10 On the Organs of the Brain. 



an examination of the size of the organs. I shall endeavour to 

 point out a few of these, in order to facilitate the inquiries of 

 those who are engaged in similar pursuits, by adverting to the 

 causes of some apparent exceptions to the rules. 



It has been already sufficiently explained in all the new books 

 on the brain, that the character results not from the size of the 

 organs alone, but from their proportion to each other, from 

 established mutual influences, from the temperament of the in- 

 dividual, and from something peculiar in the internal activity of 

 the organs. The two latter circumstances seem imniediately 

 connected with each other. 1 am at present disposed to attri- 

 bute more to the particular activity of the organs than I was 

 wiien first I learnt from Spurzheim's labours the very curious 

 facts which support his doctrines. I have since seen cases in 

 wiiich very large organs, even in those \a hose education was good, 

 ^and were very ina('ti\e from this habitual and constitutional ill- 

 health of the sul)ject. Besides the difference in the visible 

 structure of the fibres whicli compose the organs of the brain in 

 different persons, it seems that the constitutional differences of 

 individuals, whether they are of such a permanent and innate 

 nature as are called temperaments, or whcUirr they assume the 

 form of acknowledged diseases, or of constitutional tendencies to 

 diseases, — as for instance, in scrofulous or consumptive habit, — 

 that this peculiar diathesis or temperament must affect the 

 functions of the brain, as well as otlier parts of the animal sy- 

 stem. To differences in the actual condition of the nervou? 

 system, either original or acquired, we must attribute the consti- 

 tutional tendencies to particular forms of disease, which external 

 influences may modify in the production of various disorders. 

 To me it appears that the state of the blood and fluids in ge- 

 neral can only be secondary in the catenation of causes which 

 produce changes in the system. If upon good or bad ch\lifica- 

 tion depend the qualities of the blood ; upon nervous influence 

 must depend chylification. If blood by determination to parti- 

 cular parts produce disease, to nervous influence must we ascribe 

 such action of the sanguiferous vessels. From whatever com- 

 bination of external causes constitutional bad health and pe- 

 culiarity of temperament depend, the- nervous powers are the 

 agents, in them consists essentially the disease. The nervous 

 parts of the brain would suffer among the rest, and thus the ac- 

 tivily of the organ would be diminished when its size remained 

 the same. This circumstance, coml)ined with the particular ac- 

 tivity into which oigans niay be called by education, constitutes 

 one of the chief causes why mental activity does not more regu- 

 larly and uniformly correspond to the physical development of 

 the organs of the faculties. I have endeavoured to ascertain by 



extensive 



