20 SENSIBILITY. 



vast province of orderly mystery derived from the region of dis- 

 orderly mystery, which is the domain of ignorance. 

 ? When we speak of the nervous system, we include, as a matter 

 of course, the brain, though many scientists delegate such to 

 special and particular spheres. The brain is popularly considered 

 as the sole organ of the mind — the one particular centre of sensa- 

 tion ; whilst the rest of the nervous system has been ignored. 

 Why this should be so is more than we can tell, especially after 

 the numerous experiments carried out on a variety of creatures by 

 different persons at different periods. All the nervous matter 

 appears to be similarly constituted, and it scarcely seems reason- 

 able to limit the constitution of mind as being the sole outcome 

 and operation of the brain. Rather let us say that all sensation, 

 thought, volition, etc., ought to be included in such a term. 



On these points, however, we must not dwell, hoping to take 

 them up in some future paper. In a former paper, in the Wesley 

 Naturalist,'^ I dealt at large with the subject of the five special 

 senses, and I therefore need here do no more than remark that 

 such senses, awakening as they do a variety of phenomena in the 

 sensorium proper, constitute, in fact, part of the motive power 

 required for the generation of our ideas. Sight; hearing, and 

 perhaps touch, awaken not only our ordinary sensibility, but may 

 affect the emotional capacity of man to a great extent. Scenes 

 may be recalled by the sight of some particular object or place 

 which not only awakens a recollection of the place and event, but 

 actually reproduces the joy or sorrow exhibited on the first occa- 

 sion. These impressions, coming first through the vision, may 

 prove and mould the emotive capacity of man after a specific 

 fashion. Similarly with the tactile and olfactory nervous 

 elements ; but the phenomena of smell and taste, though affecting 

 our general sensibility and proving themselves to be part and 

 parcel of a general sensation, yet do not proceed to the seat of 

 inner consciousness so as to awaken any sense of an emotive 

 nature. Such nervous forces may be indeed stored in the senso- 

 rium proper, and even awaken reminiscences of former things and 

 cause our judgment to infer this or that ; but in themselves they 

 are scarcely powerful enough to proceed to greater depths. All 



* See Wesley Naturalist, Vol. III., p. 103. 



