LAWS OF MIND. 509 



probably be distinguished by fondness for natural 

 history, a relish for the beautiful and great, and moral 

 enthusiasm ; where there is but a mediocrity of sensi- 

 bility, a love of science, of abstract truth, with a 

 deficiency of taste and of fervour, is likely to be the 

 result." 



We see from this example, that when the general 

 laws of mind are more accurately known, and above 

 all, more skilfully applied to the detailed explanation 

 of mental peculiarities, they will account for many 

 more of those peculiarities than is ordinarily sup- 

 posed. I by no means seek to imply from this that 

 they will account for all ; but that which remains to 

 be otherwise accounted for is merely a residual phe- 

 nomenon; and the amount of the residue can only 

 be determined by persons already familiar with the 

 explanation of phenomena by psychological laws. 



On the other hand, it is equally clear that when 

 physiologists, taking into account the whole animal 

 creation, attempt, by a judicious application of the 

 Method of Concomitant Variations, grounded chiefly 

 on extreme cases, to establish a connexion between 

 the strength of different mental propensities or capa- 

 cities and the proportional or absolute magnitudes of 

 different regions of the brain; the evidences which are 

 or may be produced in support of this pretension, 

 ought to be taken into serious consideration by 

 psychologists. Nor will this part of the science of 

 mind be ever cleared up, until those evidences shall 

 be not only sifted and analyzed, but when necessary, 

 added to and completed, by persons sufficiently versed 

 in psychological laws to be capable of discriminating 

 how much of each phenomenon such laws will suffice 

 to explain. 



Even admitting the influence of cerebral confer- 



