was so far from manifesting any 
 want of intellect, that he attained considerable 
 proficiency in mathematics. This case runs 
 parallel with that of persons who have gone 
 on for a considerable time deriving their sight 
 from one eye, and quite unconscious that they 
 had not the use of the other. 
 
 23. When death supervenes from furious 
 mania, it is usually found on examination 
 that the cortical substance is in a state of 
 inflammation if not of gangrene. In other
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 35 
 
 cases where loss of intellect instead of death 
 has followed an attack of mania, it has been 
 found on examination that a great alteration 
 in the structure of the white substance had 
 taken place, apparently the consequence of 
 the violent preceding inflammation. There 
 is a case recorded of a woman received into 
 the hospital of La Salpetriere at Paris, who, 
 after an attack of furious mania, gradually 
 lost her memory entirely, and sunk at last 
 into a state of utter imbecility. She died 
 about seven years after her admission, and 
 on examining the brain it was found that the 
 convolutions of the hemispheres had entirely 
 coalesced into an even surface, over which a 
 very thin layer of gray matter was spread. 
 The white medullary matter was changed 
 from a soft substance into a strong elastic 
 fibre, which admitted of being torn into long 
 strips, and offered considerable resistance to 
 the knife of the dissector. * Another case is 
 recorded of a person possessing enough of 
 recollection to be employed in trifling com- 
 missions, but idiotic in regard to connection 
 of ideas ; whose brain was found on exami- 
 
 * Miiller's Elements of Physiology, p. 837.
 
 36 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 nation to be without the great transverse 
 band which unites the two hemispheres : and 
 a third where, in an idiot girl who died at 
 fifteen years of age, the two anterior lobes, 
 the parts, namely, which form the front of 
 the hemispheres, were entirely wanting. 
 
 24. It would not be difficult to multiply 
 cases where either original imperfection or 
 subsequent injury of the cerebral hemispheres 
 has caused either idiocy or madness ; but 
 perhaps a more remarkable proof yet of the 
 office of the brain may be found in the cir- 
 cumstance that *a slight degree of inflamma- 
 tion is attended by an extraordinary increase 
 of the vividness of the ideas and the general 
 powers of the mind. In two cases which 
 have been mentioned to me, where I can have 
 no doubt as to the fact, persons previously of 
 rather weak intellect, during an access of 
 what is called brain fever, suddenly acquired 
 a mental force which abandoned them again 
 on recovery ; and a friend who has suffered 
 more than once from transitory inflammation 
 of this part, has assured me that during the 
 severest paroxysms of pain, the gratification 
 
 * Solly on the Human Brain, p. 370.
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 37 
 
 at the immense power of mind thus acquired, 
 almost counterbalanced the suffering. 
 
 25. Something of the same kind occurs 
 under the stimulus of wine. A more than 
 ordinary circulation of blood is promoted by 
 it ; the brain partakes of the excitement, and 
 the imagination and the emotions are thus 
 mechanically rendered more vivid ; but when 
 pushed to excess, the vessels become over- 
 loaded, and if carried a step further, apoplexy 
 and death ensue. There is indeed no symp- 
 tom of drunkenness which does not run 
 parallel with those of diseased brain ; from 
 the exaltation of faculties in the early inflam- 
 matory stage, to the utter senselessness of the 
 fatal termination. 
 
 26. With these facts before us, and the 
 * hundreds of others that might be added to 
 them, it would be difficult to avoid the con- 
 clusion that recollection and the power of 
 combining ideas, or, what are usually termed 
 the reasoning faculties, are as much a function 
 of the hemispheres of the brain, as sight or 
 hearing are of the optic or auditory nerves. 
 
 * Muller, B. III. sec. v. p. 835. Fletcher, Part III. 
 p. 100.
 
 38 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 What the spring is which moves the machine, 
 I shall consider presently ; my first concern 
 has been to show what the machine is. I am 
 aware that I am here on the threshold of 
 phrenology, but my path carries me past, not 
 through the portal, and I forbear to enter. 
 
 27. We have now traced the machinery by 
 means of which, man is a living, a sentient, 
 and an intelligent animal. We will next 
 proceed to investigate what may be called 
 the elementary functions of intellectual man. 
 In pursuing this inquiry we may derive con- 
 siderable assistance from a Table to which I 
 have already referred occasionally, when con- 
 sidering the nature and extent of animal 
 instinct. It is, however, to the operations of 
 human intelligence that the arrangements of 
 this Table principally apply. These, as will 
 be observed, are divided into two classes, 
 distinguished by their causing or not causing 
 bodily change, namely, any movement or 
 sensation. 
 
 TABLE. 
 
 I. Functions sharing in or causing bodily change : 
 
 1. Appetites and functions j 
 
 ... f Sympathetic system 
 appertaining to life ) 
 
 2. Instinctive emotions . Nerves of sense 
 
 3. Faculties Hemispheres of tbe braia
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 39 
 
 II. Functions neither sharing in nor causing bodily 
 change : 
 
 1. Individual consciousness including the memory 
 
 which this requires. 
 
 2. Intelligent will. 
 
 28. It cannot be disputed that a vital appe- 
 tite, such as hunger, or that an instinctive 
 emotion, such as fear or grief, or that the 
 exertion of such faculties as those used in 
 abstract reasoning, are attended with bodily 
 change. Thus, an unsatisfied appetite causes 
 uneasiness ; or an instinctive emotion while 
 the body is under its full influence, sometimes 
 acts as an antagonist to appetite, as when grief 
 subdues hunger by deranging the digestive 
 powers. Sometimes the emotion interferes 
 with the most delicate operations of the sym- 
 pathetic system, as when fear or joy, which 
 necessarily arise from an impression on some 
 nerve of sense, affect the action of the heart 
 through the medium of the connecting links 
 between the spinal and sympathetic nerves ; 
 there is then a sensation as of a blow or com- 
 pression of the chest: or when yawning tells 
 of the general weariness of mind and body. 
 Here a particular nerve acts on the diaphragm, 
 the respiratory muscles are tuned in accord- 
 ance with this by other nervous fibres con.
 
 40 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 nected with it at its origin, and the impulse 
 is propagated through the whole of these 
 muscles, till that odd movement of the lower 
 jaw is produced, which is so uncomfortable 
 to the listener, and so discouraging to the 
 orator. 
 
 29. On the other hand, whoever has elabo- 
 rated any process requiring severe thought, is 
 experimentally acquainted with the headache, 
 or the bodily fatigue that results from the 
 prolonged labour of the mind, although the 
 limbs that experience these sensations have 
 been in a state of absolute repose. I have 
 shown that the construction of the brain and 
 nerves only accounts for this. If we admit 
 that the gray matter of the hemispheres, vital- 
 ized as it is beyond any part of the body by 
 the current of blood that keeps flowing through 
 all its particles with unwonted activity, be the 
 seat of intelligence : if we admit, too, that 
 this metropolitan organ of the body is in con- 
 stant communication with every other part, it 
 will cease to surprise you that any excitement 
 of this central portion should produce per- 
 ceptible vibrations through all the nerves, 
 whether of the sympathetic, the spinal, or the 
 cerebral systems.
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 41 
 
 I 
 
 CUTTLE. COXGER. TURTLE. BUZZARD. 
 
 ORANG-OTA.VG. 
 
 30. It is remarked* by physiologists that 
 
 * Owen on Structure of the Brain in marsupial Ani- 
 mals, Ph. Tran. 1834, p. 5581837, p. 89.
 
 42 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 the development of the hemispheres of the 
 brain proceeds step by step with the develop- 
 ment of intelligence through the successive 
 classes of the animal kingdom till it arrives 
 at perfection in man. * " Who has not seen," 
 says Dr. Fletcher, " artificially educated 
 horses, dogs, lions, pigs, elephants, bears, 
 monkeys, canary birds, and even hens ; but 
 who has ever seen, or ever will see, an edu- 
 cated worm or oyster? The educ^ibility of 
 animals then, or in other words their intel- 
 lect, is in proportion to the size and compo- 
 sition of their brains." Thus, of all animals, 
 man, who has the largest and most compli- 
 cated brain is the most improveable ; he can 
 judge, compare, discriminate, and remember 
 all the impressions made on his senses with 
 far more precision than any other of the 
 mammalia. This was to be expected from 
 the structure of his brain, which differs in 
 many points from all others ; but here a 
 most important fact presents itself. With 
 the development of the brain in the animal, 
 proceeds also its intelligence ; but the indi- 
 viduals of each class retain a close resem- 
 
 * Physiology, Part III. p. 89.
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 43 
 
 blance to their common type : the greatest 
 difference that can be produced by education 
 between the wild and the domesticated animal 
 is so small as scarcely to be worth the notice ; 
 since it consists in little else than a sensation 
 of fear impressed by the felt power of man : 
 but when we look at the human race, so great 
 is the difference between civilized and un- 
 civilized man, that some physiologists have 
 endeavoured to find in the brain of the latter 
 a resemblance to the quadrumana rather than 
 to his more cultivated brethren. Yet there 
 is no perceivable distinction in the cerebral 
 organs of individuals constituting the most 
 clearly defined varieties of the human race: 
 whether civilized or uncivilized, male or 
 female, we find the same component parts, 
 the same relative proportion of brain. Whence 
 then the immense difference between the 
 negro in his African wilds, and the European 
 philosopher ? 
 
 31. I think some of the points I have en- 
 deavoured to establish will in great measure 
 explain this. Every bodily fibre acquires 
 strength by exercise : none need be told how- 
 much muscular power is acquired by a con- 
 stant and moderate exertion: the practised
 
 44 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 eye will see, the practised ear, hear, what 
 these organs when unpractised distinguish 
 with difficulty : it is not wonderful then, if 
 the practised brain can also carry on its func- 
 tions with greater facility and increased 
 power. In savage life, where subsistence is 
 hardly obtained, and where danger is always 
 at a point that keeps the emotions which guard 
 existence in constant exercise, men who have 
 to struggle for their daily food, and defend 
 themselves from their no less daily perils, 
 require from the brain but a very small part 
 of what it can accomplish : their greatest 
 stretch of reasoning extends not beyond the 
 connecting a bent twig, or a down-trodden 
 leaf, with the steps of their prey or their 
 enemy. In such instances, we may easily 
 conceive that the unexercised faculties become 
 as powerless as the limb of an animal which 
 from the moment of birth had been restrained 
 from movement. A child who had grown up 
 with a limb so disabled, would not be aware 
 of its use unless he saw it exemplified in 
 others, and even if he saw its use, he would 
 still find that in his own case the effort to 
 make it available would be perfectly vain. 
 32. Such I conceive to be the state of the
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 45 
 
 brain which has never been called to exercise 
 the higher faculties. The instinctive emo- 
 tions are propagated through it with the al- 
 most delirious violence which characterizes 
 the brute creation, because the fibres destined 
 to carry on the higher reasoning functions 
 have remained inert till they have become 
 powerless, and man is thus assimilated to the 
 lower tribes, not because the organ of thought 
 is wanting, but because it has not been exer- 
 cised. Christophe, the negro ruler of Haiti, 
 was probably not removed above a generation 
 or two from the African savage, yet his daugh- 
 ters were polished and accomplished women, 
 fit to take their place in European society. 
 A better proof could hardly be given of the 
 improveability of all the races of men by edu- 
 cation, even in one generation. 
 
 33. I cannot pass over this part of the sub- 
 ject without drawing from it one useful lesson 
 upon the necessity of cultivating the higher 
 faculties far more than is yet done, even 
 among races calling themselves civilized. If 
 the instincts, or as some will call them, pas- 
 sions, assume so undue an ascendancy in 
 consequence of the inertness of the antagonist 
 part of the brain, that man's whole moral
 
 46 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 nature falls into the morbid state of a con- 
 vulsed, or finally, a contracted limb, it is then 
 no light crime in those who have the govern- 
 ment of a family, or a society of human beings, 
 if they suffer the young to grow up without 
 duly developing the full powers of a nature so 
 admirable where its mental growth is duly 
 proportioned, so tremendously capable of evil 
 when it is not. 
 
 34. A man is not to be considered as edu- 
 cated because some years of his life have been 
 spent in acquiring a certain proficiency in the 
 language, history, and geography of Greece 
 and Rome and their colonies, or in bestowing 
 a transitory attention on the principles of ma- 
 thematics and natural philosophy : nor is a 
 woman to be considered as educated because 
 she can execute a difficult piece of music in a 
 brilliant style, or speak French, German, or 
 Italian with fluency. Such attainments re- 
 quire little more than mere mechanical recol- 
 lection, the lowest of all the cerebral faculties, 
 or the rapid transmission of an impulse from 
 the sensitive optic nerve to the motor ones of 
 the arms and fingers, which is nothing better 
 than the instinctive movement of the animal : 
 neither can the storing up the opinions of
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 47 
 
 others, or the accustoming the tongue to the 
 idioms of other languages, be properly termed 
 an act of thought : for in such cases the ca- 
 pacity of combining ideas, of weighing and 
 judging ere a course of action is adopted, re- 
 mains even less exercised than in those who, 
 though they are turned into the world with 
 the mind as it were a tabula rasa to receive 
 any impression, and too frequently a bad one, 
 yet amid the difficulties and sufferings of 
 poverty, sometimes learn to think. It is from 
 the depths of man's interior life that he must 
 draw what separates him from the brute, and 
 hallows his animal existence; and learning is 
 no farther valuable than as it gives a quantity 
 of raw material to be separated and worked 
 up in the intellectual laboratory, till it comes 
 forth as new in form and as increased in 
 value, as the porcelain vase which entered the 
 manufactory in the shape of metallic salts, 
 clay, and sand. 
 
 35. I have before alluded to the notion of 
 some physiologists that the negro formed but 
 the connecting link between the baboon and 
 man.* This has been so fully refuted by Pro- 
 
 * Phil. Trans. 1838.
 
