730 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



said he makes his cigarettes, but you may make his tobacco of shav- 

 ings or of any thing else you like, and still he will go on making his 

 cigarettes as usual. His action is purely mechanical. As I said, he 

 feeds voraciously, but whether you give him aloes or asafoetida, or the 

 nicest thing possible, it is all the same to him. 



The man is in a condition absolutely parallel to that of the frog, 

 and no doubt, when he is in this condition, tlie functions of his cere- 

 bral hemispheres are at any rate largely annihilated. He is very nearly 

 — I don't say wholly, but very nearly — in the condition of an animal 

 in which the cerebral hemispheres are not entirely extirpated, but 

 very largely damaged. And his state is wonderfully interesting to 

 me, for it bears on the phenomena of mesmerism, of which I saw a 

 good deal when I was a young man. In this state he is capable of per- 

 forming all sorts of actions on mere suggestion — as, for example, he 

 drop2)ed his cane, and a person near him put it into his hand, and the 

 feeling of the end of the cane evidently produced in him those molec- 

 ular changes of the brain which, had he possessed consciousness, 

 would have given rise to the idea of his rifle ; for he threw himself on 

 his face, began feeling about for his cartouche, went through the mo-, 

 tions of touching his gun, and shouted out to an imaginary comrade, 

 " Here they are, a score of them ; but we will give a good account of 

 them." This paper to which I refer is full of the most remarkable 

 examples of this kind, and what is the most remarkable fact of 

 all is, the modifications which this injury has made in the man's 

 moral nature. In his normal life he is one of the most upright and 

 honest of men. In his abnormal state, however, he is an inveterate 

 thief. He will steal every thing he can lay his hands upon, and, if 

 he cannot steal any thing else, he will steal his own things and hide 

 them away. Now, if Descartes had had this fact before him, need 

 I tell you that his theory of animal automatism would have been 

 enormously strengthened ? He would have said : " Here, I show you a 

 case of a man performing actions evidently more complicated and 

 mostly more rational than any of the ordinary operations of animals ; 

 and yet you have positive proof that these actions are merely mechani- 

 cal. What, then, have you to urge against my doctrine that the whole 

 animal world is in that condition, and that — to use the very correct 

 words of Father Malebranche — ' Thus in dogs, cats, and other ani- 

 mals, there is neither intelligence nor spiritual soul as we understand 

 the matter commonly ; they eat without pleasure — they cry without 

 pain — they grow without knowing it — they desire nothing, they know 

 nothing ; and, if they act with dexterity and in a manner which indi- 

 cates intelligence, it is because God, having made them with the in- 

 tention of preserving them, has constructed their bodies in such a 

 manner that they escape organically, without knowing it, every thing 

 which could injure them, and which they seemed to fear.' " 



But I must say for myself — looking at the matter on the ground 



