HOME LIFE. 75 



guests who came to him acquainted only with his writings, 

 may be gathered from the following letter of the late Mr. 

 George Ripley, for so many years the well-known literary 

 critic of the New York Tribune. 



I trust I do not abuse his kind hospitalities by saying that 

 my visits at his house are among the brightest recollections of 

 my London experience. With his eminent position in the 

 scientific world, he has the modest simplicity of a child. His 

 love of truth and reality, which impresses one as the staple of 

 his character, is not incompatible with an affectionate gentle- 

 ness of manner which lends a peculiar charm to his instructive 

 conversation. Dr. Carpenter is chiefly known as a physiologist, 

 though eminently distinguished in other branches of natural 

 science. But I found him equally interested in the great 

 problems of philosophic speculation, " fate, foreknowledge, and 

 free will," which have been the delight and torment of high 

 thinkers in every age. He has none of the flippant scorn of 

 certain modern pretenders to science who ignore everything 

 beyond this " visible diurnal sphere," and who would limit the 

 study of the human soul to the manipulations of the dissecting- 

 knife and microscope. Among other topics which he elucidated 

 in his familiar talk was the unconscious activity of the brain in 

 connection with the phenomena of the will. Starting with the 

 recognition of the fact that matter is merely the vehicle of force, 

 he sets aside the old dispute between the spiritualists and 

 materialists as barren of fruit, and seeks to establish a sound 

 and comprehensive psychology on the basis of the whole 

 constitution of man, and his relations to the external world. 

 From this point of view he regards the great centres of nervous 

 force as the source of two classes of automatic actions, primary 

 and secondary, of which the latter, though originally prompted 

 by the will, and still remaining under its control, are habitually 

 performed without any volitional agency. The power of 

 invention, whether in the sphere of poetry, art, or mechanical 

 combination, may be referred to this source. The same 

 principle explains the higher operations of the mind, the 

 creations of genius, and the intuitions of the moral sense. It 

 is the ever-flowing current of mental activity which may be 