 48 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 fessors *Tiedemann and Owen,* that it is need- 
 less to go into it at length ; but I mention it 
 here to give a further instance of the necessity 
 of cultivating the mind, even to give the bodily 
 frame its due development, and the duty, 
 therefore, which even political economists 
 must acknowledge, of bestowing on all the 
 power of doing so. Dr. Prichard, in his Re- 
 searches into the physical history of mankind, 
 quotes a fearful instance drawn from the early 
 history of Ireland, of the deterioration conse- 
 quent on such a degree of poverty and suffer- 
 ing as reduces man to a merely instinctive 
 existence. 
 
 36. " On the plantation of Ulster," says the 
 writer, "and afterwards on the successes of the 
 British against the'rebels of 1641 and 1689, 
 great multitudes of the native Irish were driven 
 from Armagh and the south of Down, into 
 the mountainous tract extending from the 
 barony of Flews eastward to the sea : on the 
 other side of the kingdom the same race were 
 expelled into Leitrim, Sligo, and Mayo. Here 
 they have been almost ever since exposed to 
 the worst effects of hunger and ignorance, the 
 
 * Trans. Zoo. Soc. Vol. i.
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOI'HY. 49 
 
 two great brutalizers of the human race. The 
 descendants of these exiles are now distin- 
 guished physically from their kindred in 
 Meath and in other districts where they are 
 not in a state of physical degradation. They 
 are remarkable for open projecting mouths, with 
 prominent teeth and exposed gums. Their 
 advancing cheek bones and depressed noses 
 bear barbarism in their very front. In Sligo 
 and the northern Mayo, the consequences of 
 two centuries of degradation and hardship 
 exhibit themselves in the whole physical con- 
 dition of the people, affecting not only the 
 features, but the frame, and giving such an 
 example of human deterioration from known 
 causes, as almost compensates by its value to 
 future ages, for the suffering and debasement 
 which past generations have endured in per- 
 fecting the appalling lesson. Five feet two 
 inches on an average, pot bellied, bow legged, 
 abortively featured, these spectres of a people 
 that were once well grown, able bodied, and 
 comely, stalk abroad into the daylight of 
 civilization, the animal apparitions of Irish 
 ugliness and Irish want. In other parts of 
 the island, where the population has never 
 undergone the influence of the same causes 
 E
 
 50 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 of physical degradation, it is well known that 
 the same race furnish the most perfect speci- 
 mens of human beauty and vigour both mental 
 and bodily." 
 
 37. If such be the effect under our own 
 eyes of reducing man to the lowest point at 
 which he can maintain even a mere animal 
 existence, we may well believe that ages of 
 such a state may have stamped many of the 
 characters of the brute creation on the human 
 countenance in the wilds of Africa. The 
 great difference between the skull of the 
 negro and the European consists in the wide 
 opening for the nose, which by its greater 
 spread affords more room for the develop- 
 ment of the olfactory nerve : and we may add 
 to this, the form of the jaw again approxi- 
 mating to the animal in its projection, though 
 not in its other characters. We may pro- 
 bably read in these peculiarities the history 
 of generation after generation doomed to a 
 merely instinctive existence, as well as we 
 read sensual indulgence in the thick, moist, 
 swelled lips which so frequently characterize 
 those who give themselves up to such a course 
 of life. 
 
 38. It is almost needless to observe, after
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 51 
 
 what I have already said, that it is to the sur- 
 plusage of fibres in the brain over and above 
 the quantity requisite for the transmission of 
 sensation to the appropriate motor fibre, that 
 we must trace not only the power of reason- 
 ing, but all the finer flights of imagination 
 and wit. The agent of which I shall now 
 presently have to speak, appears able at will 
 to reproduce the impressions once received 
 through the medium of the nerves of sense, 
 and it is amid the novel combinations of the 
 fibres thus called into action, that all those 
 wonders of thought are produced which have 
 won our admiration through all ages. That 
 such is their origin may be proved by the 
 fact, that the most brilliant imagination never 
 yet produced anything which had not been 
 seen, heard, or felt, as it were piecemeal : the 
 combination is new, but the material thus 
 woven afresh is what all are acquainted with. 
 
 II. 
 
 39. TTTE have now traced the human ani- 
 * mal through all parts of his struc- 
 ture : we have shown first a system of ganglia 
 and nerves springing from them, by means
 
 52 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 of which organic life is carried on, and appe- 
 tites excite'd for its maintenance : \ve have 
 further seen a set of nerves whose terminations 
 are to be found at the base of the brain, which 
 supply the senses by which man communi- 
 cates with the external world : we have seen 
 another apparatus within the cranium by 
 which these sensations are weighed and ex- 
 amined, and the result of this examination 
 transmitted finally to the motor nerves for ex- 
 ecution ; altogether forming the most perfect 
 piece of machinery ever constructed : for 
 these nice operations of thought are the work 
 of fibres and fluids contained in them, merely 
 set in motion by the impression made at one 
 part, and thus transmitted through the whole 
 series. Let us now consider the actions of 
 this animal. 
 
 40. The first instinctive impulse is to pre- 
 serve life. Look at a wrecked vessel ! There 
 is one man there ordering and directing all 
 on board : the only remaining boat is lowered ; 
 he is careful to see it filled with the persons 
 crowded about him, it pushes off, and where 
 is he ? He is there on the deck of that sinking 
 ship ; the boat would not hold all, and he has 
 refused a place in it, and remained to perish
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 53 
 
 rather than sacrifice one life committed to his 
 charge. He knows that death awaits him : 
 he has been urged to save himself, and yet 
 he is there! What is the impulse which 
 prompts him thus to contravene the first 
 great law of animated nature ? 
 
 41. Sleep again is among our most im- 
 perious needs, for the want of it gradually 
 destroys life. There lies a sick man in his 
 bed, senseless, in the last stage of an in- 
 fectious fever: and there is one watching 
 beside him, looking pale and exhausted, but 
 who sleeps not, stirs not, though her young 
 life is wasting away with fatigue, and exposed 
 to contagion : and she knows it, and has cal- 
 culated that the same grave will receive both ! 
 What nerve of all that fine machinery has 
 impelled her to this course ? 
 
 42. Look at the Astronomer in his observ- 
 atory ! The night is far advanced, and he is 
 chilled and fatigued ; yet he remains with 
 his eye at the telescope for what? To carry 
 on a series of observations which perhaps in 
 two generations more may give as its result 
 the knowledge of some great law of the mate- 
 rial universe : but he will be in his grave long 
 ere he can expect that it will be ascertained.
 
 54 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 He sits down to his calculations, and he 
 forgets his meals, sees nothing, hears nothing, 
 till his problem is solved ! No sense prompts 
 him to this sacrifice of rest and comfort. But 
 do we call these persons insane? No we 
 honour them as the excellent of the -earth : 
 admire their lives, and wish that when the 
 occasion comes, we may have courage so to 
 die. 
 
 43. I know but of one solution of the diffi- 
 culty; there must be some element in man 
 which we have not yet taken account of; some 
 untiring, undying energy which eludes indeed 
 the fingers and the microscope of the anatomist, 
 but which exercises a despotic sway over the 
 animal mechanism, and takes possession of 
 it for its own use, to the point of exhausting 
 and finally destroying it. Nor is it any 
 objection to this view, that there may be 
 instances either of congenital idiocy or sub- 
 sequent injury of the brain where this power 
 is less manifested, for we are not wont to 
 judge of the peculiar characters of a species 
 from the anomalous exceptions. The power 
 which overmasters and despises sense is yet 
 obliged to convey its mandates through 
 bodily organs ; take these from it either wholly
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 00 
 
 or in part, and it can no longer manifest its 
 existence in the same way as when these 
 organs were perfect. The paralytic man would 
 move his arm or would express his wishes if 
 his arm or his tongue would obey him ; and 
 his frequent impatience at their incapacity 
 sufficiently shows that the ruling will and the 
 servant faculties are of a different and dis- 
 tinct nature : nay, it has been observed that 
 even the insane are at times conscious of 
 and lament a state of brain, which no longer 
 enables the individual to act rationally. This 
 could not occur, were the brain and nerves as 
 acted upon by external stimuli, the only 
 spring of man's will; for then the altered 
 structure would invariably produce a satisfied 
 acquiescence in its results. 
 
 44. It will easily be seen that if we ac- 
 knowledge a distinct acting principle in the 
 above cases, we cannot in any other involve 
 it in the accidents of the body : in sleep it , 
 voluntarily abandons the senses to the repose 
 they need, and resumes the use of them when 
 it chooses, for who does not recollect how, 
 when the weary body required repose, he 
 has forbidden thought, in order to allow the 
 senses to fall into the state of torpor necessary
 
 56 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 to recruit their vigour ? And there are few, 
 probably, who have not also experienced how 
 easily sleep, which would otherwise have 
 lasted for a much longer period, may be 
 curtailed by the resolution to awake at a par- 
 ticular hour. In death, whatever be the 
 cause that exhausts the muscular irritability 
 so far as to make it no longer sensible to the 
 usual stimuli, the cessation of that living 
 action at once stops the machine. It is in 
 vain that the musician touches the keys, if 
 the strings be broken ; but we do not thence 
 argue that the musician has ceased to exist ; 
 nor have we more reason to conclude that 
 the principle which claimed the powers of 
 the living body for its own use, has ceased to 
 exist, because the instrument it required to 
 make its presence apparent is out of order or 
 destroyed. 
 
 45. The philosopher, when he sees an effect 
 produced, seeks for the cause : the chemist, 
 if he finds two apparently similar substances 
 which under the same test exhibit different 
 phenomena, thinks that a sufficient cause for 
 considering them different in nature, and 
 gives them separate names. If, then, effects 
 occur in man which are not sufficiently ac-
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 57 
 
 counted for by any known bodily organism 
 or impulse if under the same circumstances 
 he acts as no other animal would act, we 
 must either on this occasion throw aside all 
 our usual modes of reasoning, or we must 
 pronounce that man differs essentially from 
 all other animals, and has a cause of action 
 not to be sought for in nerves and muscles. 
 That cause may be invisible; so is the wind : 
 imponderable ; so is electricity : intangible ; 
 so is light, if the one organ fitted to receive it 
 be disabled : it is therefore no new thing to 
 find an existing agency of potent efficacy 
 which as far as regards our senses is invisible, 
 imponderable, and intangible. What we call 
 it, matters not; it is evidently superior to, 
 and master of the body : it has other objects 
 in view, other pleasures, other hopes ; and to 
 attain these it compels its slave to undergo 
 privations, pain, and death. 
 
 46. I have already referred to the table 
 where the phenomena of man's nature are 
 reduced to two classes : those whose exercise 
 either causes, or is attended by, bodily change, 
 i. e. emotion, fatigue, or painful exhaustion 
 and those, which though incessantly mani- 
 fested, produce no sense of weariness what-
 
 58 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 ever. It is certainly among the last of these 
 that we must look for this unknown and 
 potent cause: accordingly we find, that the 
 two unchanging functions noted in this table 
 are exactly those which would give rise to 
 such actions of the human animal, as I have 
 described. These functions or attributes are, 
 a consciousness of individuality independent 
 of the bodily frame, which talks of the limbs 
 and the faculties as its property, not itself; 
 and an intelligent and indomitable will, form- 
 ing an essential attribute of that individual 
 existence. It is this persevering and remem- 
 bered will, acting frequently in opposition to 
 the animal nature, which it is my object to 
 claim as the distinguishing characteristic of 
 man ; as the manifestation of another nature, 
 differing in attributes from and superior in 
 energy to the mere bundle of muscles, nerves, 
 and blood vessels w hich we see before us, and 
 which it rules so despotically. A moment's 
 reflection will show us, that the memory 
 inseparable from the exertion of this individual 
 and intelligent will, is perfectly distinct from 
 that faculty of common recollection with 
 which it may at first be confounded. This 
 latter, like all the other faculties of the brain,
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 59 
 
 has its infancy, its maturity, and its decline ; 
 is strengthened by exercise, impaired by 
 disease, enfeebled by entire repose ; but the 
 memory necessary to individual consciousness 
 and will, is perfectly insusceptible of fatigue, 
 increase, or diminution ; and when palsy or 
 ao-e has taken away the recollection of persons, 
 of events, and of words even, the memory of 
 individuality requisite to the exertion of will 
 remains as strong as ever ; and the impatience 
 usually attendant on such a state is perhaps 
 one of the strongest proofs, that the organs 
 are the servants, not the cause, of the intelli- 
 gent will. 
 
 47. We have already seen how far the 
 volition which is the result of a shock sent 
 through the nervous circle can go : it amounts 
 to little more than a blind instinct, for the 
 animals which possess this apparatus in com- 
 mon with man, are incapable of education 
 beyond a certain point, and that education 
 is only to be effected by the fear of pain or 
 expectation of food. The poverty of language 
 is always a great hinderance in philosophical 
 researches, and here it is particularly felt; 
 for we have but one word to express this 
 instinctive will of the animal, and that lofty
 
 60 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 prerogative of man which defies the influence 
 of sense, despises the small globe it inhabits, 
 roams over space to find objects great enough 
 for its contemplations ; and amid worlds 
 upon worlds which multiply on our view 
 as art prolongs it, still feels dissatisfied, and 
 requires nothing less than infinity for its 
 contemplation immortality for itself. 
 
 48. If we look through nature, we shall 
 find that the happiness of the organized 
 being consists in the accomplishment of its 
 end of existence. Animals while supplied 
 with food, and propagating their kind, are 
 happy : their span of life is long enough for 
 all the enjoyments they require : but man's 
 life is insufficient for his wishes, and these 
 gross pleasures disgust and weary him. 
 Where is his happiness then? We have seen 
 it ! The captain of the wrecked vessel feels 
 his heart swell with proud delight as he 
 ji waits death with a consciousness of having 
 done what, if he were an animal only, would be 
 an act of the wildest insanity. The fair girl, 
 before w r hom all the pleasures of life were 
 smiling, despises them, and finds her joy in 
 dying with the object of her affections, because 
 she/ee/s, even if she does not argue, that thus
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 61 
 
 they will still be united. The astronomer has 
 no greater delight than to pursue knowledge 
 which affords him neither fame nor profit ; 
 though it be only to be gained at the expense 
 of fatigue at any rate, and probably of health. 
 
