THE CEREBRUM, AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 771 



however, is not to investigate the operations of the Mind itself, but only to con- 

 sider their relations to those of the bodily Organism, we shall here enter into 

 the examination of the nature and laws of psychical phenomena, only so far as 

 may be requisite for the due explanation of those bodily changes which are re- 

 lated to them. Of the nature of the connection between Nervous action and 

 Mental action, we can form no distinct idea. Few Physiologists would be dis- 

 posed to deny that the Cerebrum is the instrument of Psychical powers ; and 

 yet no one has been able to form a self-consistent theory of the mode in which 

 it is so. Some who have attended exclusively to the close relationship which 

 indubitably exists between corporeal and mental states have thought that 

 all the operations of the Mind are but expressions or manifestations of material 

 changes in the Brain ; that thus Man is but a thinking machine, his conduct 

 being entirely determined by his original constitution, modified by subsequent 

 conditions over which he has no control, and his fancied power of self-direction 

 being altogether a delusion ; and that notions of " duty" or lt responsibility" 

 have no real foundation, Man's character being formed for him and not by him, 

 and his mode of action in each individual case being simply the consequence of 

 the reaction of his Cerebrum upon the circumstances which called it into play. 1 

 On this view, what is commonly termed Criminality is but one form of Insanity, 

 and ought to be treated as such ; Insanity itself is nothing else than a disor- 

 dered action of the Brain ; and the highest elevation of Man's Psychical nature 

 is to be attained by due attention to all the conditions which favor his physical 

 development. But again, there are others who have limited themselves to the 

 cognizance of Mental phenomena, and who maintain the very opposite doctrine 

 in regard to their nature and source. To them the Mind appears in the light 

 of a separate immaterial existence, mysteriously connected, indeed, with a 

 bodily instrument, but not dependent upon this in any other way for the condi- 

 tions of its operation, than as deriving its knowledge of external things through 

 its agency, and as making use of it to execute its determinations, so far as these 

 relate to material objects. On this hypothesis, the operations of the Mind it- 

 self, having no relation whatever to those of Matter, are never themselves 

 affected by conditions of the corporeal organism, whose irregularities or defects 

 of activity only pervert or obscure the outward manifestations of the Mind, 

 just as the light of the brightest lamp may be dimmed or distorted by passing 

 through a bad medium ; and, further, as the Mind is thus independent of its 

 material tenement, and of the circumstances in which this may chance to be 

 placed, but is endowed with a complete power of self-government, it is respon- 

 sible for all its actions, which must be judged of by certain fixed standards. 

 Those who most fully and legitimately carry out this doctrine are ready to 

 maintain that even in the state of Intoxication, there is no truly mental per- 

 version, and that, in spite of appearances, the mind of the Lunatic (divinte 

 particula aurse) is perfectly sound, its bodily instrument being alone disordered. 

 803. Now the first of these doctrines, legitimately designated the Materialist, 

 recognizes certain great facts, on which the Physiologist can scarcely entertain a 



1 For the latest and most thorough-going expression of this doctrine, see the "Letters 

 on the Laws of Man's Nature and Deve opment," by Henry G. Atkinson and Harriet 

 Martineau. A few extracts will suffice to show the bearings of this system of philosophy. 

 "Instinct, passion, thought, &c. are effects of organized substances." "All causes are 

 material causes." "In material conditions, I find the origin of all religions, all philoso- 

 phies, all opinions, all virtues, and ' spiritual conditions and influences,' in the same 

 manner that I find the origin of all diseases and of all insanities in material conditions 

 and causes." " I am what I am ; a creature of necessity ; I claim neither merit nor de- 

 merit." " I feel that I am as completely the result of my nature, and impelled to do what 

 I do, as the needle to point to the north, or the puppet to move according as the string is 

 pulled." " I cannot alter my will, w be other than what I am, and cannot deserve either 

 reward or punishment." 



