190 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvi. 



it is really founded on a far more scientific basis than 

 that of the modern school, who, by an utterly unnatural, 

 and therefore " unscientific " mode of exciting the 

 brains of living animals, hope to arrive at a correct 

 knowledge of its varied functions. 



The blinding effect of this prejudice against phre- 

 nology has caused these modern investigators to over- 

 look the circumstance that the often complex motions 

 of different parts of the body resulting from the stimu- 

 lation of various brain-centres were really the physical 

 expression of mental emotions, and of the very same 

 emotions as those long since assigned to the phreno- 

 logical organs situated in the same parts of the brain. 

 It is also very suggestive that these experiments lead to 

 nothing. of value in the hands of the experimenters. To 

 show that the excitation of one brain-centre affects such 

 numerous and varied sets of muscles as are required to 

 cause movements of the hind legs, the tail, the head, and 

 the vocal organs of a cow; while excitation of another 

 centre produces movements of the ear and of all four 

 limbs in a jackal, but of the tail, mouth, and tongue in 

 a not very remote species, the cat are facts which, 

 standing alone, are unmeaning and worthless. But all 

 these movements and many others become quite intelli- 

 gible when looked upon as not the immediate but the 

 derived effects of the stimulation; being the various 

 modes of expression of the mental emotions which con- 

 stitute the actual functions of the parts excited, and the 

 expression of which varies according to the organization 

 and habits of the several animals. Instead of being, as 

 so often alleged, a disproof of phrenology, or in any 

 way antagonistic to it, these modern investigations are 



