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furnished with a smaller apparatus of brain? If not, why suppose man to be of an essentially different make from them, while their powers are, as far as they can be traced, absolutely analogous ?

In these instances, the point of most importance appears to me to be the consciousness of self indicated by the dog and the monkey. I am constantly told that this consciousness is an attribute of the human being alone; whereas I cannot see how the jealousies, the vindictiveness, the moral fear, the love of approbation, and the forecast of brute animals, can be exercised without a sense of the Ego. We know but little of the powers and experience of brutes, even as the dog knows little of the experience of the cat, or the bird of that of the frog: but what we do know indicates consciousness as clearly as sentience.

As for how any faculties exist at all, we are so absolutely ignorant, that we may fairly pass over any objections to Thought and Feeling being results of brain, from the impossibility of explaining the How. When we know how anything else is produced, it will be time enough to require explanations of this. In the old ages of Geology, before there was animal existence, there were electric lights, and aroma from vegetation, and solemn music from winds sounding through vast cane brakes, and among clattering or swinging palm and plantain leaves: but there was then no sentience to grasp and appropriate these products. When the sentience was provided, it probably only enjoyed. After more ages, consciousness followed upon the sentience; or, if consciousness

came with the sentience, reflection followed, and the results of material action were naturally, but ignorantly, attributed to preternatural agency; as you observe of the rainbow. Is there more ground (in these days of our physiological ignorance) for our supposing mental results to be of a spiritual origin than there was for the first half-dozen men to suppose lightning to be a spirit, and the harp-music of the pine forest the voice of a spirit, and, in short, all intangible matter and material effects to be manifestations of spirit? I cannot see how we can be justified in falling into such assumptions, with so many ancient warnings, and such vast modern scientific discoveries before our eyes.

Show me, therefore, how we are to set about the study of the structure and functions of the brain, and what we really know of them. I have seen for myself, by the actual examination of the brains of the dead, how great was the folly of slicing them through, instead of tracing out their convolutions and compartments; a folly even greater than that of slicing through the muscles, if the view was to ascertain their whole structure and use. I have a distinct idea of the appearance and general form of the human brain. I now look to you for an account of-not what one may find arrogantly mapped out in every manual of phrenology,—but what you conceive to be clearly established, what conjectured, and what merely hinted, up to the present time. I hope to obtain much more satisfaction from you than I have ever got from all the metaphysicians I have

read. As you say, they have regarded only effects, and the relation of those effects to each other, while the effects themselves can hardly appear alike to any two observers: and that the true philosophy that we want is the relation of these effects to their causes an investigation which can never be made while men take for granted that the real agent is, in each of us, an intangible Mind or Spirit, whose nature and qualities are not knowable. It is really wearisome to read theories by the score, all unsupported by any thing that can be called evidence, and descriptions and so-called analyses of faculties whose nature and origin are not even looked for, and whose management and control cannot therefore be provided for. You will teach me better. You will open the matter to me as if you were going to treat of the eye, showing me the structure of the ball and the nerve, and what share of the brain it appropriates; and then how the laws of optics bear upon it; and then, the mental facts of vision,-with some curious secrets that I know you hold thereupon. Now then,-what is our brain?

Yes, indeed, we feel reverently in regard to this rescarch. The true ground of awe is in finding ourselves what we are; not in dreams of how we came to be what we are. I suppose all we know is, that every thing occurs and proceeds by immutable laws; and the more this fact strengthens our reliance, the more it must enhance our reverence. We are what we are, however we came to be: and what we are is too great for our present selves to know.

VI.

H. G. A. To H. M.

"What is the brain ?"

The brain is the organ from whose action arises all that class of phenomena which we term Mind: in which I include all our sensations, perceptions, emotions, judgments and intuitions; consciousness, will, and certain forces which tend to regulate, stimulate and control the other functions of the body. This, you perceive, is giving to the brain a larger sphere of action than is assigned to it in the works on phrenology. I differ also from phrenologists in this; that I consider consciousness, will, pleasing or painful sensations, &c., to be distinct faculties, and the functions of special organs. You know the brain; I need therefore only remind you that there are, in fact, two brains: the cerebrum occupying the larger portion of the skull, and the cerebellum in a separate compartment, beneath the posterior lobe of the cerebrum, occupying the space behind the ears. It has happened to me to be able to demonstrate that this lesser brain is not what Gall supposed it to be; that is, the organ of the amative propensity: but the organ of that class of powers which might perhaps, for distinction's sake, be termed the physico-functional powers; or those powers having a more immediate relation to the bodily conditions-the muscular

power, and other purely bodily relations, secretions, &c. But, whatever importance I may attach to the knowledge of the functions of this and of some other parts, I trust you will not consider it presumption in me, or that I wish in any way to force these views upon others, or to take from the value of their labours. What I have done I attribute to the light thrown upon the subject by the new means I have discovered and made use of, rather than to any superior ability or acuteness in myself. I am what I am; a creature of necessity; I claim neither merit nor demerit. I wish only to interest others in this inquiry, that they may prove, or, if they can, disprove, what I announce. The proofs are open to all; the means in every one's hands; and it is much better to test novel matters by experiment and observation, than to try to reason away alleged truths, in ignorance of what nature may have to say upon the question.

You know that most of the parts of man are double; that he is very nearly a double being; and that the cerebrum is divided into halves, with corresponding organs on each half. It is a fact, also, that some organs are often more developed on one side than on the other, and that generally only one side is in action at a time. This is one reason for the variations which occur in the same character. It seems certain that mind (or the conditions essential to mind) is evolved from the grey vesicular matter which forms the external layer over the convolutions, and exists in certain other parts where a supply of power may be requisite. There is no perceptible

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