MIND AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 7 



of fits of anger, the liver is so deranged that the bile ceases to be pro- 

 duced, and pain is felt in that part of the body in which the liver is 

 situated ; and, when the emotion of pity is strongly experienced, a 

 sensation of weakness, or, as it is sometimes called, a sinking feeling, 

 is felt at the pit of the stomach. 



It has been customary with modern writers — and I have until quite 

 recently been of the like opinion — to regard these disturbances as being 

 the effects of emotions that originated in the brain, and not as indicat- 

 ing that the organs in which they are felt have anything to do with 

 the evolution of love or anger or fear or compassion, or any other 

 passion or feeling. The idea has become so widely spread among edu- 

 cated persons that the brain is the only organ of the body that has 

 any direct relation as a generator with the mind, that it seems like a 

 tremendous blow at the system of existing facts to attempt to take 

 from it any of its power. But it is only recently that physiologists 

 and pathologists are beginning to make a thorough investigation into 

 that great division of the nervous system consisting of the sympathetic 

 nerves and their ganglia. If you will lock at this diagram, you will 

 obtain some idea of the situation and connections of these nerves. As 

 you see, they are situated on each side of the spine, and are in direct 

 connection with the brain, and their ramifications extend to every 

 one of the vital organs situated in the chest, the abdomen, and the 

 pelvis. These nerves differ from the other nerves — those that convey 

 impulses to and from the brain — in the remarkable fact that they have 

 at various parts of their course little swellings or enlargements called 

 ganglia, and which consist of gray matter. Now, gray nerve-tissue, 

 wherever it exists, is a generator of nerve-force, or mind, and it is not 

 unreasonable to suppose, therefore, that these masses of the tissue in 

 question, that are placed around the heart, the liver, the spine, and 

 other organs, and in vast number in their substance, have some in- 

 fluence in causing the production of those emotions that make them- 

 selves felt in the parts of the body with which former universal 

 beliefs and our present forms of speech have associated them. We 

 find, too, as an additional fact in support of this view, that in certain 

 mental affections, characterized by great emotional disturbances, these 

 ganglia are in various parts of the body the seats of disease. 



Therefore, there is some reason for the opinion that not to the 

 brain alone do we owe the evolution of mind, but that the sympathetic 

 system of nerves is also concerned in its production. 



But there is another part of the nervous system not generally re- 

 garded as a mind-producing organ, but which I am very sure is directly 

 concerned in the evolution of the force which so pre-eminently by its 

 presence distinguishes organic from inorganic bodies, and that is the 

 spinal cord. 



The spinal cord is contained in the vertebral column, or, as it is 

 popularly called, the backbone. It extends from the brain to near the 



