384 Notices of Books. [July, 
Dr. Carpenter’s ‘‘unconscious cerebration” is evidently but 
another name for what Helmholtz has termed “ unconscious 
judgment.” We see no advantage in the more pedantic para- 
phrase which will not bear critical examination. We may arrive 
at a conclusion either in perception or reasoning by a sound, 
healthful, and conscious judgment, z.e., by an intellectual effort, 
each step of which is consciously understood, and therefore 
capable of critical re-examination; or we may do the same by 
means which are hidden to ourselves, and which therefore we 
cannot thus critically examine. In the latter case the conclusion 
or judgment may be a delusion to the true nature of which our 
unconsciousness of its origin renders us blind. Such uncon- 
scious judgment would thus be an abnormal or morbid judgment. 
We therefore see no objection to this term of Helmholtz’s, 
provided its application be not overstrained. But Dr. 
Carpenter’s ‘“‘ unconscious cerebration,”’ as applied to abnormal 
or morbid action, is a physiological contradiction, inasmuch as 
cerebration, when normal and healthy, is always an unconscious 
operation. A man with a healthy brain is conscious of seeing, 
hearing, feeling, judging, thinking, &c., but is not conscious of 
cerebrating. It is only when the brain is diseased or over- 
worked that we are conscious of any cerebration whatever, and 
even then the consciousness is very indefinite. If the term 
unconscious cerebration is to be used at all, it should be applied 
to healthy action of the brain, while conscious cerebration would 
describe certain peculiar states of its morbid action. 
On the whole this work of Dr. Carpenter’s is by no means a 
satisfactory effort. Had it been published twenty years ago it 
might have had some value as a text-book, but a thick book on 
‘‘ Mental Physiology,” that almost totally ignores the important 
contributions that have been made during the past quarter of a 
century by Helmholtz, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and other 
leading philosophical physiologists, is of little use to anybody. 
It is true that Dr. Ferrier’s recent investigations are described 
in an appendix, but the student who only takes Dr. Carpenter’s 
book for his guide will naturally suppose that the method of 
investigation adopted by Dr. Ferrier was something new and 
original. 
The methods of experiment, and the main results described 
in this Appendix as Dr. Ferrier’s, are really those of Fritsch 
and Hitzig, Ferrier having merely followed up and confirmed 
the investigations made three years previously by these German 
physiologists. Dr. Hitzig and some of his compatriots have 
loudly complained of the unjust treatment which he and Fritsch 
have received in England, and these complaints appear to be 
mainly founded upon this ignoring of their work and existence 
by Dr. Carpenter when describing their methods and results. 
The German physiologists appear to have taken it for granted 
that Dr. Carpenter’s ‘‘ Mental Physiology” is one of our accepted 
