THE CEREBRUM, AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 783 



this faculty, so strangely partial -in their aspect, and so abrupt in the changes 

 they undergo, that the attempt to classify them is almost as vain as the research 

 into their cause." It is, perhaps, in the sudden changes produced by blows or 

 falls, that we have the most extraordinary examples of this kind of disturbance ; 

 and it is scarcely less extraordinary, that there should sometimes be a no less 

 sudden recovery of the lost impression, which we can scarcely do wrong in 

 attributing to the return of the Cerebral organization to that previous condition 

 from which it had been perverted. ^When we take all these phenomena into 

 consideration, we can scarcely resist the conclusion that every act of perceptive 

 consciousness produces a certain modification in the nutrition of the Cerebrum -, 

 that the new mode of nutrition is continued according to the laws of Assimila- 

 tion already adverted to ; and that thus the Cerebrum forms itself in accordance 

 with the use that is made of it. And this unconscious storing up of impressions, 

 which can only be brought before the consciousness (under ordinary circum- 

 stances at least) by the connecting link of associations, affords a powerful argu- 

 ment for the doctrine which has already been frequently referred to as probable 

 that the Cerebrum is not itself a centre of consciousness, but that we only 

 become conscious -of its states, in the same manner as we do of those of the 

 Retina and of other surfaces for the reception of external impressions, by means 

 of the communication of the changes which take place in it to the Sensorium. 



813. Although the term Memory is very commonly used to designate the 

 intentional recall of past states of consciousness, as well as their spontaneous or 

 automatic recurrence, yet it is properly restricted to the latter operation ; the 

 term recollection being that which is appropriate to the former, whose peculiarity 

 consists in the exertion of the will to bring that before the consciousness, which 

 does not spontaneously present itself. {Now as this process affords a typical 

 example of the mode in which the Will acts in directing the current of thought, 

 we shall examine it a little more minutely.-ln the first place it may be posi- 

 tively amrmed, that we cannot call up any idea by simply willing it\ for it is 

 a necessary condition of an act of will, that there should be in the mind an idea 

 of what is willed ; and if the idea of the thing willed be already in the mind, it 

 is obviously impossible to use the will to bring it there. But every one is con- 

 scious of the state of mind, in which he tries to remember something which is 

 not at the time present to his consciousness ; and the question is, how he pro- 

 ceeds to bring the idea before his mind. The process really consists in the fixa- 

 tion of the attention upon one or more ideas already present to the mind, which 

 may recall, by suggestion, that which is desiderated; the very act of thus 

 attending to a particular idea not only serving to intensify the idea itself, but 

 also to strengthen the associations by which it is connected with others. ' There 

 are certain ideas so familiar to us, that they seem necessarily to recur upon the 

 slightest prompting of suggestion ; yet even with regard to these, the voluntary 

 recollection at any particular time involves the process just described. Thus, if 

 a man be asked his name, he usually finds no difficulty in giving the proper 

 answer, because it only requires that his attention should be directed to the idea 

 involved in the words " my name," to suggest the words of which that name 

 may consist. But if the individual should be in that state of " absence of 

 mind/' which really consists in the fixation of the attention upon some internal 

 train of thought, he may not be able on the sudden to transfer his attention to 

 the new idea that is forced upon his consciousness ab externoj and may thus 

 hesitate and bungle, before he is able to answer the question with positiveness. 

 So, again, it sometimes happens in old age that men fail to recollect their own 

 names, or the names of persons most familiar to them, in consequence of the 

 weakening of the bond of direct association ; and they then only recall it by 

 the operation to be presently described. And there are states of mind, in which 

 the power of voluntarily directing the thoughts is for a time suspended, and in 



