July i\, 1879] 



NATURE 



3" 



laborious methods of anatomical and physiological re- 

 search has the human race become aware of the physical 

 conditions of sensory impressions and motor activity" 

 (p. 212). 



So far, therefore, as personal experience is concerned, 

 Prof. Calderwood might have equally well relied on it for 

 asserting that sensation and voluntary motion are inde- 

 pendent of sensory and motor nerve structures, as for his 

 assertion that mental operations are distinct from the 

 action of brain. 



That we are in ignorance of the physical processes 

 underlying many special psychical manifestations may be 

 admitted without invalidating the general fact of their 

 correlation, otherwise clearly established. But to make 

 ignorance on the one side the basis of very positive state- 

 ments on the other, is to say the least extremely rash. 

 We may not know how or under what collocations of nerve 

 cells and nerve structures subjectivity becomes apparent ; 

 but for Prof. Calderwood to exclude it in his definition of 

 the properties and modes of activity of nerves and nerve- 

 centres, and then to argue that personal experience 

 demonstrates it to be something beyond and above, is to 

 beg the whole question. 



He very ingenuously estimates the true value of such 

 an argument in a passage, in which he says, " the in- 

 sufficiency of brain and nerve to perform such work is 

 really involved in the stateme7it of the laws 0/ brain action 

 and the functions identified as belonging to fibres ana 

 cells" (p. I. 122, ital. ours). It would be more logical to 

 reconsider and amend the definition. 



Prof. Calderwood's endeavour to prove by scientific 

 evidence the distinct nature and independence of mind, is 

 to attempt the impossible. The utmost that scientific 

 evidence is able to accomplish is to show that cerebral 

 activity and the facts of consciousness are correlated 

 facts insusceptible of further simplification and incapable 

 of being expressed in terms of the other. 



Whether we adopt the hypothesis of a duality or a dual 

 unity, is a question of faith, not of scientific demonstra- 

 tion. Science can only deal with the knowable. 



Considering the very decided stand Prof. Calderwood 

 has taken on the dual theory in the light of the latest 

 researches in cerebral physiology and pathology, it was 

 not unreasonable to expect some new contribution towards 

 the elucidation of the vexed question as to how the 

 immaterial mind can act and be reacted on by the 

 material body. As to whether they are attuned on the 

 pre-established harmony principle or otherwise. Prof. 

 Calderwood gives us no information. On the whole, 

 perhaps, he has in this exercised a wise discretion. But 

 whatever theory as to the intimate nature of mind and 

 brain may be adopted, the correlationship between the 

 psychical and the physical must be accepted, not merely 

 in a general sense, but as regards each individual mani- 

 festation. Any work will be gladly welcomed, and will do 

 great service, which serves to throw further light on the 

 relations between psychical phenomena and their ana- 

 tomical and physiological substrata. Prof. Calderwood's 

 work does not help us in this respect : — rather the reverse. 

 While, as regards the facts of brain on the one hand, and 

 the facts of mind on the other, it contains much that is 

 worthy of praise, as regards their relations it is eminently 

 unsatisfactory. D. Ferrier 



SO UTH-INDIAN PAL^ GRAPHY 



Elements of South-Indian Palceography fro?n the Fourth 

 to the Seventeenth Century, A.D. By A. C. Burnell. 

 Second Enlarged and Improved Edition. (London : 

 Triibner and Co., 1878.) 



A WORK like that before us is one of those which 

 make us feel proud of our Indian civil servants. 

 Dr. Burnell has made a name for himself in a field of 

 research peculiarly his own, and the appearance of a 

 second edition of his important work on South-Indian 

 Palaeography is a matter of congratulation for science. 

 Apart from the historical and linguistic value of the 

 numerous inscriptions here copied and explained, the 

 light thrown by their decipherment upon an obscure 

 chapter in the history of writing is so important that I 

 shall make no excuse for confining myself to this side of 

 Dr. Burnell's labours, the more especially as this is the 

 side to which he has himself devoted the larger part of 

 his book. 



Two questions are brought before us at its outset— the 

 date of the introduction of writing into India and the 

 origin of the South-Indian alphabets. The two questions,, 

 indeed, hang very closely together, and the one cannot 

 be completely decided without the help of the other. The 

 earliest examples of writing yet discovered in India are 

 the edicts of Asoka, the Constantine of Buddhism, about 

 250 B.C. They are written in two different alphabets, 

 and the irregularities they present have been supposed to 

 show that writing was still a recent art. The alphabet of 

 the northern inscriptions, which may be termed the North 

 Asoka alphabet, has been proved by Mr. Thomas to have 

 been derived from an Aramaic original, and consequently 

 to have been introduced by Semitic traders from the 

 Persian Gulf. Dr. Burnell claims a similar origin for the 

 South Asoka alphabet, as well as for a third alphabet 

 used only in Southern India, and known as the Vatteluttu 

 or Old Tamil. Of this Dr. Burnell holds that it "is 

 apparently not derived from nor the source of the 

 Southern Asoka alphabet, though in some respects very 

 near to it." 



These opinions of Dr. Burnell have met with a vigorous 

 opponent in Mr. Thomas, who maintains that both the 

 southern alphabets were of Dravidian origin, the Sanskrit 

 alphabet itself being an adaptation of some pre-existing 

 Dravidian one. But it will be difficult to resist the force 

 of Dr. Burnell's arguments based upon the earliest forms 

 of the South Indian characters and their likeness to 

 corresponding characters in the Aramaic alphabets of the 

 fourth and third centuries B.C. As he justly observes : 

 "perhaps the most important proof of the Semitic origin 

 of the two South Indian alphabets is the imperfect 

 system of marking the vowels which is common to them 

 both. They have, like the Semitic alphabets, initial 

 characters for them, but in the middle of w6rds these 

 letters are marked by mere additions to the preceding 

 consonant." 



If we once admit with Dr. Burnell that the South 

 Indian alphabets have the same Phccnician origin as 

 most of the other alphabets of the world, we must go 

 further with him and derive them "from an Aramaic 

 character used in Persia or rather in Babylonia,'' The 

 progress of palaeography has made it impossible to derive 



