40 THE HUMAN BRAIN. 



we shall admit that perfections, amplitude, and newness of function 

 will occur in the latter which it baffles words to describe. 



The same truth is presented by comparison of the parts of the 

 brain within itself. Thus from the great cortical surface of the ce- 

 rebral globes the white fibres radiate downwards and inwards, the ca- 

 libre of the radiant mass becoming smaller as it travels. Presently 

 the rays are arrested by a new bed of cortical substance, that in its turn 

 sends down radiating fibres, which similarly converge and decrease. 

 The same process, of encountering the cortical part, starting afresh, and 

 always diminishing, is repeated, until both the cerebellum and the ce- 

 rebrum terminate in the small medulla oblongata, and in the narrow 

 spinal cord. Thus powers are stopped off and arrested as the brain 

 descends; or reasoning backwards, as Gall has done, they are added 

 ( on as the medulla oblongata ascends. What must be the addition 

 I that takes place in the mind ? what the new breadth in its cortical 

 ( spheres? what the acres of the sheaves and, bundles of its intellect- 

 ( ual light? and what, on the other hand, the gulf of loss and de- 

 , gradation that lies between it and even the highest portions of the 

 brain ? 



Thus far we have attempted a slight sketch of what may be said 

 with some certainty of the functions of the nervous system. We 

 have found that it consists firstly of an automatic apparatus, the 

 spinal brain, by which contacts are apprehended, and motions ex- 

 ecuted, without the intervention of our consciousness: secondly, of 

 an animal brain, which is to all intents and purposes an animal, or 

 imagines, desires, lusts, contrives, plans and acts from animal mo- 

 tives, though very imperfectly, from defect of instinct, which is the 

 limiting perfection of the beasts ; and thirdly, of a rational and vo- 

 luntary function, playing in its revolving cortex, and evidencing the 

 presence of an invisible mind, whose action reveals the human brain. 

 Thus we have found that the brain per se is not human, but perpe- 

 tually humanized; and that in its openness to that which is next 

 above it, and its docility to the spirit, lies its grand endowment. In 

 thus proceeding from below upwards, we have been separating parts 

 whose perfection lies in their harmonious union. We must now 

 make amends by declaring, that the influence of reason, permeating 

 the animal brain, gives it powers super-eminent over instinct; and 



