266 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



THE PBOORESti OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 



IT is gratifying to remark the steady 

 and assured advance of psychologi- 

 cal research on the objective or corpo- 

 real side, or what is now better known 

 as mental physiology. Without deny- 

 ing the validity of the old method of 

 studying the mind by introspective ob- 

 servation, or that there are regularities 

 and uniformities in the changes of con- 

 sciousness thus revealed which are the 

 proper subject-matter of science, it is 

 still true that this method does not 

 reach down to the conditions which 

 give law to mental operations, and can 

 not deal with the most fundamental 

 questions of psychical science. It is 

 the organic side of mind which de- 

 termines mental phenomena, and the 

 science of mind is, therefore, radically 

 incomplete until the nervous system is 

 made the basis of exploration in its 

 manifestation of psychical effects. It 

 can hardly be said that there was any- 

 thing entitled to recognition, as a prop- 

 er science of mind, until the bodily con- 

 ditions and concomitants of feeling and 

 thought became an essential part of the 

 study, and, when that was done, the 

 progress of knowledge upon the sub- 

 ject was clear, decisive, and in the 

 highest degree important. To appre- 

 ciate the latest phase of this interesting 

 research, it will be desirable to recall 

 some of the signal steps of advance- 

 ment which have been made in recent 

 years in this line of investigation. 



Throughout past ages, from the an- 

 cient classical period onward, although 

 philosophy was ever busy with ques- 

 tions concerning the nature and powers 

 of the soul, nobody dreamed that it 

 had a fixed and definite working rela- 

 tion to the universe through the living 

 mechanism with which it was associ- 

 ated. The anatomy and physiology of 



the last century, however, prepared the 

 way for the successful elucidation of 

 the subject, and the first great step for- 

 ward was made by Sir Charles Bell 

 about the year 1825, in establishing 

 the double action of the nervous sys- 

 tem, or that impressions from the ex- 

 ternal world pour in upon the brain 

 through one set of nerve-lines, while 

 all the mandates of volition controll- 

 ing human activity are transmitted out- 

 ward along another system of nerve- 

 lines. This was a triumph of anatomy 

 and experimental physiology, and a 

 very striking fact, yet the profound 

 significance of the discovery could not 

 be at all appreciated at the time, as it 

 derived its chief importance from the 

 train of disclosures that grew out of it. 

 It was at first supposed that all pe- 

 ripheral impressions are sent directly 

 to the brain or sensorium, and that all 

 commands of the will are also trans- 

 mitted uninterruptedly from the brain 

 to the muscles. But about 1840 Dr. 

 Marshall Hall made another capital 

 step of progress by establishing the 

 reflex function of the spinal cord, or 

 by showing that the spinal centers 

 have a control of muscular movements 

 and organic processes independent of 

 the brain. The element of automatism 

 in the working of the living machinery 

 was here brought out, and it was dis- 

 covered that there are self -working sys- 

 tems in the living economy, by which 

 important gradations of effect are se- 

 cured. The lower and simpler cen- 

 ters of the spinal system control the 

 fundamental processes of organic life, 

 involving the action of the heart, and 

 the respiratory and digestive appara- 

 tus. It is as if these could not be in- 

 trusted to the higher organ of volition, 

 which, becoming exhausted, sinks daily 

 into inaction and unconsciousness, but 



