1875.) Notices of Books. 383 
herence to the lessons of his youth, are well shown in Chapters 
i. and ix., which treat of the ‘‘ General Relations of the Mind and 
Body,” and of ‘The Will.” The physiology and philosophy of 
evolution is ignored throughout, and the doctrine that the 
human will is a something which exists outside and independent 
of the cerebral functions, is laboriously advocated. Dr. 
Carpenter tells his readers that ‘‘ the actions of our Minds zx so 
far as they are carried on without any interference from our 
Will, may be considered as ‘“* Functions of the Brain.” On the 
other hand, in the control which the Will can exert over the 
direction of our thoughts, and over the motive force exerted by 
the feelings, we have the evidence of a new and independent 
Power, which may either oppose er concur with the automatic 
tendencies, and which accordingly as it is habitually exerted, 
tends to render the Ego a free agent. And truly, in the 
existence of this Power, which is capable of thus regulating the 
very highest of those operations that are casually related to 
corporeal states, we find a better evidence than we gain from 
the study of any other part of our Psychical nature, that there is 
an entity wherein Man’s nobility essentially consists, which does 
not depend for its existence on any play of Physical or Vital 
forces, but which makes these forces subservient to its determi- 
nations.” This passage—the capitals and italics of which are 
Dr. Carpenter’s—summarises pretty fairly the ‘‘ view which it 
has been the special purpose of this Treatise to develop.” It 
would carry us far beyond the space we can devote to this book 
to point out a tithe of the inconsistencies and contradictions 
which necessarily result from an attempt to reconcile with 
established physiological laws this notion of an outside will over- 
ruling cerebral function. The mere metaphysician, reasoning 
only on the data furnished by an examination of his own con- 
sciousness, might plausibly enough maintain such a doétrine; 
we might expect it from a certain school of theologians, but 
that a physiologist, and one who comes forward as a public 
teacher of this branch of science, should in 1874 publish the two 
chapters above referred to, is in itself a psychological anomaly 
sufficiently curious to be worthy of a place among the cases of 
aberration which Dr. Carpenter has quoted in the course of 
Chapters xiii. to xviii. 
In these Dr. Carpenter treats of Unconscious Cerebration, 
Electro Biology, Sleep, Dreaming, Sonnambulism, Mesmerism, 
Spiritualism, Intoxication, Delirium, and Insanity. He is 
evidently more at home here than in the previous chapters on 
Memory, Common Sense, and Imagination, and hence Chapters 
Xlli. to xvili. form the most interesting part of the volume, the 
illustrative cases being very numerous, and for the most part 
appropriate. 
As a matter of course ‘‘ Unconscious Cerebration ” receives a 
large share of attention, and is made to explain a vast deal. 
VOL. V. (N.S.) ne 
