LITERARY XOTICES. 



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the association of anything material with 

 so pure and spiritual a study as that of 

 mind. Said an eminent spiritual-minded 

 teacher to the writer, " I hate that word 

 ' organization ' worse than any other in the 

 language." It is needless to say that this 

 attitude of mind is as far as possible from 

 scientific, and has not truth for its object. 

 Yet the prejudice is powerful, both in para- 

 lyzing the minds of individuals and in hin- 

 dering educational improvement. All the 

 colleges and high schools in the country 

 make loud professions of the thoroughness 

 of their work, and they are every one occu- 

 pied in dealing with the human brain ; but, 

 if there has ever been a book on the brain 

 introduced into one of them for systematic 

 study, we have never heard of it, and we 

 have not been unheedful of the subject. 

 Years are given to the most unspeakable 

 rubbish to subjects of study so vacant of 

 all use that their continuance is becoming 

 an open scandal ; while a knowledge of the 

 laws of the great organ of thought, that 

 "institution of God" which gives law to 

 the mental world, is passed by as unworthy 

 of any serious attention. If the graduates 

 from our colleges, normal schools, acade- 

 mies, and high schools, as they come forth, 

 diploma in hand, were questioned as to the 

 structure, powers, and organic relations of 

 the brain they profess to have been culti- 

 vating, would it not be found that their ig- 

 norance is quite as great as that of those who 

 have never had the advantage of a higher 

 education ? The subject has been too long 

 and too grossly neglected, and we are glad 

 of the appearance of Dr. Bastian's 

 book, as it will take away all excuse 

 for further neglect on the score 

 that there is no suitable manual of 

 the subject adapted to general use. 

 We can give no detailed account 

 of this work within the limits of a 

 notice, and only desire to convey a 

 general idea of its method of treat- 

 ing the subject. There are three 

 modes of arriving at a knowledge 

 of the laws of mind : In the first 

 place, each man has a source of 

 this knowledge within himself. lie 

 carries on the mental operations in 

 his own consciousness, and can ob- 

 serve and analyze them there ac- 

 cording to his practice and skill 



in introspection. This source of acquaint- 

 ance with mental operations is immediate 

 and direct, and of the highest authority 

 for the individual ; but it is incomplete 

 and liable greatly to mislead from this 

 cause. This is known as the subjective 

 field of inquiry. But it is possible to 

 know something about the minds of other 

 people in a different way. We know by 

 experience that mind has its outward ex- 

 pressions, and these expressions in others, 

 which are of the most varied kind, become 

 indications to us of their mental states. In 

 the same manner we acquire a knowledge 

 of the mental activities and 'capacities of 

 the lower animals, which manifest in vari- 

 ous degrees the endowment of intelligence. 

 What we observe without, in this way, con- 

 stitutes the sphere of objective psychology. 

 But there is another capital source of a 

 knowledge of mind, which comes from in- 

 vestigating the organic structures and func- 

 tions by which it is manifested in all its 

 grades and forms. We here study the 

 brain and nervous system, tracing its evolu- 

 tion from the lowest germ to the highest 

 development, and tracing the growth of the 

 brain of man from its embryonic rudiments 

 to the mature and perfected structure. This 

 branch of the study of the mind is marked 

 off from the others by applying to it the 

 term neurology. The following diagram, 

 from Dr. Bastian's chapter entitled "The 

 Scope of Mind," is designed to show how 

 all these departments of study require to 

 be combined in order to produce a true sci- 

 ence of mind : 



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