1874.] Physiology of the Brain. 65 
muscular system to carry out their behests have the power 
of originating the movements necessary for this purpose ; 
and hence, when Dr. Ferrier applied a galvanic current to 
the cortical surfaces of the organs of the instinét ‘‘ to take 
Pe = to seize’ prey,” “to destroy)’ (“te fight,” “to 
construct,”—movements ‘‘of mastication,” ‘‘of striking with 
the claws, or seizing with the mouth,” “of biting and 
worrying,” ‘‘of scraping, or digging,” ensued: whilst the 
stimulation of the same locality (constru¢tiveness) which 
put the fore paws and hind legs in a¢tion in the rabbit, 
would, in the beaver, superadd the motion of the incisor 
teeth and the tail. What can be more palpable than that 
the inferences to be obtained from such experiments are not 
only far more vague and indefinite than those furnished by 
the employment of the phrenological method, but absolutely 
incapable of ascertaining the shape, and defining the boun- 
daries, of the organs, as has been accomplished by Gall in 
the case of locality, the shape of which he ascertained to be 
similar in dogs to its form in man. In short, little more 
can be said on behalf of these experiments at present than 
that in a cloudy and obscure fourm they lend a vague 
general confirmation (not required) to the correctness of 
the localities assigned to the primitive faculties by phre- 
nologists. 
Amongst the many eminent men whose researches and 
discoveries have shed honour on the profession of medicine, 
Gall will assuredly by posterity be accorded a place second 
to none. Man had looked on man, and scanned the face of 
his brother in sunshine and in storm, in friendship and in 
anger, for countless thousands of years, without having suc- 
ceeded in seizing and individualising a single primitive 
faculty, much less in discovering its seat. The advent of 
Gall broke up the long night of darkness and error as to 
their own being, under which the human race had slumbered 
for ages. Sensation, perception, memory, judgment, imagi- 
nation—the idolze of the past—the stock properties of every 
psychological system from that of Aristotle downwards, 
instead of being primitive faculties, were clearly demon- 
strated by the most masterly analysis and the most un- 
answerable arguments to be simply different degrees or con- 
secutive modes of action proper to each of the elementary 
intellectual faculties, and necessarily variable in strength in 
relation to subjects specifically distinét. Gall studied the 
maximum or minimum exhibition of certain passions or 
capacities compared with the extreme or defective develop- 
ment of certain parts of the brain; and when avast number 
VOL. IV. (N.S.) K 
