1874.] Physiology of the Brain. 59 
composed refuses all attempts to mould it afresh; and 
especially is this the case where the egotistic feelings of self- 
love and vanity outweigh the pure love of knowledge for its 
own sake. Such men may indeed imbibe newideas, and acquire 
an increase of knowledge as they grow older, but the new 
knowledge must have some points of affinity and harmony 
with the old, to be cordially welcomed. Above all, it must 
not threaten the subversion of those existing canons of 
belief which have hitherto guided them on life’s journey, or 
it will infallibly excite antipathy and antagonism. Every 
day we Have the spectacle of the direct testimony of facts 
being ignored and rejected without examination, from the 
inference that they are opposed to some cherished belief. 
Even the scientific par excellence, the professed philosophers, 
are not exempt from this human frailty; touch but the ark 
that enshrines the object of their worship, and you shall see 
the bigotry and intolerance with which they credit the 
theologian rivalled, if not outdone. As at the advent of 
Phrenology it encountered the antagonism of the religious 
world from its supposed tendency to materialism; so, at the 
present hour, many of our leading physicists shut their eyes 
to the curious phenomena of (the so-called) spiritualism, 
and open their mouths to assail its investigators, because 
they fear that these phenomena clash with that materialistic 
philosophy which constitutes the staple article of their 
scientific creed. 
How vast a portion of our present stock of scientific 
knowledge would be non-existent if no one had been found 
to ‘‘take an interest” in the phenomena of magnetism! and 
can the most bigoted apostle of the new positive-physical 
gospel venture to assert that a domain of fact as wide in 
its extent and fruitful in its result may not lie hidden, 
awaiting conquest by man in this force of source unknown, 
the conditions attending the presence of which, though 
yet undiscovered, we may be assured are governed by laws 
as definite and immutable as those of gravitation. We do 
not yet know how to multiply mediums at pleasure, as we 
do magnets, because we know neither the species of 
loadstone nor the kind of manipulation required, but all 
honour to those who are engaged in the research. 
Apparently as long as psychologists were content to frame 
theories out of their own consciousness, and confined 
themselves to abstractions, their researches created no 
antagonism in the physicists who occupied themselves with 
the study of material objects and their properties and 
functions ; but when these saw their own peculiar province 
invaded, and the physiology of the highest organ of the 
