THE MIND'S MIRROR. 257 



longata," and our anatomical details respecting the nerve-centres may 

 be safely concluded. From the "medulla oblongata" the nerves 

 which in large measure regulate or affect breathing, swallowing, and 

 the heart's action, spring ; so that whatever be the importance of the 

 " medulla oblongata " as an independent centre of mind or brain, 

 there can be no question of its high office as a controller of processes 

 on which the very continuance of life itself depends. 



In what part of the nerve-centres are the emotions situated in 

 big brain, little brain, sensorium, or medulla? is a query which 

 may now be relevantly asked. The ingenuous reader, imbued with 

 a blind faith in the unity of scientific opinion on matters of import- 

 ance, will be surprised to find that in the archives of physiology very 

 varied replies may be afforded to this question. Opinions backed 

 by the weight of great authority will tell us that " big brain " is the 

 seat of the emotions, intelligence, the will, and of all those higher 

 nerve functions which contribute to form the characteristic mental 

 existence of man. Such a view, say its upholders, is supported more 

 generally and fully by the facts of physiology and zoology, and by 

 those of sanity and insanity, than any other theory of the exact situa- 

 tion of the " mental light." Authority of equally eminent character, 

 however, is opposed to the foregoing view regarding the superiority 

 of the big brain over all other parts of the nervous centres ; and in 

 this latter instance our attention is directed to the claims of the 

 "sensorium" as already defined, and as distinguished from the big 

 brain itself, to represent the seat of the emotions. 



The emotions of the lower animals, we are reminded, bear a relation 

 to the development of these sensory ganglia, rather than to that of the 

 big brain. Dr. Carpenter, for instance, insists that " it is the sensorium, 

 not the cerebrum, with which the will is in most direct relation." Big 

 brain, in the opinion of Carpenter, "is not essential to consciousness;" 

 it is insensible itself to stimuli that is to say, the brain itself has no 

 sensation or feeling and it further " is not the part of the brain 

 which ministers to what may be called the ' outer life ' of the animal, 

 but is the instrument exclusively of its ' inner life.' " Impressions of 

 sight are received by the sensory ganglia or masses in relation with 

 the eye ; and, adds Carpenter, it would seem probable that conscious- 

 ness of sight only happens when the impression sent from the sensory 

 ganglia to the big brain has returned to these ganglia, and has reacted 

 upon these ' latter as the centres of sight. Thus, according to Dr. 

 Carpenter's theory, we may hold the sensorium to be the true seat of 

 the emotions. Inasmuch as we only become conscious of a sight- 

 impression when it has been transmitted back to the sensory ganglia 

 from the big brain, in like manner we become cognisant of an emo- 

 tion only when the impression has been returned to the sensorium 

 after being modified in the big brain. The latter supplies the rnodify- 



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