 49. These are the pleasures of a being 
 whose nature has other ends than that of 
 merely spending seventy years in eating, 
 drinking, and sleeping, in the pleasantest 
 way, and leaving other beings so to eat, 
 drink, sleep, and die ! Nor is it merely a 
 few that thus feel : the consciousness of a 
 higher destiny is so rooted in man, that even 
 the savage brands him with disgrace who 
 seeks to preserve life at the expense of what 
 he may deem honour, and the name of a coward 
 is the worst of reproaches. There is scarcely 
 any cause so slight that man will not risk 
 his life for it: can we then with any common 
 show of reason assert that sensation alone is 
 his source of action ? That risk of life brings 
 no pleasure unless it be a mental one: he 
 rises in his own esteem by so doing, and, it 
 may be, in the esteem of others ; but he does 
 so only because, by despising base life, he 
 has made good his claim to a higher nature. 
 
 50. We have asked, what is man's destin-
 
 62 CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 ation ? I reply from these facts immortality. 
 We have asked what is the ultimate object of 
 his existence ? I am not here allowed to 
 enter on the higher ground which would 
 make the chain of reasoning complete ; but if 
 we allow that this rare piece of mechanism is 
 not created by the cause that impels it ; and 
 no man has yet succeeded in imitating the 
 smallest portion of organized matter; then a 
 higher Intellect must have produced it, and I 
 can hardly be wrong in assuming that the 
 Intelligence which planned such a scheme of 
 being, planned it not in vain ; and that man 
 is not the sport of circumstance, filled by his 
 very nature with evil desires which it is his 
 business to uproot : but that the Invisible 
 Essence, which we have found so decidedly 
 manifesting its existence in the midst of its 
 bodily trammels, is placed in such a situation 
 as to be improved, not deteriorated by, the 
 companionship. He cannot alter the func- 
 tion of one fibre of a nerve even ; it would be 
 tyranny were he called upon to do so ; but 
 he can regulate and balance their action, and 
 find those very functions which he can never 
 alter, those very propensities which he can 
 never subdue, because they are requisite to
 
 AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY. 63 
 
 his existence as an animal, sources of en- 
 joyment and of virtue. 
 
 51. I am forbidden here to enter on the 
 nature of the only other Intelligent Will 
 which we have any cognizance of, but this 
 much I may be allowed to say, that like 
 natures must have like enjoyments; We have 
 seen that all animated nature seeks the end 
 of its being, and is happy in attaining it : if 
 man then be akin to that Ruling Will which 
 both he and the universe own as Lord, the 
 ultimate object of his existence must be a 
 like happiness, and we can figure none to 
 ourselves for such a being but pure bene- 
 volence and perfect knowledge. Let me here 
 be allowed to borrow the words of a philo- 
 sophical writer to whom I am already in- 
 debted for many of the views I have this 
 evening propounded: I can hardly give a 
 better summary of the practical results of the 
 whole system. " Thus," says the writer, 
 " we see two kinds of animal functions mu- 
 tually balancing each other, uniting to school 
 the individual will to all that is amiable and 
 exalted ; the instinctive emotions softening 
 the sternness of the faculties; the faculties 
 curbing the animal force of the emotions :
 
 64 PHYSIOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 and the will, impelled by the solicitations 
 of the one, and guided by the information 
 and caution of the other, acquiring by de- 
 grees those habits of judging and feeling 
 rightly which qualify man for the spiritual 
 felicity of his Creator. He has learned the 
 enjoyment of benevolence and the excellence 
 of knowledge, and his heaven is already 
 begun on this side the tomb ; and thus, 
 though these emotions and these faculties 
 may cease with the bodily mechanism which 
 causes them, they have stamped their impress 
 on the individual. Like metal poured from 
 a furnace into a mould, which retains for 
 ever the form so acquired, though the mould 
 be but of earth ; the soul has acquired the 
 character it will carry with it into eternity, 
 though the mould in which it was cast be re- 
 turned to its dust." Philosophical Theories 
 and Experience, p. 74.
 
 
 
 TSoofcs on reat 
 
 EDITED BY A FEW WELL WISHERS 
 TO KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 r 
 
 N. III.
 
 ON MAN'S POWER 
 
 OVER HIMSELF TO PREVENT OR 
 
 CONTROL INSANITY. 
 
 COMMUNICATED TO THE MEMBERS AT 
 
 THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN, ON 
 
 FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 2CTH, 1S43. 
 
 BY THE REV. JOHN BARLOW, M. A. 
 
 OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 SECRETARY OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OP GREAT BRITAIN, F. R. S. ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 WILLIAM PICKERING. 
 1843.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THE history of this little book is iden- 
 tical with that of " The Connection 
 between Physiology and Intellectual Phi- 
 losophy," which I published last year. 
 
 Each of these volumes contains the sub- 
 stance of a communication made to the 
 Members of the Royal Institution, at one 
 of their Friday evening Meetings. 
 
 Both are offered to the public at the 
 desire of many who were present on those 
 occasions ; and I may add with respect to 
 the work now in the Reader's hands, that 
 the President of the Institution was pleased 
 to require its publication. 
 
 Both this book and its predecessor owe 
 not only their origin, but large contribu- 
 tions of material, and great assistance in 
 their composition and arrangement, to a 
 Society of intimate friends with whom I
 
 IV ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 have the honour to be connected. Both 
 may therefore be regarded as the effects 
 of a confederacy whose object, as already 
 declared (vid. Advertisement to " Connec- 
 tion, &c." p. vi.) is " to bring philosophy 
 into a form that might benefit the mass 
 of mankind, instead of being the mere 
 luxury of a few learned men." 
 
 For whatever success may have attended 
 the former publication, I cannot but be 
 much indebted to the favourable judgment 
 pronounced upon it by the most eminent 
 physiologists of this country, to whom I 
 desire to express, on behalf of those with 
 whom I am allied, as well as on my own, 
 our sense of the encouragement afforded 
 by them to our enterprise. 
 
 Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, 
 London, June 19, 1843.
 
 ON MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF 
 
 TO PREVENT OR CONTROL 
 
 INSANITY. 
 
 I. 
 
 1. npiWO years ago, I had the honour of 
 -A- submitting to you some views with 
 regard to intellectual science, which appeared 
 necessarily to result from recent discoveries 
 in anatomy. Now it is the property of all 
 scientific views if true, that they announce a 
 few simple principles which admit of an ex- 
 tensive practical application; and I endea- 
 voured to apply this test to the theory I then 
 brought forward as to the dual nature of man. 
 I asked myself how it bore on that most terri- 
 ble of all diseases connected with the brain 
 madness; and I found that wise and good 
 men, even without thinking of the theory, had 
 practically applied it in the treatment of ma- 
 niacs; whose intelligent will they had roused 
 to a certain degree of self-control by a system 
 of kind and rational treatment, instead of the 
 B
 
 2 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 chains and whips of former times. Still, if 
 I might credit the assertion of a gentleman 
 whose experience gives him a claim to atten- 
 tion, Dr. Thomas Mayo, though facts were 
 accumulated, an hypothesis, which should 
 give these facts the character of results from 
 great principles, was wanting: and I asked 
 myself further, if a theory, which coincided 
 with the views of so many men illustrious in 
 science, might not have enough of the charac- 
 ters of truth to supply the desideratum which 
 Dr. Mayo points out. 
 
 2. In order to make myself clearly under- 
 stood, it will be necessary to take a brief view 
 of the structure and functions of the brain 
 and nerves as explained in my former com- 
 munication. This apparatus consists of ex- 
 ceedingly minute hollow filaments, filled with 
 a semi-fluid substance. These filaments are 
 either compressed into a mass, as is the case 
 in the brain and those brainlike structures 
 called ganglia or else extend from the brain 
 down the back, as spinal marrow ; and from 
 thence they are distributed to the remotest 
 parts of the body in the form of nerves: some 
 employed in carrying intelligence to the brain, 
 others in executing its mandates.
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 3 
 
 3. The vital functions, which go on uncon- 
 sciously and unceasingly, are regulated by a 
 peculiar set of nerves, extensively, though in- 
 directly connected with the brain and spine. 
 They are united into a separate system by 
 means of numerous ganglia ; and in colour 
 and texture they bear the same resemblance 
 to the gray matter of the brain and spine, that 
 the spinal nerves and those of especial sense 
 do to the white matter : though even in these 
 ganglionic nerves, as they are called, white 
 filaments are perceivable, derived from the 
 spinal marrow. These will account for the 
 influence exercised over the vital functions by 
 the disturbing force which we shall presently 
 have to notice, as well as by any sudden 
 shock to the brain or spine. The circulation 
 of the blood is under the immediate charge of 
 the ganglionic nerves, one of which accom- 
 panies every blood vessel. The nerves of 
 smell, sight, hearing, and taste, are derived 
 immediately from the brain, as are those 
 which regulate the movements of the face, 
 and some of the upper portions of the body. 
 The nerves of touch for the most part com- 
 municate with the brain through the spinal 
 marrow, as do the larger portion of the motor
 
 4 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 nerves also : nevertheless much of the move- 
 ment which ensues on the excitement of the 
 nerves of sensation, is effected without the 
 intervention of consciousness, as is seen in 
 palsy, where movements are caused by touch, 
 though the patient is unconscious of it. In 
 the lower orders of animals, where the brain 
 is almost, or wholly wanting, the movements 
 seem also to be mechanically propagated from 
 one set of nerves to the other. 
 
 4. In the human species a portion of the 
 brain, which begins to develope itself in the 
 higher order of animals, assumes a preponde- 
 rance over the rest. I mean the hemispheres 
 which fill the upper part of the skull. Less 
 immediately connected with the nerves of 
 sense, this part has its own peculiar function : 
 and I formerly brought examples to prove 
 that this function is that of thought.* I then 
 took occasion to notice a peculiar force found 
 in man, which is capable of assuming a con- 
 trol over this portion of the brain ; and, 
 through it, over the greater part of the bodily 
 functions a force whose agency, as Professor 
 Leibig has well observed, is " entirely distinct 
 
 Vide No. II. of Small Books on Great Subjects.
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 
 
 from the vital force, with which it has nothing 
 in common,"* but in so far as it is viewed in 
 connection with matter, manifests itself as an 
 acceleration, a retarding, or a disturbance of 
 the " processes of life." "We find therefore, 
 us this acute observer goes on to state, " two 
 forces in activity together, namely the me- 
 chanical-vital force or, as he terms it, vege- 
 tative life, and the source of the higher phae- 
 nomena of mental existence, which is of a 
 perfectly distinct, and so far a superior nature, 
 that it is able sometimes to exercise a dominion 
 over the vital force which nullifies its action, 
 and at all times controls and modifies it. 
 
 5. In my former communication, I called 
 your attention to a Tablet arranged so as to 
 exhibit the functions of these two forces, 
 whose existence it was my purpose to esta- 
 blish. I hardly then anticipated that I should 
 find my views supported by such men as M. 
 Jouffroy in France, and Professor Liebig in 
 Germany, but such being the case, I feel the 
 less diffidence now in bringing forward a 
 
 * Leibig's Animal Chemistry, p. 5. 
 t Small Books, &c. No. II. p. 38.
 
 6 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 theory, where, if I err, I err in such good 
 company. 
 
 6. In the two great divisions of this Table, 
 I have placed side by side the two great forces 
 which manifest themselves in the phsenomena 
 of man's nature. The VITAL FORCE by virtue 
 of which he is an animal and the INTELLEC- 
 TUAL FORCE by virtue of which he is something 
 more. Throughout nature we find the advance 
 to a higher grade of being, made by addition 
 rather than by change. The power of assimi- 
 lation is added to chemical affinity, and we 
 have organized life as in vegetables ; but set 
 in motion by external causes : nervous matter 
 is added in the animal ; and vegetative life 
 proceeds still unconsciously, but by means 
 of a main-spring within the body ; and this 
 lowest kind of life is found, as I formerly 
 observed, in the rooted zoophyte no less than 
 in man. It forms the first subdivision of the 
 Table. Nerves of sensation and of movement 
 are added, and the animal becomes loco- 
 motive, and is impelled by a feeling of pain 
 or of pleasure to the acts needful for the main- 
 tenance of vegetative life: and this state of 
 being is marked in the second division. Then 
 the hemispheres of the brain are developed in
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 7 
 
 addition, as in the class mammalia, and the 
 animal seeks its object by contrivance and by 
 suiting the means to the end. Finally, as in 
 the great step from in-organized to organized 
 matter, a fresh force is. added, not superseding, 
 but availing itself of the other ; and man steps 
 forth a denizen of two worlds, and capable of 
 an advance which we can set no limit to. 
 
 7. Such is the constitution of man. When 
 in healthy action, we cannot easily figure to 
 ourselves any thing better calculated to produce 
 the most admirable results than the reciprocal 
 influence of the different parts and forces of 
 this complex being : but in proportion to the 
 variety of parts is the danger of derangement : 
 and our business to-night is not to consider 
 man in his normal, but in his abnormal state. 
 I shall therefore now endeavour to apply the 
 theory, which I have just given a brief abstract 
 of, to practical use, first by giving a classifica- 
 tion of the different kinds of mental derange- 
 ment, and next by considering how far the 
 immense power of the Intellectual force can 
 in any case be applied to their prevention or 
 cure. I prefer the term mental derangement 
 to that of Insanity, because it will embrace all 
 departures from the normal condition of man,
 
 8 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 as far as the functions of the brain are con- 
 cerned : and I conceive (herein following the 
 great authority of Dr. Conolly *) that a certain 
 degree of mental derangement may exist with- 
 out constituting insanity in the usual sense of 
 that word. 
 
