THE CEREBRUM, AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 757 



occurrence of automatic movements as consequences of its recall ( 758). But 

 farther, we shall hereafter find evidence to the same effect, in our experience of 

 the occasional evolution of results such as ordinarily proceed from intellectual 

 action, without any consciousness on our own parts of the steps whereby these 

 are attained ( 813, 819, 820). 



788. Without presuming, then, to affirm positively what cannot be proved, 

 it may be stated as a probable inference from the Physiological facts already 

 referred to, and from the Psychological evidence hereafter to be adduced, that 

 the Sensory Ganglia constitute the seat of consciousness, not merely for impres- 

 sions on the Organs of Sense, but also for changes in the cortical substance of 

 the Cerebrum; so that, until the latter have reacted downwards upon the Sen- 

 sorium, we have no consciousness either of the formation of ideas, or of any intel- 

 lectual process of which these may be the subjects. Ideas, emotions, intellectual 

 operations, &c., have of late been frequently designated as "states of conscious- 

 ness;" and this psychological description of them is in full harmony with the 

 physiological account here given of the material conditions under which they 

 respectively occur. For a Sensation being a state of consciousness excited 

 through the intermediation of the Sensorium, by a certain change (e. </.) in the 

 condition of the Retina, it is not difficult to understand how a change in the 

 condition of the Cerebrum may excite, through the same instrumentality, that 

 state of consciousness which may be termed Ideational, 1 or that another 

 change may produce the Emotional Consciousness, another the Intuitional 

 Consciousness, another the Logical Consciousness. And although it may be 

 thought at first sight to be a departure from the simplicity of Nature, to sup- 

 pose that the Cerebrum should require another organ to give us a consciousness 

 of its operations, yet we have the knowledge that the Eye does not give us 

 visual consciousness, nor the Ear auditory consciousness, unless they be con- 

 nected with the Sensory Ganglia ; and in the end (the Author feels a strong as- 

 surance) it will be found much simpler to accept the doctrine of a common centre 

 for sensational and for what may be distinguished as mental consciousness, than 

 to regard the two centres as distinct. 53 We shall now proceed with a brief ana- 

 lysis of the operations of which the Cerebrum is the instrument ; considering 

 them in the ascending series, as founded upon Sensational changes. 



789. Neither the operation of the Intellectual Powers, nor Emotional excite- 

 ment is immediately called forth by the Sensational Consciousness ; 'for if we 

 do not advance beyond this, we merely recognize the fact that certain changes 

 have occurred in our own ll subjective" state, and do not refer these changes to 

 any external or t( objective" source. Of this we occasionally meet with ex- 

 amples among the phenomena of dreaming, and in some of the conditions re- 

 sulting from the use of Anaesthetic agents ; for if we fall asleep whilst suffering 

 from bodily pain, we may entirely lose all perception of the cause of that pain 

 as having its seat in our own bodily fabric, and yet remain conscious of a per- 

 turbed state of feeling; and when a surgical operation is performed in a state 

 of incomplete Anaesthesia, it is obvious that pain is felt without any distinct 



1 The Author ventures to use this term, the meaning of which requires no explanation, 

 on the authority of Mr. James Mill, who remarks: "As we say Sensation, we might also 

 say Ideation ; it would be a very useful word ; and there is no objection to it, except the 

 pedantic habit of decrying a new term. Sensation is the general name for one part of 

 our constitution [or rather, for one state of our consciousness], Ideation for another." 

 (" Analysis of the Human Mind," vol. i. p. 42.) If the use of the substantive Ideation 

 be admitted, there can be no reasonable objection to the adjective ideational. 



2 It may serve to give additional confidence in the views above propounded, if the Author 

 mentions that he was led by them to predict the psychological phenomena referred to at 

 the end of \ 787, of which he was not at the time aware as facts, but of which he after- 

 wards became assured by the analysis of his own consciousness, and by the communicated 

 experience of others to whom he stated the question. 



