646 CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY. 



But soon the acquisitions of the new being begin, and the functions of 

 the brain increase. The door opens to an exterior worhl ; the sight, the 

 hearing, the taste, the smell, the sensations within the periphery of the 

 bod^^ permits relations more intimate and complete with the outside 

 world. These new operations bring into play that region in which 

 experimental physiology and pathological anatomy have demonstrated 

 reside the brain centers perceptive and sensitive. This is the organic 

 substratum of our remembrances. In these differences are deposited 

 the lingering images of all our sensorial impressions and it is thence that 

 the centers of ideality draw the necessary material for intellectual 

 elaboration in the formation of ideas. The images passing first to the 

 frontal region, become the representative signs of thought and furnish 

 the elements of our determinations. 



The excellent work of Meynert on the structure of the brain has 

 taught us the system of the fibers of association and of projection which 

 are the evidence of this functional evolution. If nothing abnormal in- 

 tervenes, if none of the wheels of the cerebral mechanism are broken 

 and nothing interferes with the activity of the sensori-motnce of infancy 

 then the intervention of the center moderators substitute the active 

 ideomotrice which, under the influence of the attention, based on ex- 

 perience, gives place to, or is followed by, the volitional act of reason. 

 At a very early day in its life the infant begins to obtain or assume 

 control of itself, say of its hands first, which produce the phenomenon 

 of attention and of those conflicting motives, agreeable, or the reverse, 

 which preside over the acts of volition. A chart given in the 2)sychiatry 

 of Meynert shows the succession of phenomona in one of these simple 

 meutal operations ; the image of the flame of the candle thrown by the 

 apparatus of vision on the center cortical posterior, transmits its repre- 

 sentation into the frontal region and provokes immediately an involun- 

 tary movement of the arms and hands towards the brilliant object. A 

 painful impression, such as a burnt finger however, following an analo- 

 gous act, acts in an inverse sense upon the psychomotrice region, and 

 a movement of shrinking is apparent. The two sensations, the one 

 pleasurable, the other painful, are compared, the attention is attracted, 

 the education of the moderate center is aflected, recognition and memory 

 are called into play, and in what before was only an act of impulse be- 

 comes in fact, or at least has the aspect of, deliberation. From the 

 simple vegetative life of the first few days of the infant (simple reflex) it 

 soon passes to the instinctive life {activite sensori-motnce) thence to the 

 intellectual life {activite ideomotrice). These three diflerent estates are 

 but three stages of the evolution of one and the same function. The dif- 

 ferent modes of cerebral activity, the sentiments, will, attention, memory, 

 judgment, reason, etc., that constitute the psychologic fiiculty develop 

 themselves and become perfected successively by the harmonious action 

 of all parts of the brain. There is a progressive evolution of the mental 

 faculties, until they arrive at that state of conscience which enables us to 