 8. I propose to classify mental derangement 
 thus: 
 
 I. Morbid affections of the nervous system 
 and brain. 
 
 1. Morbid affection of brain caused by 
 derangement of the sympathetic sys- 
 tem, as inflammation, &c. 
 
 2. Morbid affection of the nervous sys- 
 tem producing delusions as to sight, 
 sounds, &c. 
 
 3. Morbid affections of the hemispheres 
 of the brain producing loss of memory, 
 &c. 
 
 II. Morbid affections of the Intellectual 
 force. 
 
 1. Inefficiency, where either the appetites 
 or instinctive emotions, &c. are left 
 wholly uncontrolled. 
 
 * Vide An Enquiry concerning the Indications of In- 
 sanity. By John Conolly, M. D.
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 
 
 2. Misdirection, where delusions of sense 
 are reasoned and acted upon. 
 
 3. Occullation, where the organs of thought 
 are impaired or wanting. 
 
 9. It will be readily seen that a force which 
 is capable of acting as an acceleration, a re- 
 tarding, or a disturbance of the vital functions, 
 must have no small influence over so delicate 
 an organ as the brain ; and accordingly we 
 find paralysis, inflammation, or brain fever, 
 and a variety of other diseases of this kind, 
 produced in many instances by causes purely 
 mental I need hardly give cases ; they will 
 occur readily to the recollection of every one. 
 Now a force which can produce disease, must 
 have some power also in removing or prevent- 
 ing it; and my business to-night will be to 
 endeavour at least, to mark out how far this 
 force can be made available to so desirable an 
 object. In this attempt to establish true prin- 
 ciples where they are so much needed, I have 
 had large assistance. To Dr. Conolly, Dr. 
 Webster, and Mr. Samuel Solly, I must beg 
 thus publicly to tender my cordial thanks ; 
 as well as to many others who have aided my 
 views in various ways : indeed I can claim no 
 merit to myself but that of an earnest desire
 
 10 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 to fulfil my part of the great duty which every 
 human being is sent into the world to per- 
 form ; and in which, if we knew " what be- 
 longed to our peace/' we should find our 
 happiness too. It is not in the pursuit of 
 fame or of profit that a man finds his noblest 
 employment, though these may advance to 
 meet him in his unshrinking career : it is in 
 the being, as it were, the vice-gerent of the 
 Deity on earth, and spreading peace and com- 
 fort around him, that he carries out the inten- 
 tions of his Creator: and I know of none who 
 have fulfilled that great mission better than 
 some of those I have alluded to. Though in 
 many instances struggling against prejudice 
 and neglect, they have nearly carried their 
 point, and rescued a large portion of their 
 fellow creatures from a state of the most hope- 
 less misery. 
 
 10. But to return I have said that mental 
 derangement and madness are different things : 
 thus a person may fancy he sees others 
 around him who have no existence, as in the 
 well-known cases of Nicholai of Berlin and 
 Dr. Bostock.* This is a certain degree of 
 
 * Vide Appendix A.
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 1 1 
 
 mental derangement while it lasts ; but as 
 both soon satisfied themselves that these per : 
 sonages were merely the creation of a morbid 
 physical state, they were not mad. A man 
 of less resolution would have shrunk from the 
 labour of convincing himself that he was fooled 
 by his senses, and would have insisted that 
 the figures were real, and then he would have 
 been mad. On these cases Dr. Conolly very 
 justly remarks " Let any one reflect how 
 Nicholai preserved his reason under such 
 visionary and auditory delusions for so many 
 months ; and why the English physiologist, 
 though visited with the images which are so 
 well known to be familiar with mad people, 
 never lost the use of his excellent understand- 
 ing. The ready answer will be ' they never 
 believed in their real existence.' But why did 
 they not? and why does the madman believe 
 in their real existence ? The evidence of both 
 is the same the plain evidence of sense. The 
 explanation must be this. The Printer of 
 Berlin and the Physician in London retained 
 the power of comparison : they compared the 
 visual objects of delusion with the impres- 
 sions of other senses," and the perceptions of 
 other persons, and became convinced of their
 
 12 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 unreality. "This is exactly what madmen 
 cannot do. One form of madness consists in 
 this very illusion of sense, but it is conjoined 
 with the loss or defect of the comparing power, 
 and the madman concludes that what is only 
 an illusion is a reality. But the illusion is 
 not the madness/' Thus, according to the 
 opinion of this very able judge, the affection 
 of the brain which causes these delusions, is 
 not madness, but the ivant of power or resolu- 
 tion to examine them, is.* Nothing then but 
 an extent of disease which destroys at once 
 all possibility of reasoning, by annihilating, 
 or entirely changing the structure of the organ, 
 can make a man necessarily mad. In all 
 other cases, the being sane or otherwise, not- 
 withstanding considerable disease of brain, 
 depends on the individual himself. He who 
 has given a proper direction to the intellectual 
 force, and thus obtained an early command 
 over the bodily organ by habituating it to 
 processes of calm reasoning, remains sane 
 amid all the vagaries of sense ; while he who 
 has been the slave, rather than the master of 
 his animal nature, listens to its dictates with- 
 
 * Vide Appendix B.
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 13 
 
 out question even when distorted by disease, 
 and is mad. A fearful result of an uncul- 
 tivated childhood ! 
 
 11. If I am right in what I have advanced, 
 a man may labour under a mental delusion, 
 and yet be a responsible agent : and if sanity 
 or insanity be in a great many instances the 
 consequences of a greater or less resolution in 
 exerting the power of reasoning still pos- 
 sessed, the same kind of motives which influ- 
 ence a man in common life, are still available, 
 though they may require to be somewhat 
 heightened. It is on this principle that the 
 treatment of lunatics has been generally con- 
 ducted. Fear, one of the lowest, but also one 
 of the most general of instinctive emotions, 
 has been called in to balance the delusions of 
 sense,* and, excepting in cases where the 
 structural disease is so extensive as to deprive 
 the man of all power of connecting cause and 
 effect, it has been found sufficient to curb 
 violence, and enforce a certain degree of 
 peaceable demeanour towards the attendants. 
 And in this the insane person differs not from 
 the cultivated man who is left at liberty, whose 
 
 * Vide Appendix C.
 
 14 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 self-control rarely amounts to more than the 
 avoiding actions which would have unpleasant 
 consequences to himself. Suppose an irascible 
 man, incensed by a false report ; which, how- 
 ever, he believes to be true ; he seeks his sup- 
 posed enemy, and horsewhips or knocks him 
 down : he does not assassinate, because he fears 
 for his own life if he does ; for it is clear that 
 no feeling of duty has held his hand, or he 
 would not have transgressed the laws both 
 of God and man by thus revenging himself. 
 
 The madman has the false report from his 
 own senses ; wherein do the two differ ? Nei- 
 ther has employed means within his power to 
 ascertain the truth, and both are aware that 
 such vengeance is forbidden. I can see no 
 distinction between them, save that the delu- 
 sion of sense has, as a chemist would say, 
 decomposed the character, and shown how 
 much of the individual's previous conduct was 
 rational, and how much the result of mere 
 animal instinct. It would be well for the 
 world if the soi-disant sane were sometimes to 
 ask themselves how far their sanity would 
 bear this test ; and endeavour to acquire that 
 rational self-command which nothing but the 
 last extremity of cerebral disease could unseat.
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 15 
 
 We do not descend from our high rank with 
 impunity ; and as, when matter has become 
 organized, if the process of change, occasioned 
 by the vital force, be impeded or arrested, the 
 plant pines away and perishes : as, after the 
 organs of locomotion have been superadded, 
 the animal debarred from the use of them, 
 languishes and becomes diseased ; so man, if 
 he give not full scope to the intellectual force, 
 becomes subject to evils greater than animals 
 ever know, because his nature is of a higher 
 order. 
 
 12. In the classification which I have just 
 given of the various kinds of mental derange- 
 ment, I have endeavoured to make that dis- 
 tinction between structural and functional 
 disease which I consider the first step towards 
 understanding the nature of insanity. Every 
 anatomist knows, that extensive structural 
 disease can exist without producing irration- 
 ality. Paralytic patients, though the disease 
 has its origin in the brain, may lose memory, 
 speech, sensation, or any other faculty, and 
 yet use the rest calmly and rationally : in- 
 flammation may cause pain and irritation, 
 which will produce frenzy without impairing 
 the rational will-^-for I have known an in-
 
 16 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 stance where the patient, feeling that the 
 brain was escaping from her control, gave her 
 hands to be held by the attendants, that she 
 might do no mischief during the paroxysm, 
 and then maintained an obstinate silence, 
 that no irrational words might pass her lips. 
 None could doubt that this patient was sane, 
 and exercised a complete self-control in the 
 midst of structural disease. 
 
 Neither do severe injuries from external 
 causes, though, like paralysis, they may cause 
 a loss of those faculties which connect man 
 with the world about him, necessarily discon- 
 nect him with the world within, so as to place 
 him beyond his own command. 
 
 A case has been communicated to me illus- 
 trative of this. A young lad who had been 
 carefully instructed in the principles of reli- 
 gion and virtue by the clergyman of his parish, 
 afterwards went to sea. When he was about 
 twenty-two he unfortunately fell from the 
 mast upon his head on the deck, and the in- 
 jury to the brain was such that he was dis- 
 charged from the service in a state of imbe- 
 cility, and sent home to his parish. He was 
 then in possession of the use of his limbs and 
 hearing : but articulation was apparently dif-
 
 TO PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 17 
 
 ficult to him, and collected thought, which 
 should enable him to speak connectedly, still 
 more so : his sight too was subject to a delu- 
 sion which made him imagine he saw gold 
 and silver coin strewed about on the ground ; 
 which, as was natural, he eagerly endeavoured 
 to pick up. He was now visited by the Cler- 
 gyman who had been the instructor of his 
 youth, who in kind terms assured him he was 
 under a false impression, and advised him to 
 give no heed to what he imagined he saw. 
 The poor young man thanked him, and pro- 
 mised to do as he desired, and for a time ab- 
 stained from attempting to pick up the coin, 
 but gradually the delusion became too strong 
 for his resolution, and he recommenced. 
 Yet after every visit of his former instructor, 
 he again controlled himself for a time : and, 
 if he did not come, anxiously sought him at 
 his own house. He died in a few months, 
 but during the whole time was mild and sub- 
 missive, seeming perfectly aware that his mind 
 was disordered ; and, like a child who distrusts 
 his own power, seeking to throw himself on 
 the guidance of one whose kindness he re- 
 membered, and whose character he respected. 
 This man was suffering mental derangement 
 c
 
 18 MAN'S POWER OYER HIMSELF TO 
 
 from injury of the parts, but was not insane: 
 for the faculties left him were rationally exer- 
 cised. 
 
 13. It has already been seen that the delu- 
 sions of sense may coexist with perfect sanity : 
 the instances of this, indeed, are so numerous 
 that I should not have time to relate half that 
 I have heard or read of within the last three 
 or four months : but there is another kind of 
 mental derangement, still in a certain degree 
 connected with sense, which is of a more fear- 
 ful kind, and yet this too is not inconsistent 
 with sanky. A case in point has been given 
 by M. Marc which has been copied into many 
 works on this subject. The mother of a re- 
 spectable family in Germany, on returning 
 home one day, met a servant against whom 
 she had no cause of complaint, in the greatest 
 agitation. The servant begged to speak with 
 her mistress alone; threw herself upon her 
 knees, and entreated that stie might be sent 
 out of the house. The mistress, astonished at 
 this request, inquired the reason, and learned 
 that whenever the unhappy woman undressed 
 the little child which she nursed, she was 
 struck with the whiteness of its skin, and ex- 
 perienced an almost irresistible desire to tear
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 19 
 
 it to pieces. She felt afraid that she should 
 not have power to resist this desire, and there- 
 fore begged to be allowed to leave the house 
 that she might be in no danger of committing 
 so great a crime.* 
 
 Some other cases are also given by M. Es- 
 quirol where the desire to commit an atrocious 
 act was accompanied by a full conception of 
 its enormity ; was resisted, and finally over- 
 come. 
 
 Cases of this kind have been considered by 
 some as a peculiar type of insanity. By 
 French authors it is entitled manie sans delire. 
 Dr. Prichard styles it instinctive madness, I 
 ani inclined nevertheless to refer such de- 
 ranged propensities in some instances to a 
 peculiar and morbid state of sensation, and 
 these will come under the head we are now 
 considering, consequently the desire is not 
 irresistible, though strong, for we see that it 
 has been successfully resisted : in others I 
 should refer it to the second class under the 
 head of" Inefficiency of the intellectual force," 
 and then it depends on the resolution of the 
 person so affected whether the morbid sensa- 
 
 * Esquirol, Maladies mentales, vol. ii. p. 807.
 
 20 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 lion shall be meditated on and indulged, and 
 thus acquire fresh force, or whether by exciting 
 other sensations, it shall be weakened, and by 
 degrees vanquished.* 
 
 There is no greater error than to suppose, 
 that thinking about a propensity which ought 
 not to be gratified, will conquer it: on the 
 contrary, every hour of lonely thought gives 
 it fresh force but let the man plunge into 
 business that must be attended to, or even a 
 lighter occupation, so it be an engrossing one ; 
 and do this resolutely, however irksome it 
 may at first appear, and the very repose thus 
 given to the diseased part, if there be disease, 
 by throwing the whole stress on other portions 
 of the brain, will assist in effecting the cure. 
 
 The maid-servant who sought to avoid the 
 sight of the child, did wisely : fresh objects of 
 attention would relieve the part subjected to 
 a morbid affection, and in a short time it 
 would recover its tone. If there be no disease, 
 the self-control thus begun will gradually 
 eradicate the depraved inclination. This cure 
 for insanity was known long ago : Celsus re- 
 commends committing things to memory ; 
 
 * Vide Appendix D.
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 21 
 
 and everyone who has given a rational atten- 
 tion to the subject, has been earnest in recom- 
 mending 1 application to some study which 
 should occupy the mind without agitating the 
 feelings, as one of the most effectual modes of 
 counteracting morbid impressions. The con- 
 stant repetition of this recommendation, shews 
 that it must have been sometimes found effec- 
 tual, and, if so, it can only be on the prin- 
 ciple that I have advanced namely, the ex- 
 istence of a power in man to direct the opera- 
 tion of the brain, unless it be in a state of 
 such complete disorganization as to be inca- 
 pable of any. 
 
