THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 77 



mistake who attempt to deal with the physiological materialism of our 

 day by citing the American crow-bar case, or any number of cases of 

 brain-loss unaccompanied by marked intellectual enfeeblement. It is 

 equally puerile to cite instances of small brains with great intellectual 

 power. In the first place, these small brains may be of superior qual- 

 ity, as small muscles often are ; or, in the second place, the boasted 

 greatness of mind may be anything and everything but greatness of 

 mind. Learning of a very extensive kind may coexist with small men- 

 tal caliber. A monkey is shrewd and quick, and cunning and smart 

 a parrot is learned, up in a variety of languages, speaking, as many 

 human parrots do, some French, some Italian, some Spanish : there is 

 no great-mindedness here. 



Proof from size of the brain is, on the whole, reliable. There is, 

 in general, a remarkable decrease in weight corresponding to the intel- 

 lectual enfeeblement. Many idiots between the ages of sixteen, forty, 

 and fifty years, have shown brains weighing 19f, 25f, and 22| ounces. 

 There is on record the case of a deaf-mute idiot, forty-three years old, 

 who showed an idiocy of the lowest kind, yet his brain weighed over 

 forty-eight ounces. Such cases are not to overthrow an induction 

 based upon a large majority of opposing instances. 



It remains for the succeeding paper to consider the question pro- 

 pounded by the physiology of to-day, respecting the kind of relation 

 which holds between the brain and consciousness. If we were to ac- 

 cept the judgment of the younger leading physicians, we should be- 

 lieve that modern Physiology had answered her own question. A 

 distinguished physician of my city says, in his published " Lectures on 

 Physiology " : " The so-called voluntary movements are only the final 

 responses to impressions made upon the special senses at the time or 

 in the past. The highest expressions of the intellect of man may be 

 resolved into the more perfect transmutations of outside forces, by 

 machinery made more perfect by original constitution or by labor." 



Without believing that such a correlation between brain and con- 

 sciousness as is here asserted can be rationally accepted, there are, 

 as I think, two general conclusions which may be drawn with cer- 

 tainty : 



A constant relation obtains between nerve-matter and those mani- 

 festations which are usually said to belong to the soul. This relation 

 is so important, so constant, as to determine in large measure the intel- 

 lectual and moral well-being of every individual. 



The origination of our states of consciousness, their character and 

 conduct, are conditioned by physical processes antecedently occurring 

 in the brain. 



