THE CEREBRUM, AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 775 



we may consider the nervous matter of the Cerebrum as the material substratum 

 through which the metamorphosis of Nerve-force into Mind-force, and of Mind- 

 force into Nerve-force, is effected ; and, as every such metamorphosis involves, 

 like other analogous transformations, a change in the state of the matter through 

 which it is effected, so should we expect that Mental activity would involve the 

 disintegration of the Nervous substance which thus ministers to it : and such 

 appears ( 358-362), from a variety of evidence, to be really the case. 



806. It is obvious that the view here taken does not in the least militate 

 against the idea that Mind may have an existence altogether independent of 

 the Material body through which it here manifests itself. All which has been 

 contended for is that the connection between the Mind and Body is such, that 

 each has, in virtue of its constitution, a determinate relation to the other, in 

 this present state of existence (which is all of which Science can legitimately 

 take cognizance) j and that the actions of our Minds, in so far as they are car- 

 ried on without any interference from our Will, may be considered (in the lim- 

 ited sense formerly explained, 395) as functions of the Cerebrum. On the 

 other hand, in the control and direction which the Will has the power of ex- 

 erting over the course of the thoughts, we have the evidence of a new and in- 

 dependent power, which is entirely opposed in its very nature to all the auto- 

 matic tendencies, and which, according as it is habitually exerted, tends to render 

 the individual a free agent. And, truly, in the existence of this Power, which 

 is capable of dominating over the very highest of those operations that we know 

 of as connected with corporeal states, we find a better evidence than we gain 

 from the study of any other part of our psychical nature, that there is an entity 

 wherein Man's nobility essentially consists, which does not depend for its exist- 

 ence on any play of physical or vital forces, but makes these subservient to its 

 determinations. It is, in fact, in virtue of the Will, that we are not mere think- 

 ing automata, mere puppets to be pulled by suggesting-strings, capable of being 

 played upon by every one who shall have made himself master of our springs 

 of action. It may be freely admitted that such thinking automata do exist : 

 for there are many individuals whose Will has never been called into due exer- 

 cise, and who gradually almost entirely lose the power of exerting it, becoming 

 the mere creatures of habit and impulse; and there are others in whom (as we 

 shall hereafter see) such states are of occasional occurrence ; whilst in others, 

 again, they may be artificially induced. And it is by the study of those states 

 in which the Will is completely in abeyance the course of thought being en- 

 tirely determined by the influence of suggestions upon the Mind, whose mode 

 of reaction upon them depends upon its original peculiarities and subsequently 

 acquired habits and by the comparison of such states with that in which an 

 individual, in full possession of all his faculties, and accustomed to the habitual 

 control and direction of his thoughts, determinately applies his judgment to the 

 formation of a decision between various plans of action, involving the appreciation 

 of opposing motives that we shall obtain the most satisfactory ideas of what 

 share the Will really takes in the operations of our minds and in the direction 

 of our conduct, and of what must be set down to the Automatic operation of our 

 psychical nature. 



807. We shall now briefly pass in review the chief of those modes of Psychical 

 activity, which constitute in the aggregate what we are accustomed to term the 

 Intellectual Powers. And the first of these in order of development, and that 

 which lies at the foundation of all the rest, is the Association of Ideas, that is, 



motor" actions which depend upon the reflex action of the latter. But in adopting that 

 part of it which is strictly applicable to the Cerebrum, and in applying it to those various 

 states which agree in the common characteristic of the existence of Mental Activity with- 

 out Volitional control, the Author considers that he is merely giving greater definiteness 

 and a wider application to Dr. Laycock's doctrine. 