 14. Imbecility of intellect, whether conge- 
 nital or produced by subsequent injury, as in 
 the case of the young seaman I have men- 
 tioned, is equally under the rule of the guiding 
 power. I believe no instance has been found 
 of incapacity so complete as to preclude moral 
 government, if due attention be paid. I will 
 take an instance of this from the work of the 
 younger Pinel. A young girl, hydrocepha- 
 lous from her birth, was received into the hos- 
 pital of La Salpetriere, at Paris. She was six- 
 teen years of age, but in a state of most com- 
 plete brutishness : her look stupid ; her limbs
 
 22 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 as small as those of a child of six years old. 
 She was as incapable of understanding as of 
 acting. After the lapse of a few months a 
 nurse, who had taken a liking to her, succeeded 
 in teaching her first to hold the knitting nee- 
 dles, and then to knit ; then to articulate a few 
 words and phrases, till, at the end of a year, 
 she could talk readily, and reply rationally to 
 the questions that were asked her, though there 
 was a degree of mental imbecility. A remark- 
 able change, observes M. Pinel, since the time 
 of her admission, when she appeared a mere 
 senseless machine. Wherever the mind is 
 capable of connecting cause and effect, moral 
 impressions may be made ; therefore this un- 
 happy child, with early culture, might have 
 been rendered capable of self-control, and pro- 
 bably of a much greater advance in mental 
 power. 
 
 15. I think I have now produced grounds 
 for assuming that there is no one of the morbid 
 affections of the brain and nerves, which I have 
 placed in my first class, which necessarily ren- 
 ders the individual an irresponsible agent. 
 There are too many authenticated cases in 
 which a rational self-government has been 
 exercised, even under these afflicting circum-
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 23 
 
 stances, to leave any doubt of its possibility. 
 How much previous mental culture may be 
 required to make this possible, is another ques- 
 tion : it is sufficient for me here to establish this 
 one great principle, that diseases of the brain and 
 nervous system, however distressing, may and do, 
 where the mind has been duly cultivated, leave 
 the individual capable of knowing right from 
 wrong, and of seeking exterior aid to combat the 
 effects of mental derangement consequent on dis~ 
 ease a derangement of which he is either 
 conscious at the time, or has an anticipatory 
 knowledge of, which enables him rationally to 
 provide against its violence. 
 
 The second class of mental derangement 
 will afford a more melancholy contemplation. 
 In the first we have seen man's nobler part 
 triumphing over all the ills of the body, and 
 vindicating his claim to an immortal nature. 
 In the second, we shall have to look on his 
 degradation, and to note the consequences of 
 neglected education, of unregulated passions, 
 of vice, of misery, and, alas that it should be 
 so ! of mismanagement also !
 
 24 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 II. 
 
 16. IT will be recollected that when I for- 
 merly treated of the functions of the brain, I 
 shewed its constitution to be such, that in the 
 mere animal it was little else than the recipient 
 of sensation, by which indeed its hemispheres 
 might be excited to something like contrivance 
 ere the motor nerves received the impulse, 
 but that, until the intelligent will assumed the 
 sway over it, even in man it was merely the 
 tool of the animal instinct: and I added 
 that, like all other bodily organs, it might, by 
 disuse, become so impaired in its capability 
 as finally to be in the state of a limb never 
 developed by exercise, which the will strives 
 in vain to direct. When a man has reached 
 mature age without making any effort to ren- 
 der the brain subservient to the rational will, 
 the fatigue and even pain consequent on the en- 
 deavour to obtain the mastery over it, is such 
 that few have resolution to undergo it volun- 
 tarily. Thus the man subsides more and more 
 into the animal, and is at last guided only by 
 those instinctive emotions which belong to the 
 vital force merely. His passions assume a deli-
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 25 
 
 rious violence, and he is only distinguished 
 from the brute by the greater skill with which 
 he pursues their gratification. There is no 
 disease of brain, but it has been left unexer- 
 cised and ungoverned, till it is as unmanage- 
 able as a limb that has been treated in the 
 same way. Toes have been used for writing 
 and other arts which are usually performed by 
 fingers ; they are capable therefore of such use, 
 but those who have constantly worn shoes 
 cannot direct one toe separately from the rest, 
 as they can the fingers. Yet with much trouble 
 this power of directing might be acquired. It 
 is thus that the brain, unaccustomed to direc- 
 tion from the intellectual force, rebels against 
 it, and if this latter fails to assert its sway, it 
 may justly be termed inefficient. In a man 
 thus animalized, the actions differ from those 
 of his more spiritualized fellow men, who hap- 
 pily are more numerous ; and when they find 
 no such motive as they would consider a suf- 
 ficient one, for his conduct, they call him mad, 
 by way of accounting for it. He commits a 
 crime, and the plea of insanity is set up as a 
 shelter from punishment. I will give an in- 
 stance. It is recorded by the elder Pinel. " An 
 only son, educated by a silly and indulgent
 
 26 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 mother, was accustomed to give way to all his 
 passions without restraint. As he grew up, the 
 violence of his temper became quite uncontrol- 
 lable, and he was constantly involved in quar- 
 rels and law-suits. If an animal offended him, 
 he instantly killed it; yet, when calm, he was 
 quite reasonable, managed his large estate 
 with propriety, and was even known to be be- 
 neficent to the poor: but one day, provoked 
 to rage by a woman who abused him, he threw 
 her into a well. On his trial, so many wit- 
 nesses deposed to the violence of his actions, 
 that he was condemned to imprisonment in a 
 mad-house."* Yet any choleric man who 
 does in his rage what he is sorry for after- 
 wards, is as much insane as this man was: 
 both are under the influence of the vital force. 
 A shock to some nerve of sensation stimu- 
 lates the sympathetic system : the circulation 
 is hurried, and the blood Mowing more rapidly 
 through the brain, gives an unusual activity 
 to the motor nerves the movements are 
 sudden and violent, the speech hurried, loud, 
 and perhaps incoherent : but the intellectual 
 force knows the source of these symptoms, and 
 can curb them by resolute silence and inaction 
 
 * Pinel, Alienation mentale, p. 156.
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 27 
 
 till the blood again flows at its usual pace : 
 if it does not, the man for the time is in a state 
 of mania, but is not the less responsible for 
 having allowed himself to be so. 
 
 17. Let us suppose another case : the thing 
 is so constantly seen, that every one could 
 quote examples of it. A man unaccustomed 
 to self-control, becomes occupied by one 
 thought: his ambition has been disappointed 
 perhaps, or a law-suit has plagued him, or he 
 has been much employed in some engrossing 
 pursuit. Unable to regulate his thoughts at 
 will, he finds the one which circumstances 
 have made habitual, recur uncalled for. An 
 effort would dismiss it, for every one who has 
 studied, knows that he has had to dismiss 
 many an intruding thought, and with some 
 effort too, if he wished to make progress in 
 what he had undertaken : but this individual 
 has never been accustomed to make any such 
 effort, and he knows not how to free himself 
 from the subject that thus haunts him. If it 
 be an unpleasant one, he is wearied and worn 
 by it; but every day that it is not driven off, 
 it assumes a greater power, for the part of the 
 brain thus brought into action is now by 
 habit rendered more fit for use than any other: 
 he has not resolution enough to free him-
 
 28 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 self from his tormentor by a determined appli- 
 cation to something else which would require 
 all his attention : he sits brooding over it, and, 
 when life has thus become irksome, he strives 
 to terminate his discomfort by suicide : yet 
 here is no structural disease; and if the man 
 could be persuaded to exert himself, he might 
 be sane. I will give an instance. The master 
 of a parish workhouse, about thirty years ago, 
 was subjected frequently to groundless sus- 
 picions of peculation. Being naturally a taci- 
 turn, low-spirited man, these false accusations, 
 which involved his character, and conse- 
 quently the maintenance of his family, preyed 
 upon his mind, and a profound melancholy 
 was the result, attended by the usual sympto- 
 matic derangement of the digestive functions, 
 and a constant apprehension that he had done 
 something wrong; he did not know what. 
 No assurance on the part of those who knew 
 and esteemed him had any effect, and finally- 
 after some months of melancholy, he at- 
 tempted to destroy himself. He was then re- 
 moved to St. Luke's Hospital, whence, after 
 a year had elapsed, he was discharged incur- 
 able. He was now placed in a private recep- 
 tacle of the insane, and here suffered all the
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 29 
 
 misery which at that time pauper lunatics 
 were subjected to. He was visited at this 
 place by a benevolent man, who, seeing his 
 state, immediately ordered him to be removed 
 into the gentlemen's apartments, and paid for 
 his maintenance there. In a few months after- 
 wards, he was visited by the clergyman of his 
 parish, who, on conversing with him, consi- 
 dered him sane. The man begged to be al_ 
 lowed to rejoin his wife and family, and the 
 rector, after many difficulties and some threats 
 to the parish authorities, succeeded in setting 
 him free. The man from that time was able 
 to maintain his family by his trade of shoe- 
 making, for if ever a fit of melancholy came 
 over him, a threat from his wife that he should 
 be sent back to the madhouse, was sufficient 
 to engage him to make an effort to resume his 
 cheerfulness, and he remained to old age a 
 sane man. Here the insanity had been merely 
 inefficiency of the intellectual force. Placed in 
 a situation of comparative ease, his mind had 
 become calm ; the wish to return to his wife 
 and family, and the hope of it, kept up by the 
 visits of benevolent friends, did the rest ; for, 
 be it observed that during the whole time he 
 never felt himself abandoned.
 
 30 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 18. The poor and the uneducated are the 
 classes which most usually suffer from the 
 inefficiency of the intellectual force : it is among 1 
 the higher ranks usually that its misdirection 
 is a source of insanity. Among these, more 
 distant objects of pursuit keep the thoughts 
 longer upon the stretch towards one point ; 
 the organs of mechanical memory are strength- 
 ened, nay, even strained by the habit of learn- 
 ing much by rote, while the constant supply 
 of learning ready-made leaves no necessity 
 for the more laborious processes of reasoning 
 and comparison. Hence we not unfrequentlv 
 find an elegant scholar, who can readily quote 
 the words and opinions of others, unable him- 
 self to carry on a course of close argument, or 
 to prove the truth of what he advances. Who- 
 ever has moved in society, knows that it is 
 rare to meet with any one who can command 
 his thoughts in conversation sufficiently to 
 reject all that is not relevant to the subject, 
 so as to keep on the chain of reasoning un- 
 broken. 
 
 When the mind is thus exercised in remem- 
 bering the opinions of others, thus unaccus- 
 tomed accurately to examine its own, what 
 wonder is it if it should become prepossessed
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 31 
 
 \vitb some irrational notion which cannot be 
 removed by reasoning, because the individual 
 man in his healthiest state had never chosen 
 so to exercise his mind ; or if, when a delusion 
 of sense occurs, he should choose rather to 
 act upon it as truth, than to examine into the 
 grounds he has for believing it to be such. It 
 is a melancholy fact, that a great number of 
 mankind are in this state as regards the facul- 
 ties most requisite to self-control, and depend 
 far more on the accident of good health, than 
 the exertion of their own intellectual power, 
 for their sanity. 1 have heard of more than 
 one instance of hard livers, as they were termed, 
 who probably in consequence of a slight affec- 
 tion of the brain from the unnatural stimulus 
 of wine long kept up, became possessed with 
 an opinion that they were slighted by one or 
 more, of their friends ; and, resisting all rea- 
 soning on the subject, ended by destroying 
 themselves. Yet, they were rational on other 
 matters of importance, and therefore it is to 
 be concluded, that, even on this point they 
 were capable of being rational also, had they 
 chosen to make the exertion. It is recorded 
 of Henri of Bourbon son of the great Conde, 
 that at times he imagined himself transformed
 
 32 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 into a dog, and would then bark violently. 
 Once this notion seized him whilst in the 
 King's presence: he then felt it needful to 
 control himself, and he did so : for though he 
 turned to the window and made grimaces as 
 if barking, he made no noise.* Had the 
 King's eye been upon him, it is probable that 
 he would have avoided the grimaces also. 
 
 19. Insanity from misdirection of the intel- 
 lectual force is so various in its forms, that it 
 would be impossible to give instances of all ; 
 but it has one very general character namely, 
 that at first there are very few symptoms, if 
 any, of structural disease. Some derangement 
 of general health may be observed, but even 
 this is not constant, or, at least, not sufficient 
 in many instances to excite attention : it seems 
 therefore not unreasonable to conclude, that 
 the evil originates rather in the misuse than 
 in the impairment of the organ. Thoughts 
 too long and too intensely fixed on one object, 
 weary the part of the brain so employed, and 
 we usually then seek relief by varying our 
 occupation : if this is not done, the weariness 
 may end in disease. 
 
 * Pinel, Alienation mentale, p. 393.
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 33 
 
 I remember being told by a friend, that 
 having determined to commit to memory a 
 certain number of Greek primitives every day, 
 after persisting some time, he found that 
 though competent to other study, this wearied 
 him. Resolved not to be thus mastered, he 
 persevered in spite of weariness, but in a short 
 time delirium came on. He took the hint, 
 laid aside the Greek primitives, and recovered 
 himself very quickly. Here the misuse of 
 the organ had produced temporary disease: 
 had the subject been one not so easy to lay 
 aside, the temporary disease might have be- 
 come permanent ; especially if the engrossing 
 thought were one originating in instinctive 
 emotion which always influences the circula- 
 tion largely, and thus is likely to induce an 
 unnatural rush of blood through the brain. 
 
