SKETCH OF W. B. CARPENTER. 541 



This doctrine of the independence of the will is regarded as one of the 

 distinguishing characteristics of the philosophy of the treatise, running 

 " through the entire work as the one grand exception among a series of 

 physical sequences, interdependent, and standing to each other in the re- 

 lation of cause and effect, of antecedent and sequent." Another impor- 

 tant feature of the book is found in its discussions of the subjects of mes- 

 merism, spirit-rapping, table-turning, and the like, in which the author's 

 philosophical spirit is eminently displayed. He set himself soberly at 

 work to find out what is true in these manifestations, and to verify the 

 facts, and explain on rational grounds those which were susceptible of 

 explanation, while " he did not hesitate to denounce those he thought 

 were due to insincerity or fraud." He found the key to such of the 

 phenomena as are real in what he called ideo-motor action, which he 

 defined to be " the direct manifestations of ideational states, excited 

 to a certain measure of intensity, or, in physiological language, reflex 

 actions of the cerebrum." His observations on this branch of the sub- 

 ject were also published separately in the work " Mesmerism, Spirit- 

 ualism, etc., historically and scientifically considered." 



Dr. Carpenter's appointment to the office of Registrar of the Uni- 

 versity of London, in 1856, gave him more leisure than he had pre- 

 viously enjoyed to pursue his studies systematically and untrammeled 

 by the drudgery of routine duties ; and the fruits of the employment 

 of this leisure are seen in the greater fullness and perfection of his 

 scientific work subsequent to that time. He had already, during most 

 of his residence in London, been occupied with the mirlute study of 

 the calcareous shells of the Mollusca, and this had led him to the regu- 

 lar use of the microscope. One of the earlier fruits of these studies 

 was his book on " The Microscope and its Revelations," a manual most 

 highly prized by all followers of the enchanting study of microscopy, 

 of which the sixth edition was published in 1881. Other fruits of 

 them are to be found in his reports on the microscopic structure of 

 shells, which he presented to the British Association from 1844 on- 

 ward. In these papers much light was thrown on the structure, 

 which was found to be more complex than had been supposed, and the 

 law of growth of shells. His studies in the Foraminifera, which were 

 continued through his life, furnished the occasion for several memoirs 

 in the "Philosophical Transactions," and for an illustrated mono- 

 graph, which was published by the Ray Society in 1862. One of the 

 most interesting of his studies in this line was that on the structure 

 and development of the Comatula, or feather-star, in which he pro- 

 posed a theory of the nervous function of the axial cords running 

 through the arms of the animal, differing from or contradicting the 

 views commonly held. A re-examination of the structure of the ani- 

 mal, and repetition of his experiments, made some five years ago at 

 the Marine Laboratory of Dr. Dohrn, at Naples, and the experiments of 

 other naturalists, have given confirmation to his opinion. Pertaining 



