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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ous study in medical psychology, in which 

 the author draws upon an extensive practice 

 for illustrations of the phenomena of self- 

 deception in the processes of sensation 

 and the experience of pain. The first por- 

 tion of Dr. Taylor's lecture is devoted to 

 a brief account of the action of the nerv- 

 ous system, not only as a receptive appa- 

 ratus for the production of sensibility, but 

 as a reacting mechanism in which sensa- 

 tions are stored and accumulated to give 

 rise to centrally-initiated feelings and im- 

 pulses. " Up to a certain point," says Dr. 

 Taylor, " and in a certain degree and man- 

 ner, we are unquestionably automata. If 

 it were otherwise, life would be simply im- 

 possible. The sensations which wo receive 

 through the five senses set a-going certain 

 machinery, the result of which is sensory 

 life, as certainly as the open valve lets in 

 the steam which makes the ponderous en- 

 gine throb with motion and power. But 

 steam, having once been used, flows out life- 

 less, a simple waste. Not so the sensations. 

 Once received, they are never wholly spent, 

 but in various forms remain as a portion of 

 our vital selves so long as we live. And, 

 once received, we may use and control their 

 accumulated substance much as we will." 



But if illusions arise in the action of the 

 peripheral senses, so definite in their action 

 and so open to observation, they are far 

 more liable to arise in regard to the. feel- 

 ings which come from centrally-ir.itiated im- 

 pulses, and prominent among these decep- 

 tions are the false location of pain and the 

 false interpretation of centrally-initiated im- 

 pressions. On this point Dr. Taylor re- 

 marks : " If the direct evidence of our spe- 

 cial senses can not be depended on, as 

 previously shown, how much greater must 

 be the liability to error, when conclusions 

 are drawn from feelings depending on those 

 pulses of nerve-force which have been set 

 up in the cerebral end of the nervous sys- 

 tem ! And yet, large numbers of people 

 take the evidence of their feelings, having 

 nothing but an emotional origin, as evidence 

 of bodily conditions. An emotional tem- 

 perament is simply one in which the pulse 

 of action in the nerve-centers rises higher 

 than the occasion requires. There is a throb 

 or explosion of energy, under a stimulus 

 which would produce only a pulse in ordi- 



nary persons. ^Esthetic education, particu- 

 larly when not accompanied b# special dis- 

 cipline, tends to increase inherited habits, 

 until the existence of some persons consists 

 of successions of nerve-center explosions, 

 with all the prodigal waste of energy which 

 accompanies that state. Such a person is 

 thrown into ecstasies of pleasure or pain by 

 causes by which a balanced temperament 

 would not be affected. If a lady, she has a 

 large variety of feelings, many of them dis- 

 agreeable ; and, if for any reason her atten- 

 tion becomes engaged with them, it is apt to 

 become absorbed in their contemplation. If 

 she has feelings along the back, she con- 

 cludes she has spinal disease. If it is the 

 head which disturbs her and why should it 

 not, with regular batteries of nerve-center 

 explosions, touched off by her own untrained 

 and rampant emotions ? she thinks there 

 must be brain-disease or something horrible 

 there ; the more horrible in name the bet- 

 ter it will suit the particular ebullition which 

 names the disease." 



Many interesting cases are given illus- 

 trating the illusions that thus arise; we 

 quote a single one : " A young lady of seven- 

 teen came to me about ten years ago for 

 what she and her friends supposed was dis- 

 ease of the hip-joint. After examination, I 

 told her that there was no disease of the 

 joint whatever. I tried to explain to her 

 comprehension that, for some reason, she 

 had become anxious about the hip-joint, and 

 that her attention was so fixed on it that 

 all sensations transmitted from that vicinity 

 caused such throbs of the nerve-centers that 

 an ordinary sensation was converted into an 

 extraordinary one, and the anxious attention 

 which she directed to that part made her 

 painfully conscious of what would otherwise 

 be normal sensations and thus unnoticed. 

 But I failed to impress her sufficiently to 

 divert her attention from the part, and she 

 continued to walk on crutches, in all, during 

 eight years. At last she suddenly found 

 that she was not lame. I had the pleasure 

 of examining her about six months after 

 she had ascertained that she was not lame, 

 and I found a wholly unaffected joint, pre- 

 cisely as it was seven years previously when 

 I first saw her." 



Sufficient has been said to illustrate the 

 principal points of Dr. Taylor's discourse. 