 " The indulgence of violent emotions," ob- 
 serves Dr. Conolly, " is singularly detrimental 
 to the human understanding and it is to be 
 presumed, that the unmeasured emotions of 
 insanity are sometimes perpetuated in conse- 
 quence of the disorder of brain originally in- 
 duced by their violence. A man is at first 
 only irritable, but gives way to his irritability. 
 Whatever temporarily interferes with any
 
 34 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 bodily or mental function, reproduces the 
 disposition to be irritated, and circumstances 
 are never wanting to act upon this disposition 
 till it becomes a disease. The state of the 
 brain or part of the brain, which is produced 
 whenever the feeling of irritation is renewed, 
 is more easily induced at each renewal, and 
 concurs with the moral habit to bring on the 
 paroxysm on every slight occasion other 
 vehement emotions and passions effect the 
 same disorders of the mind." 
 
 Time will not allow me to do more than 
 quote the conclusions drawn by this very able 
 writer from his preceding observations. " See- 
 ing that any feeling in excess may become 
 independent of the restraint of the comparing 
 powers, and thus impair or disorder the un- 
 derstanding, we cannot but remark the im- 
 portance of cherishing that governing and 
 protecting action of the mind by careful culti- 
 vation and exercise. Whoever will converse 
 with lunatics, will soon be satisfied that a very 
 small portion of them consists of persons 
 whose talents have been regularly and judi- 
 ciously cultivated"* for "those who most 
 
 * Conolly's Inquiry concerning the Indications of In- 
 sanity, p. 102.
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 35 
 
 exercise the faculties of their minds are least 
 liable to insanity, and nothing is rarer than 
 to find a mad mathematician : for, as no study 
 demands more attention than mathematics, 
 so it secures the student during a great part 
 of his time, from the recurrence of feelings 
 which are always the most imperious in those 
 who are the least occupied."* 
 
 20. The diseases which come under the last 
 division of my classification are the most dis- 
 couraging, for here either the organs requisite 
 to correct perception are wanting, or there is 
 adhesion or other disease which impedes their 
 action. Yet even among those apparently 
 hopeless cases, we find such unequivocal 
 symptoms of a struggle between the intellectual 
 force and the defective organs, that it becomes 
 probable at least, that this very struggle may 
 be made to operate beneficially on the dis- 
 eased parts, as we find a palsied limb bene- 
 fitted by the attempt to use it. M. Esquirol 
 in his work " les Maladies mentales, observes 
 that among his idiotic patients at Charenton, 
 he had generally found a physical difficulty 
 in fixing the attention even where there was a 
 
 * Ibid, p. 347.
 
 36 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 wish to do so. In other words, the organs 
 did not respond to the will which endeavoured 
 to direct them. He mentions that he had 
 wished to have plaster casts of the heads of 
 many of his patients, and that with the ma- 
 niacs he had succeeded. Even the most 
 furious had consented to keep quiet long 
 enough for this purpose : a strong proof, by 
 the by, of the immense power of the intellec- 
 tual will even in such cases, if a motive can 
 be found strong enough to induce its exer- 
 tion but the idiots could never keep their 
 eyes shut, and themselves quiet, long enough 
 to complete the operation, though they were 
 anxious to do so. " I have seen some," says 
 he, " who wept because the casts had not 
 succeeded, and undertook afresh and for seve- 
 ral successive times to remain quiet, but always 
 in vain."* I have myself heard of an instance 
 of a girl of weak intellect who wept bitterly 
 because she could not learn as others did. 
 There can hardly be a doubt, that in these 
 cases moral training, which happily requires 
 no great effort of memory or stretch of thought, 
 
 * Esquirol, Maladies mentales. Vol. i. p. 21. Vide 
 Appendix E.
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 37 
 
 might be perfectly practicable. The strong 
 will is there ; imprisoned indeed, with scarcely 
 a glimmering of light from this lower world, 
 but it is still potent, and I have had more than 
 one case communicated to me, where, though 
 the individual possessed not enough of intel- 
 lect to be entrusted with the management of 
 the most trifling affairs, his moral sense seemed 
 unimpaired, and his conduct was exemplary. 
 In one instance, the father was a blacksmith ; 
 and the imbecile son had been taught to strike 
 with the great hammer, which he did perse- 
 veringly when told to do so, and thus earned 
 a subsistence, though his limbs had the usual 
 shambling movement of idiots, and though 
 he was scarcely able to express his meaning 
 by words. On one occasion he accidentally 
 killed a neighbour's goose by throwing a 
 stOne he was inconsolable, and could only 
 be pacified by the fullest restitution to the 
 owner. In this case, the intellectual force 
 had been wisely employed to counteract the 
 natural defect, for the man became more and 
 more capable as years passed on ; and finally 
 having earned enough to supply his frugal 
 subsistence and allow of saving besides, he 
 spent the last years of his life in repose a
 
 38 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 respected member of society for though his 
 mental deficiency \vas known, he was hon- 
 oured for the worthy use he made of the little 
 capacity he possessed. Such probably might 
 have been the happier history of many an 
 unfortunate being- now abandoned to a state 
 of brutalism, if those about him had done 
 their duty towards him in early life. 
 
 III. 
 
 21. Of course in the investigation of a sub- 
 ject which might occupy a year more fitly 
 than an hour, I have had to select my infor- 
 mation, and compress it into the smallest 
 possible space : yet I cannot but flatter myself 
 that I have given enough to bear out my 
 opinion, that man has in the resources of his 
 own nature the antagonist power which, if 
 properly used, can set at naught the evils, ay, 
 and the so called irresistible propensities too, 
 of the bodily organism. So nicely balanced 
 indeed is the machine, that a grain can turn 
 it to either side, but it is in the power of the 
 will to cast that grain. Cast on the side of 
 instinct, the propensity becomes passion, and 
 the passion crime, and both are for the time
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 39 
 
 insanity : For when once the intelligent will 
 has lent its force to the blind impulses of the 
 body, whether diseased or in health, it becomes 
 only a question of time whether the individual 
 is to be called insane and placed under res- 
 traint or not. The man who recovers quickly 
 from his madness is called a sane man, 
 though during the few preceding minutes or 
 hours he may have exhibited the flushed face, 
 the rapid and violent language and gestures, 
 and the unreasoning conclusions of a maniac : 
 but, strange to say, if this be very frequent, 
 he is excused and considered innocent of the 
 crimes he perpetrates, exactly because he has 
 committed the greatest of all crimes by deli- 
 vering over his godlike intellect to be the 
 sport of that brute nature which it ought to 
 regulate. There can hardly be a stronger 
 proof of the necessity of some such classifica- 
 tion of mental derangement as I have pro- 
 posed. 
 
 22. It is observed by those professionally 
 conversant with the subject, that up to fifteen 
 years of age cases of insanity are very rare : 
 after that period, and during the period of 
 maturity, they are frequent so frequent, that 
 statistical reports give a proportion of one in
 
 40 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 between six and seven hundred of the whole 
 population of England of persons so affected. 
 As far as regards age, the statistics of crime 
 give us nearly the same results -as those of 
 insanity. I have been informed by two gen- 
 tlemen who had large opportunities of obser- 
 vation, one in a manufacturing, the other in 
 an agricultural district, that sixty per cent of 
 the offences attended with violence which 
 have come under their notice, have been com- 
 mitted by persons between fifteen and thirty 
 to which we may add that crime and insanity 
 generally keep pace. During the French 
 Revolution of 1793, when men were let loose 
 to commit all sorts of violence, insanity in- 
 creased to a frightful extent: with the resto- 
 ration of order, it again decreased; and in 
 England I believe it will be found that in 
 proportion as criminals have become more 
 numerous, the registers of lunatic asylums 
 shew that the numbers of their inmates have 
 also increased. Something must be allowed 
 for the larger population : but even where 
 that is allowed for, I am afraid we shall find 
 that both are growing evils. 
 
 23. Even had we paid no attention to the 
 symptoms and the state of the mentally de-
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 41 
 
 'ranged, this parallelism would give some 
 cause for inquiry whether the two might not 
 be in some way connected : and if, as I have 
 inferred from a close examination of cases, 
 violent and unreasonable insanity is most 
 frequently the result of either a frivolous and 
 ill-governed mind, or of loose moral prin- 
 ciples; for excesses of all kinds affect the 
 brain fearfully* then the connexion between 
 the two becomes sufficiently apparent, and 
 the remedy for both would be a sound and 
 -moral education. A brain strengthened by 
 rational exercise, not merely by committing 
 words to memory, but by applying the power 
 of thought to whatever subject is presented, 
 and neither exhausted nor loaded by irregu- 
 larities of life, is but little likely to be attacked 
 by disease: but if it be, mental derangement 
 may occur, but not mischievous insanity : 
 and thus the larger half of the evil is removed. 
 24. But how has the danger of such a ca- 
 lamity, frightful as it is, been met by poor 
 and rich ? A country with an extensive fron- 
 tier exposed to invasion from powerful ene- 
 mies, if its governors be wise, erects fortifica- 
 
 * Vide Appendix F.
 
 42 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 tions, forms strong alliances, and disciplines 
 its inhabitants in the use of arms. Every 
 child is in the situation of such a country, 
 but are its governors wise? Where are its 
 fortifications of mental occupation its alli- 
 ance with a better world its discipline of 
 self-control ? The reports of commissioners 
 lately made public, have given a fearful an- 
 swer to the question as regards the poor. 
 Are the rich better cared for? What advantage 
 does the child receive from its educated pa- 
 rents ? Its clothing is finer, its food more deli- 
 cate; but during those six precious years 
 when the brain is acquiring the bent which 
 may form the character through life, it is 
 consigned to the nursery: to the companion- 
 ship of uneducated and misjudging, perhaps 
 vicious, at any rate, uninterested persons: 
 shut out, even more than the children of the 
 poor, from the experience of life, with no con- 
 versation to stimulate the young brain to fur- 
 ther developement, no principles instilled, no 
 curiosity gratified. A dull routine of lessons 
 is perhaps carried on, taxing the tender organ 
 beyond its powers thus inducing instead of 
 preventing disease, while the inquisitiveness, 
 which seems the very instinct of childhood,
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 43 
 
 and the attempt to reason on what is pro- 
 pounded, are sternly repressed : obedience, 
 not s/management is enforced : and the 
 child grows up, notwithstanding the shew of 
 learning or accomplishment, with an unregu- 
 lated mind, ignorant of man's best knowledge, 
 motiveless, and dependent on circumstances. 
 The boy is then to be sent forth into a world 
 full of difficulties, to sink or swim : to make 
 a character for himself if he can : As well 
 might troops begin to make their muskets 
 when the enemy is in sight. 
 
 25. But if this be the case as regards the 
 male sex, how much more fearfully then is it 
 of the female ! Here the Drawing-room but 
 perpetuates the inertness of the Nursery, 
 and woman, so largely endowed by nature, is 
 degraded by social prejudice, and the frivo- 
 lous education consequent upon it, till she is 
 left at the mercy of events, the creature of 
 impulse and of instinct. Yet physiologists 
 have demonstrated that the organs of thought 
 are proportionably larger in woman than in 
 man :* and many a bright example has shewn 
 how well they can be employed. One plain 
 statistical fact shows that no terms that I can 
 
 * Vide Appendix,
 
 44 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 use in the reprobation of this cruel system 
 can be too strong. The registers of Lunatic 
 Asylums show the number of female patients 
 to exceed that of males by nearly one third.* 
 We have the assurance of professional men 
 well experienced in the treatment of the in- 
 sane, that nothing is more rare than to find 
 among them a person of a judiciously culti- 
 vated mind ; and yet, with this fact staring us 
 in the face, we systematically consign the mo- 
 thers of the rising generation to a species of 
 training which leaves them and their families a 
 prey to one of the worst ills that flesh is heir to. 
 We need not ask what woman's destination 
 is nature has written it in characters too clear 
 to be mistaken : the large development of the 
 intellectual organs, and the feeble muscular 
 power, mark her for the high-minded purifier 
 of society her strength must be that of know- 
 ledge: yet, we refuse the kind of culture 
 which such an organization requires, hide 
 the victim of mis-management in a madhouse 
 
 * \Yebster's Observations on the Admission of Medical 
 Pupils to the Wards of Bethlem Hospital, p. 52. Tbough 
 the observation is there made on the registers of the 
 Hospitals and Asylums for Lunatics in France, it holds 
 good equally with respect to England.
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 45 
 
 and then talk proudly about an enlightened 
 age! 
 
 26. Should my position, that the difference 
 between sanity and insanity consists in the 
 degree of self-control exercised, appear para- 
 doxical to any one, let him note for a short 
 time the thoughts that pass through his mind, 
 and the feelings that agitate him : and he will 
 6nd that, were they all expressed and in- 
 dulged, they would be as wild, and perhaps 
 as frightful in their consequences as those of 
 any madman. But the man of strong mind 
 represses them, and seeks fresh impressions 
 from without if he finds that aid needful : the 
 man of weak mind yields to them, and then 
 he is insane. 
 
