556 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



method of studying mind excludes the 

 corporeal order. To him mind is an 

 abstraction, mysteriously related to 

 matter, but not coerced by it. Mind, 

 he maintains, is free ; matter is enslaved 

 by law. Men accordingly kill them- 

 selves because they choose to because 

 they are free agents and depraved be- 

 ings. On this view the facts can not 

 be explained, and no science of the 

 subject is possible. But, on the other 

 hand, if we take all the elements of the 

 subject into account, if we regard man 

 in the light of common-sense as a 

 unified being, and all mental effects, 

 whether healthful or morbid, as deter- 

 mined by organic conditions, we are 

 then able to understand why the laws 

 of suicide answer to the laws of ex- 

 ternal phenomena. We can then see 

 how suicide, though a mental phenom- 

 enon, may be due to physical causation. 

 When Ave consider man as a sensitive 

 organism, so delicately constituted as to 

 be acted upon in a thousand ways by 

 the complex and ever-varying forces of 

 nature, it creates no surprise to find 

 that the averages of self-destruction can 

 be predicted from year to year, and even 

 from month to month, in any country 

 and at any season. If we put the con- 

 crete brain in the place of the abstract 

 mind, the subject, though closed to meta- 

 physics, is opened to science. For the 

 brain, the most susceptible part of the 

 organism, is liable to be disturbed and 

 morbidly affected both by physical con- 

 ditions and passional strains. No man 

 now denies that insanity is a corporeal 

 fact a derangement of the action of the 

 material organ of feeling and thought. 

 We know that suicide is a marked ac- 

 companiment of the cerebral disorder of 

 insanity. So marked, indeed, is it that, 

 even where there is no other evidence, 

 it is often held by coroners' juries that 

 the act of suicide presumes mental de- 

 rangement. But the morbidities of the 

 brain have an infinite series of grada- 

 tions. Their obscure initiations take 

 the form of cerebral weakness, debility, 



exhaustion, accompanied it may be by 

 discouragement, depression, and weari- 

 ness of life, which may impel to sui- 

 cide, or go on to confirmed melancholia. 

 When we can sufficiently escape from 

 metaphysical prejudice to regard mind 

 as practically but brain activity, depend- 

 ent upon healthy nutrition and all that 

 that implies, it will mark an epoch in 

 the progress of the science of human 

 nature. 



A FEW FEATURE. 



We last month began a department 

 under the title of " Entertaining Vari- 

 eties," intended to be' a modified form 

 of the feuillctons which have served to 

 increase the popularity and consequent- 

 ly the usefulness of many European 

 periodicals. It will consist of readable 

 miscellaneous fragments of all sorts, 

 but it is not intended to limit it to mere 

 fugitive things, as it may afford a place 

 for continuous papers of a light and en- 

 tertaining kind. 



We are already able to promise 

 something of this sort ; and intend very 

 soon to commence the publication of a 

 series of sketches of peculiar interest, 

 entitled 



THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON; 



OB, 



TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES OF 

 HAKIM BEX SHEYTAX. 



TRANSLATED BY F. L. O., WITH NOTES 

 BY THE TRANSLATOR. 



Many strange things have latterly 

 come forth from the recesses of Africa, 

 but nothing more remarkable than these 

 curious revelations. The new chronicle 

 may be very apocryphal, but it is sure 

 to be amusing, and will probably prove 

 also instructive. Hakim Ben Sheytan, 

 we are informed, was a Mussulman doc- 

 tor of Tripoli, who accompanied a mili- 

 tary expedition to the interior of Af- 

 rica, and by some mischance, straying 

 from his party, found himself in a coun- 



