vi AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 



in the lower animals can as yet be given ; still, matter bearing 

 on this subject will be found scattered here and there throughout 

 these pages. 



Even now, when, by reason of unsatisfactory methods of 

 investigation, little is known of the brains of the lower animals, 

 still, enough has been ascertained to show that a careful study 

 of the conditions there prevailing will enable us to penetrate 

 farther into the finer structure than when the mammalian brain 

 was the principal object of investigation. 



There must be a certain number of anatomical conditions 

 which are common to all vertebrates those which permit the 

 simplest expressions of the activity of the central organ. It 

 only remains to discover some animal or some stage of develop- 

 ment in which this or that mechanism exists in such a simple 

 form that it can be easily and clearly comprehended. If we 

 have thus once discovered the course of some tract of fibres or 

 the arrangement of some group of cells, we can ordinarily recog- 

 nize them in situations where the picture is blurred by the 

 presence of other structures. 



The search after these fundamental lines in the structure 

 of the brain is the present task of brain anatomy. Once we 

 have accomplished this, it will be easy to understand the com- 

 plicated conditions present in the more highly organized brain. 



EDINGER. 



FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN. May, 1889. 