 That this is the true view of the case, may 
 be proved from the innumerable cases where 
 insanity has been cured, not by any medical 
 treatment, but by fear of what was unpleasant ; 
 or some deep impression which sufficed to 
 counteract the former one. Dr. Conolly 
 mentions that in the Glasgow Lunatic Asylum, 
 a patient afflicted with religious melancholy 
 had made up his mind to destroy himself, but 
 that a short passage from the Scriptures, im- 
 pressively and kindly spoken to him, not only
 
 46 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 prevented the commission of suicide at the 
 time, but had the effect of permanently check- 
 ing the tendency to it. The same dreadful 
 thoughts frequently returned to the patient's 
 mind, hut the recollection that "no murderer 
 hath eternal life" returned also, and the crime 
 was refrained from.* This man then had the 
 power to restrain himself: yet had those 
 words never been spoken, and had he com- 
 mitted suicide, he would have been held in- 
 sane and incapable of doing otherwise. I 
 must not multiply examples, though it would 
 be very possible, but will merely quote the 
 words of a Physician in extensive practice, 
 lately addressed to myself. "I completely 
 coincide with you in opinion," says he, " as 
 to the power of the will in suppressing the 
 manifestation of insanity a fact sufficiently 
 illustrated by the dexterity with which the 
 insane contrive to conceal their delusions ; of 
 which I, in common with others, have seen 
 many examples. I have often observed with 
 astonishment that when patients are put upon 
 their guard, or have any purpose to achieve, 
 they will keep their hallucination out of sight 
 
 * Conolly's Inquiry, &c. p, 25.
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 47 
 
 in a most surprising manner. What is now 
 fashionably termed monomania, is more often 
 owing to a want of moral control over the 
 mind than to any unsoundness of the intellec- 
 tual faculties : so that in fact it ought to be 
 viewed as moral depravity rather than mental 
 disorder." This is strikingly exemplified in a 
 case recorded by M. Georget, of a young man 
 seventeen years of age, who, after committing 
 all sorts of outrages, finished by murdering 
 his father. On seeing the dead body of his 
 parent a short time after, he addressed it with 
 -" Ah, my dear father, where are you now?" 
 and after some other remarks he concluded 
 " It is you and my mother who have caused 
 this misfortune I foretold it you a long time 
 ago : but if you had brought me up better, 
 it would not have been thus."* 
 
 I may add in corroboration of the opinion 
 here expressed that instances are by no means 
 rare, when the post-mortem examination in 
 cases of decided and violent insanity, has 
 exhibited no apparent sign of disease in the 
 brain ; a circumstance which of course would 
 lead to a suspicion that the morbid affection 
 
 * Georget, Discussion Mdico-16gale sur la Folie, p. 144.
 
 48 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO 
 
 was rather functional than structural. It has 
 been observed to me by a distinguished 
 friend, who formerly filled the office of Secre- 
 tary of State in the Home Department, that 
 the increase of crime has generally been in 
 the ratio of the want of employment for the 
 people ; and that it is probable that the same 
 cause may operate towards increasing insanity. 
 A mind kept on the stretch with thinking how 
 the next meal may be provided, or sunk in 
 the apathy which, among uncultivated peo- 
 ple, the lack of any call upon the attention is 
 apt to produce, may well operate in diseasing 
 an organ which will neither bear too much 
 exercise nor too little. 
 
 27. The result then of the whole inquiry 
 appears to be, that man being a compound of 
 two natures, mental derangement is of two 
 kinds. In the one kind, structural disease 
 deadens or distorts the perceptions, and if 
 this extends itself to the organs of all the 
 faculties, the intellectual force having no 
 longer the means of external action, the indi- 
 vidual remains to all appearance a helpless 
 machine. But, as such extensive structural 
 disease is hardly compatible with life, so it is 
 of very rare occurrence, and, if any part of the
 
 PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 49 
 
 organ remain perfect, then there is good rea- 
 son to hope, that a mind thoroughly well- 
 trained in early years, will still contrive to 
 make the little that is left available to con- 
 duct, if not to the higher intellectual func- 
 tions : as we see the loss of the right hand 
 replaced in some degree by the increased 
 activity of the left. But in the other case, no 
 structural disease exists in the first instance, 
 and the inefficiency or misdirection of the in^ 
 tellectual force is the sole cause of derange- 
 ment: sometimes by the violence of the ex- 
 citement producing disease, sometimes, as I 
 have already noticed, continuing to the last 
 without affecting the bodily organs. 
 
 28. The cases of insanity, we are told, have 
 nearly tripled within the last twenty years ! 
 a fearful increase even after allowing to the 
 utmost for a larger population ! of these 
 cases it is calculated that less than three hun- 
 dred * in one thousand arethe result of disease, 
 or of unavoidable circumstances, thus leaving 
 above seven hundred resulting from bodily 
 excess or mental misgovernment. On the 
 heads then of legislators, of teachers, and of 
 
 * Vide Appendix H. 
 E
 
 50 MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF. 
 
 parents, lies the heavy charge of having in 
 all these instances, left those godlike faculties 
 uncultivated, which, if duly used, might make 
 earth the ante-room of heaven, and man the 
 fit Vice-gerent of the Deity in this fair world. 
 What man is generally, and what the world 
 is in consequence, I need not detail. We all 
 know and feel it. Would to heaven we all 
 knew what man can be, and had felt what the 
 world might be were he such !
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A. 
 
 " A STRIKING instance is on record, which 
 -V. does not on first sight seem to admit of 
 explanation. It is that of Nicholai, of Berlin, 
 related by himself to the Royal Society of that 
 city in 1799. He was a man of much imagina- 
 tion and great industry; during the year 1790, 
 he had been subjected to causes of great anxiety 
 and sorrow ; and it would seem that he had that 
 year also neglected to lose blood by venesection 
 or leeches so frequently as for some years, in 
 consequence of vertigo and other complaints 
 resulting from studious and sedentary habits of 
 life, he had been accustomed to do. Early in 
 February, several incidents of a disagreeable 
 nature occurred to him ; and on the 24th of that 
 month he relates : ' At ten o'clock in the fore- 
 noon my wife and another person came to con- 
 sole me : I was in a great perturbation of mind, 
 owing to a series of incidents which had alto- 
 gether wounded my moral feelings, and from 
 which 1 saw no possibility of relief; when sud- 
 denly I observed at the distance of ten paces
 
 52 APPENDIX A. 
 
 from me a figure, the figure of a deceased person. 
 I pointed at it, and asked my wife whether she 
 did not see it. She saw nothing, but being 
 much alarmed, endeavoured to compose me and 
 sent for a physician. The figure remained some 
 seven or eight minutes, and at length I became 
 a little more calm.' ' In the afternoon a little 
 after four o'clock, the figure, which I had seen 
 in the morning, again appeared. I was alone 
 when this happened : a circumstance, which, as 
 may easily be conceived, could not be very 
 agreeable. I went, therefore, to the apartment 
 of my wife, to whom I related it. But thither 
 also the figure pursued me. Sometimes it was 
 present, sometimes it was absent, but it was 
 always the same standing figure.' ' A fter I had 
 recovered from my first impression of terror, 
 I never felt myself particularly agitated by 
 these apparitions, as I considered them to be, 
 what they really were, the extraordinary con- 
 sequences of indisposition : on the contrary I en- 
 deavoured as much as possible to preserve my 
 composure of mind, that I might remain dis- 
 tinctly conscious of what passed within me. I 
 observed those phantoms with great accuracy, and 
 very often reflected on my previous thoughts, 
 with a view to discover some law in the associa- 
 tion of ideas, by which exactly these or other 
 figures might present themselves to the imagina-
 
 APPENDIX A. 53 
 
 tion.' ' The figure of the deceased person never 
 appeared to me after the first dreadful day, but 
 several other figures showed themselves after- 
 wards, very distinctly; sometimes such as I 
 knew, mostly, however, of persons I did not 
 know ; and amongst those known to me were 
 the semblances of both living and deceased per- 
 sons, but mostly the former : and I made the 
 observation that acquaintance with whom I 
 daily conversed, never appeared to me as phan- 
 tasms : it was always such as were at a distance. 
 When these apparitions had continued for some 
 weeks, and I could regard them with the greatest 
 composure, I afterwards endeavoured at my own 
 pleasure to call forth phantoms of several ac- 
 quaintance, whom I for that reason represented 
 to my imagination in the most lively manner, 
 but in vain.' ' The phantasms appeared to me 
 in many cases involuntarily, as if they had been 
 presented externally like the phenomena of na- 
 ture, though they certainly had their origin in- 
 ternally; and at the same time I was always 
 able to distinguish, with the greatest precision, 
 phantasms from phenomena. Indeed I never 
 once erred in this, as I was in general perfectly 
 calm and self-collected on the occasion. I knew 
 extremely well when it only appeared to me 
 that the door was opened, and a phantom entered, 
 and when the door really was opened, and any
 
 54 APPENDIX A. 
 
 person came in.' These figures appeared to 
 Nicholai when alone or when in company, or 
 even in the street, and continued to haunt him 
 for about, two months : at last they disappeared ; 
 sometimes returning for a time, and lastly, dur- 
 ing the time in which he was writing an account 
 of them. (Nicholson's Journal of Natural Phi- 
 losophy, Chemistry, and the Arts, vol. vi. p. 161). 
 A correspondent in the Journal from which I 
 have quoted the case of Nicholai, describes him- 
 self as having been the subject of such halluci- 
 nations during an attack of fever : he saw innu- 
 merable faces all very agreeable but fancying 
 that these appearances indicated a breaking up 
 of the system, and that the confusion of his 
 senses was but the precursor of his speedy de- 
 struction, the spectra assumed a character asso- 
 ciated with this uncheering belief; and instead 
 of the very prepossessing faces which had before 
 visited him, he beheld a visage of an enraged 
 expression, which seemed to belong to a figure 
 which pointed again at him. The patient began 
 to perceive the influence which his thoughts had 
 upon his waking visions, and voluntarilv directed 
 them towards architectural recollections and 
 natural scenery ; and, after some time, a corre- 
 sponding change came over the appearances 
 which were presented to him. He then turned 
 his thoughts towards music, and dreamed during
 
 APPENDIX A. 55 
 
 a short sleep that a cat leaped upon his back, 
 and awoke him with shrill and piercing screams. 
 The sleeping and the waking dreams were thus 
 plainly enough proved to be formed very much 
 in the same manner. 
 
 " A distinguished physiological writer of our 
 own country has related something similar which 
 occurred in his own person. ' I was labouring,' 
 he says, ' under a fever, attended with symp- 
 toms of general debility, especially of the ner- 
 vous system, and with a severe pain of the head, 
 which was confined to a small spot situated 
 above the right temple. After having passed a 
 sleepless night, and being reduced to a state of 
 considerable exhaustion, I first perceived figures 
 presenting themselves before me, which I imme- 
 diately recognized as similar to those described 
 by Nicholai, and upon which, as I was free from 
 delirium, and as they were visible for three days 
 and nights with little intermission, I was able to 
 make my observations. There were two circum- 
 stances which appeared to me very remarkable ; 
 first, that the spectral appearances always fol- 
 lowed the motion of the eyes: and secondly, 
 that the objects which were the best defined, and 
 remained the longest visible, were such as I had 
 no recollection of ever having previously seen. 
 For about twenty-four hours, I had constantly 
 before me a human figure, the features and
 
 56 APPENDIX B. 
 
 dress of which were as distinctly visible as that 
 of any real existence, and of which, after an in- 
 terval of many years, I still retain the most 
 lively impression : yet neither at the time nor 
 since, have I been able to discover any person 
 whom I had previously seen who resembled it. 
 During one part of this disease, after the disap- 
 pearance of the stationary phantom, I had a 
 very singular and amusing imagery presented 
 to me. It appeared as if a number of objects, 
 principally human faces or figures, on a small 
 scale, were placed before me, and gradually re- 
 moved, like a succession of medallions. They 
 were all of the same size, and appeared to be all 
 situated at the same distance from the face." 
 (Dr. Bostock's System of Physiology, vol. iii. p. 
 204). Conolly's Inquiry concerning ihe Indica- 
 tions of Insanity, p. 105. et seq. 
 
 B. 
 
 " T USED frequently to see a poor maniacal 
 -I- creature, in whose malady there were 
 many intervals of sanity : and during these in- 
 tervals she would grievously complain of the 
 annoyance she experienced from simultaneous 
 illusions of sight, smell, hearing, and general 
 sensation : all kinds of animals seemed to be 
 scampering before her ; the smell of brimstone,
 
 APPENDIX B. 57 
 
 and the continual sound of singing voices con- 
 spired to trouble her , and with all this her ex- 
 pression used to be that she felt " still, and as 
 if she could die at any moment," yet she was 
 at such times quite conscious that her sensations 
 were diseased, and was of sane mind : she could 
 exercise her observation on others, and by com- 
 parison of their unconcern with the false images 
 which her senses figured to be around them, 
 remain convinced that the images were unreal. 
 It may be remarked by way of example, that in 
 a fever the patient's bed will seem in flames : 
 or voices will whisper in his ear, &c. If we talk 
 with patients thus affected, some will tell us, in 
 a very quiet way, that they are thus tormented ; 
 others will seem confused, and make a visible 
 effort of sight and hearing before they tell us 
 how they are troubled ; and others will tell us 
 what they see, and what they hear, with an ex- 
 pressed belief, on their part, of the reality of what 
 we know to be delusion. Of these three classes 
 of patients, the last are in a state of delirium, 
 the second are approaching to it, the first are 
 in a state of sound mind." Conollys Inquiry, 
 c.. 115.
 
 58 APPENDIX C. 
 
 C. 
 
