FUNCTIONS OF THE CEREBELLUM. 529 



Such evidence as can be obtained from cases of disease of 

 this organ confirms the view taken by Flourens ; and, on the 

 whole, it gains support from comparative anatomy ; animals 

 whose natural movements require most frequent and exact 

 combinations of muscular actions being those whose cere- 

 bella are most developed in proportion to the spinal cord. 



M. Foville holds that the cerebellum is the organ of 

 muscular sense, i.e., the organ by which the mind acquires 

 that knowledge of the actual state and position of the 

 muscles which is essential to the exercise of the will upon 

 them ; and it must be admitted that all the facts just 

 referred to are as well explained on this hypothesis as on 

 that of the cerebellum being the organ for combining 

 movements. A harmonious combination of muscular 

 actions must depend as much on the capability of appre- 

 ciating the condition of the muscles with regard to their 

 tension, and to the force with which they are contracting, 

 as on the power which any special nerve-centre may 

 possess of exciting them to contraction. And it is because 

 the power of such harmonious movement would be equally 

 lost, whether the injury to the cerebellum involved injury 

 to the seat of muscular sense, or to the centre for com- 

 bining muscular actions, that experiments on the subject 

 afford no proof in one direction more than the other. 



G-all was led to believe, that the cerebellum is the organ 

 of physical love, or, as Spurzheim called it, of amativeness ; 

 and this view is generally received by phrenologists. The 

 facts favouring it are, first, several cases in which atrophy 

 of the testes and loss of sexual passion have been the 

 consequence of blows over the cerebellum, or wounds of its 

 substance ; secondly, cases in which disease of the cere- 

 bellum has been attended with almost constant erection of 

 the penis, and frequent seminal emissions; and thirdly, 

 that it has seemed possible to estimate the degree of 

 sexual passion in different persons by an external exami- 

 nation of the region of the cerebellum. 



M M 



