LAWS OF MIND. 443 



the removal of which they would cease to exist. The German 

 school of metaphysical speculation, which has not yet lost its 

 temporary predominance in European thought, has had this 

 among many other injurious influences: and at the opposite 

 extreme of the psychological scale, no writer, either of early 

 or of recent date, is chargeable in a higher degree with this 

 aberration from the true scientific spirit, than M. Cotnte. 



It is certain that, in human beings at least, differences in 

 education and in outward circumstances are capable of afford 

 ing an adequate explanation of by far the greatest portion of 

 character ; and that the remainder may be in great part 

 accounted for by physical differences in the sensations pro 

 duced in different individuals by the same external or internal 

 cause. There are, however, some mental facts which do not 

 seem to admit of these modes of explanation. Such, to take 

 the strongest case, are the various instincts of animals, and 

 the portion of human nature which corresponds to those 

 instincts. No mode has been suggested, even by way of 

 hypothesis, in which these can receive any satisfactory, or 

 even plausible, explanation from psychological causes alone ; 

 and there is great reason to think that they have as positive, 

 and even as direct and immediate, a connexion with physical 

 conditions of the brain and nerves, as any of our mere sensa 

 tions have. A supposition which (it is perhaps not superfluous 

 to add) in no way conflicts with the indisputable fact, that 

 these instincts may be modified to any extent, or entirely con 

 quered, in human beings at least, by other mental influences, 

 and by education. 



Whether organic causes exercise a direct influence over 

 any other classes of mental phenomena, is hitherto as far from 

 being ascertained, as is the precise nature of the organic con 

 ditions even in the case of instincts. The physiology, how 

 ever, of the brain and nervous system is in a state of such 

 rapid advance, and is continually bringing forth such new and 

 interesting results, that if there be really a connexion between 

 mental peculiarities and any varieties cognizable by our senses 

 in the structure of the cerebral and nervous apparatus, the 