 A CURIOUS instance of the effect of fear 
 in the control and final cure of insanity 
 will be found in the treatise on alienation men- 
 tale in the Dictionnaire de Medecine et de 
 Chirurgie pratiques, p. 576. I quote the words 
 of the author M. Foville, " J'ai vu les prepara- 
 tifs de cette application (cautere actuel a la 
 nuque) causer une frayeur extreme a une jeune 
 maniaque qui j usque la n'avait pas eu un instant 
 de connaissance. Lorsqu'elle se sentit touchee 
 par le fer rouge, elle fit de tels efforts pour se 
 soustraire a son action qu'elle echappa aux mains 
 de plusieurs personnes employees a la contenir. 
 Pendant cinq minutes, elle jouit de toute sa 
 raison, demanda ce qu'on voulait d'elle, pria 
 avec instance qu'on 1'epargnat. M. Esquinol 
 lui dit qu'il consentait a differer 1'application du 
 cautere actuel a condition qu'elle se conduirait 
 raisonnablement, qu'elle se mettrait au travail. 
 Elle le promit, et tint parole ; elle fut immedi- 
 atement transferee dans la division des conva- 
 lescentes, oii la guerison devint parfaite en peu 
 de temps." He adds " Elle avoua, quand elle 
 fut guerie, que la frayeur causee par le fer rouge 
 avait plus que toute autre chose contribue a 
 ramener sa raison." The author of this treatise 
 adds farther that the actual cautery had no
 
 APPENDIX C. 59 
 
 beneficial effect in any cases where the pain was 
 not felt ; so that it is evident that, in the cases 
 where it succeeded, the success was owing to 
 the stimulus it gave to the will of the patient, 
 who, till then, had been too indolent to exert its 
 full power over the brain. Another case is 
 given by M. Pinel to exemplify the use of the 
 Douche, not only as a punishment, but also as 
 a means of suddenly diverting the thoughts of 
 the patient from the subject which is engrossing 
 them. A woman of strong constitution who 
 had been mad at intervals for ten years, was 
 most violent ; struck every one around her, tore 
 in pieces her clothes, bed clothes, &c., and was 
 perfectly unmanageable. On her admission 
 into the Saltpetriere, as soon as she began tear- 
 ing every thing around her, a strong douche 
 was applied, and she was fastened down in her 
 bed by a straight waistcoat. As soon as she 
 entreated for pardon she was released ; and on 
 a relapse the same means immediately re-adopted. 
 She became better, but the physician, under 
 whose superintendence alone these measures 
 were allowed to be used, fell ill during twelve 
 days. The patient relieved from all fear of 
 punishment fell into her old ways, and was as 
 bad as ever. The doctor then took his place 
 again, and threatened to punish her, of which 
 she took no heed. She was conducted to the
 
 60 APPENDIX D. 
 
 bath, and had a strong douche of cold water, 
 during which the doctor spoke to her strongly, 
 but without anger, and told her she would be 
 still more severely treated. She shed a torrent 
 of tears, became quite calm, and was soon after 
 cured. 
 
 These persons so capable of exerting mental 
 self-control, when thus urged to it by fear, 
 needed not to have been mad at all : the same 
 resolution that at last cured, would have pre- 
 vented madness, had it been exerted. 
 
 D. 
 
 I SHALL here give a case which M. Georget 
 has recorded in his " Discussion medico- 
 legale sur la fotie," on the authority of M. 
 Marc. From this case, and others of the same 
 kind, he infers that there is a degree of mental 
 disease ; " qui 6te a 1'homme sa liberte etle porte 
 a commettre des actes reprehensibles . . . il ex- 
 iste une monomanie homicide," and I give it for 
 the sake of showing the fallacy of the reasoning 
 by which he arrives at that conclusion. In this 
 case (Discussion, &c. p. 39) a woman, aged about 
 thirty, cut off the head of a child four years old, 
 the daughter of a poor man, who was driving 
 her and this child in a cart. She had the day 
 before prevailed on the man to give the child
 
 APPENDIX D. 61 
 
 the drive, and she got him out of the way on 
 some pretence while she perpetrated the crime. 
 It appeared on inquiry that there was a liti- 
 gation pending between this woman and a ser- 
 jeant's wife ; that the latter had obtained a 
 warrant against her ; that, flying from the officers 
 of justice, she took refuge with a person with 
 whom she was slightly acquainted, and whose 
 hospitality she obtained on this occasion on some 
 false pretence ; that, while she was considering 
 in what direction she should proceed, being 
 determined not to return home, the idea of mur- 
 dering the children of her entertainer occurred 
 to her ; from this plan she was however diverted 
 by the thought of the ingratitude of such a pro- 
 ceeding. She then resolved on selecting some 
 other child for the same purpose, when this 
 peasant offered her a seat in his cart to the 
 village. She found out that he had an only 
 daughter, whom she resolved on assassinating 
 on the following strange reasoning. " L'enfant 
 du paysan est fille unique ; moi aussi je suis fille 
 unique, et j'ai toujours ete tres malheureuse. 
 Un semblable sort est peut-etre reserve a cet 
 enfant ; en consequence, il vaut autant que ce 
 soit lui que je tue qu'un autre." For this pur- 
 pose she stole a knife from her host, and sharp- 
 ened it carefully that her victim might suffer 
 the least possible pain. There was evidence
 
 OJS APPENDIX D. 
 
 that she had previously been deranged, and she 
 was acquitted on the score of insanity. 
 
 Now it is observable, in this case, that so far 
 from being under an irresistible influence, this 
 woman could control herself. She felt the moral 
 turpitude of killing the children of her bene- 
 factor, and she abstained from the act: she 
 was, therefore, capable of resisting the impulse 
 if she chose to exert a small share of resolution. 
 The primary cause of the disposition to murder 
 may probably be found in that peculiar state of 
 the nervous system described by Dr. Conolly. 
 " In any general excitement of the nervous sys- 
 tem," he observes, " it is not uncommon to find 
 irritation referred to the extremities of nervous 
 ramifications. The susceptible child, when inte- 
 rested with its book, bites the ends of its fingers ; 
 the nervous man in a state of anxiety or emotion 
 does the same. The approach of maniacal dis- 
 order is sometimes indicated by a disposition to 
 bite, cut, and tear the fingers. The injuries and 
 wounds inflicted on themselves by lunatics are 
 often to be similarly accounted for." (Conolly's 
 Inquiry, &c. p. 98.) Instead therefore of the 
 " monomanie homicide' of M. Georget, which 
 " ote a Vhomme sa liberte," it would appear 
 simply that excitement of the brain produces an 
 extraordinary irritation of the nerves, which 
 leads to cutting or tearing whatever comes in
 
 APPENDIX E. ()3 
 
 the way of the person so excited ; but that never- 
 theless this disposition is under the control of 
 the wilt: and the patient might generally, if 
 previously well disposed, claim exterior aid to 
 control this irritation, if he found it growing too 
 strong for self-government. 
 
 E. 
 
 IT is observed by Professor Tiedemann, that 
 " the brain of men endowed with but feeble 
 intellectual powers is often very small ; particu- 
 larly in congenital idiotismus. The brain of an 
 idiot fifty years old, weighed but 1/6. 8oz. 4dr., 
 and that of another, forty years of age, weighed 
 but 1/6. lloz. 4dr. The brain of a girl, an 
 idiot, sixteen years old, weighed only 1/6. 6oz. 
 Idr. * The brain of men who have distinguished 
 themselves by their great talents, on the con- 
 trary, is often very large. The brain of the 
 celebrated Cuvier, weighed 4/6*. lloz. 4e/r. 
 30gr"-\- As in the above cases of idiocy, the 
 weight of brain scarcely exceeds that of a new 
 born child, it is to be presumed that by some 
 means it has been arrested in its growth. 
 
 * Troy or Apothecaries weight, 
 t Phil. Trans. 1836, part 2, p. 502.
 
 64 APPENDIX F. 
 
 F. 
 
 ~\ IT FOVILLE,inhis Anatomiepathologique, 
 -i-T-L. in noticing the "alterations chroniques 
 de la substance corticale" gives a case which I 
 shall again quote in his own words : " J'ai observe 
 cette alteration au plus haut degre d'intensite 
 chez un jeune homme d'une constitution deterio- 
 ree par des exces de tout genre ; une emotion 
 vive determina chez lui 1'explosion d'une alie- 
 nation mentale compliquee, de sou debut, de 
 paralysie generale ; quelques semaines sufBrent 
 pour porter au plus haut point la degradation 
 morale et physique. Dans les derniers temps 
 de la vie la maigreur, deja tres prononcee, fit de 
 nouveaux progres si rapides, qu'en trois jours les 
 globes oculaires etaient veritablement retires 
 au fond des orbites, tandis que les paupieres etaient 
 restees tendues demi ouvertes, quelques lignes au 
 devant des yeux. La substance corticale des con- 
 volutions tres brune, tres humide, d'une mollesse 
 diffluente cedait au plus leger contact. La perte 
 de substance, les inegalites produites par Tap- 
 position des doigts ou d'un linge disparaissaient 
 en un instant comme cela aurait lieu a la surface 
 d'un corps qui entrerait en fusion. D'ailleurs 
 chez ce malade la substance blanche etait elle
 
 APPENDIX F. 65 
 
 meme profondement alteree d' une raaniere ana- 
 logue a la grise." 
 
 Another analogous case is given in the Reper- 
 toire de M. Baillarger, where a " gar9on marchand 
 de vin." aged thirty, was received into an hospital 
 for lunatics, May 23, 1827, after having led a life 
 of great excess and profligacy, to which the state 
 he was then in was attributed. " La memoire 
 et le jugeraent etaient fort affaiblis. II avait de 
 la difficulte a parler, beaucoup de lenteur et de 
 roideur dans la marche, mais pas precisement de 
 delire maniaque ni d'incoherence dans les idees." 
 He was in the Bicetre six or eight months ; 
 the paralysis and the difficulty of walking in- 
 creased, he was attacked with scurvy, and died 
 in January. Post-mortem examination Le 
 feuillet cerebrale de 1'arachnoide et la pie-mere 
 reunis sont d'un mineure extreme. Ces deux feuil- 
 lets ne sont ni injectes, ni adherents a la surface 
 du cerveau, les deux substances du cerveau, 
 du cervelet, et des moelles, sont fermes, mais 
 pales et decolorees et ne contiennent pas de sang. 
 La teinte de la substance corticale est d'un gris 
 legerement jaunatre. Les deux feuillets de 1' 
 arachnoide rachidienne sont unis dans toute leur 
 etendue par de tres petites adherences extreme- 
 ment minces et transparentes. II y a une grande 
 quantite de sang infiltre dans le tissu cellulaire 
 du canal rachidien." Annales medico-psycholo-
 
 66 
 
 APPENDIX G. 
 
 giques, Janvier, 1843. Repertoire, p.p. 180. 
 181. 
 
 Would space permit, instances of this kind 
 might be lamentably multiplied. 
 
 G. 
 
 PROFESSOR Tiedemann, in an elaborate 
 paper published in the Phil. Trans, for 
 1836, part 2, on the brain of the negro, takes 
 occasion to notice the comparative weight and 
 size of the brain in Europeans, both males and 
 females. The parallelism is incomplete ; I can 
 therefore only cite a few examples from the 
 table given by him. The weight indicated is 
 Troy or Apothecaries weight. 
 
 Weight 
 
 Sex. 
 
 Age. 
 
 Weight of Body. Weight of Brain. 
 
 rain as 
 
 ,n,|,:ur,l 
 ItS that 
 
 
 
 
 
 rtteBo 
 
 
 
 Ib. oz. 
 
 dr. gr. 
 
 OZ. ( 
 
 r. gr. 
 
 y. 
 
 Male 
 
 New-born 
 
 7 3 
 
 2 8 
 
 1 
 
 10 as 
 
 : 6-63 
 
 Female 
 
 Ditto 
 
 7 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 : 0-83 
 
 Male 
 
 Fifteen 
 
 100 7 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 : 24-70 
 
 Female 
 
 Thirteen 
 
 03 2 
 
 6 23 
 
 6 
 
 30 
 
 : 17-93 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Sixteen 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 Male 
 
 Thirty 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 
 Female 
 
 Ditto 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 123 4 
 
 2 25 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 : 34-42 
 
 Male 
 
 Fifty 
 
 132 8 
 
 4 35 
 
 10 
 
 5 
 
 : 33'9<) 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 181 8 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 : 44'47 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 141 1 
 
 00 38 
 
 40 
 
 : 37-76 
 
 Female 
 
 Ditto 
 
 134 6 
 
 2 57 3 4 40 
 
 : 40-27 
 
 Male 
 
 Six'ty-one 
 
 U5 11 
 
 3740 
 
 Here it will be seen that the female brain is 
 frequently, relatively to the size of the body,
 
 APPENDIX G. 67 
 
 somewhat larger than the male, and the Profes- 
 sor observes hereupon " Although Aristotle has 
 remarked that the female brain is absolutely 
 smaller than the male ; it is nevertheless not 
 relatively smaller, compared with the body ; for 
 the female body is in general lighter than that 
 of the male. The female brain is for the most 
 part even larger than the male, compared with 
 the size of the body." 
 
 Dr. Fletcher, in his Rudiments of Physiology, 
 observes that " the size of their brain as com- 
 pared with their spinal marrow is somewhat 
 greater in females than in males. Hence we 
 might be led to conclude that in reality it is not 
 their faculty of thinking, but their materials for 
 thought, which are less than in males." Whe- 
 ther therefore we consider the size of the brain 
 relatively to the size of the body or relatively to 
 the size of the nerves, which go to make up the 
 spinal marrow, we find the female brain has 
 very commonly a trifling advantage over that 
 of the male. It was indeed to be expected that 
 the inferior muscular power should have a com- 
 pensation ; as we find that in animals deficient 
 in strength, superior skill in contrivance is 
 usually given as a defence.
 
 (iS 
 
 APPENDIX H. 
 
 H. 
 
 "N one thousand male patients the causes of 
 - insanity have been referred as follows : 
 
 
 71 
 69 
 39 
 17 
 4 
 110 
 
 100 
 73 
 73 
 
 
 54 
 
 47 
 29 
 26 
 12 
 
 9 
 5 
 
 11.1 
 
 Old Age 
 
 Love 
 
 
 Religious enthusiasm 
 Political events 
 
 Poisonous effluvia 
 
 
 
 Crimes, remorse, and 
 
 Consequences of dis- 
 ease 
 
 Pretended insanity... 
 Otber and unknown 
 
 Ambition 
 
 Excessive labour 
 
 IT may be as well here to add, lest any mis- 
 understanding should arise, that the author, 
 in giving his classification of insanity, has only 
 endeavoured to sketch a broad outline, leaving 
 the shades of difference, and the details gene- 
 rally, to be filled up by those whose professional 
 experience enables them to do so with greater 
 precision. Every one who has attempted to 
 classify any subject knows how one division 
 blends into another, and how often even a plant 
 is with difficulty adjusted into its proper place- 
 Much more must disease become complicated 
 in its details, where two dissimilar forces are in 
 action together, at once influencing and dis- 
 turbing each other. 
 
 C. WHITT1NGHAM, CH1SW1CK. 

 
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