122 M. G. Cuvier's Report on the Researches 



ing. When the cerebral lobe of an animal is removed on the 

 one side, it no longer sees with the eye of the opposite side, 

 although the iris of that eye preserves its mobility : when both 

 lobes are removed, it becomes blind and deaf. 



But he doeo not appear to us to have proved this with equal 

 cei'lainty as to the other senses. In the first place, he has 

 not made, nor indeed could he make, any experiment concern- 

 ing taste and smell ; and, even as to touch, his experiments do 

 not appear to us conclusive. It is true that the animal thus 

 mutilated assumes a torpid air ; that he neither himself origi- 

 nates any act of volition, nor performs any spontaneous move- 

 ment ; but when he is stricken or wounded, he exhibits all the 

 appearance of an animal exercising its usual functions. In 

 whatever position he is placed, he resumes his equilibrium : 

 if he be laid on his back, he turns himself round again ; if 

 pushed, he moves onward ; if the animal be a frog, it leaps on 

 being touched; if a bird, it flies on being thx-ovi-n up into the 

 air ; it struggles when put to pain or inconvenience ; and if 

 water is dropped into its beak it swallows it. 



Undoubtedly, we should find it difficult to believe that all 

 these motions are produced without the excitement of sensa- 

 tion. It is true that they are not directed by any ratiocinative 

 process. The animal removes himself from the cause of ir- 

 ritation, without any further intention ; he has no inemorj', 

 and will repeatedly strike or stumble against the same obstacle: 

 but this proves at most, to use the expression of M. Flourens, 

 that the animal is in a state of sleep. Indeed he moves and acts 

 precisely like a sleeping man ; but we are far from believing 

 that a man, while asleep, who moves himself into the most 

 convenient positions and attitudes, is absolutely without sensa- 

 tions ; nor does it by any means follow, because his perception 

 of them was indistinct, and because he has retained no I'ecol- 

 lection of them, that therefore he has not experienced them. 

 Hence, insteadof saying, with our author, that the cerebral lobes 

 are the sole organs of sensation, we would confine ourselves to 

 the limits of the fact, and be content with asserting, that these 

 lobes are the only receptacle in which the sensations of sight 

 and hearing can be perfected, and become perceptible to the 

 animal. If we should add any thing more, it would be, that 

 they are also the receptacle in which the sensations assume a 

 distinct form, and leave durable impressions on the memory ; 

 that they are in fact the seat of memory, the faculty by which 

 they furnish the animal with the materials of judgement. This 

 conclusion, reduced to its exact and proper terms, would be- 

 come the more probable, since, beside the probability it derives 

 from the structure of the cerebral lobes, and their connexions 



with 



