FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN. 565 



possess an inherent power of exciting sensation, 

 as well as performing muscular contractions. 



Beyond this point we can derive no further 

 aid from Anatomy ; since the intellectual ope- 

 rations of which we are conscious bear no con- 

 ceivable analogy to any of the configurations 

 or actions of a material substance. Although 

 the brain is constructed with evident design, and 

 composed of a number of curiously wrought 

 parts, we are utterly unable to penetrate the 

 intention with which they are formed, or to 

 perceive the slightest correspondence which 

 their configuration can have with the functions 

 they respectively perform. The map of regions 

 which modern Phrenologists have traced on the 

 surface of the head, and which they suppose to 

 have a relation to different faculties and pro- 

 pensities, does not agree either with the natural 

 divisions of the brain, or with the metaphysical 

 classification of mental phenomena.* Experi- 

 ments and pathological observations, however, 

 seem to show that the hemispheres of the brain 

 are the chief instruments by which the intel- 

 lectual operations are carried on ; that the 

 central parts, such as the optic lobes and the 



* For a summary of the doctrines of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, 

 I beg leave to refer the reader to an account which I drew up, 

 many years ago, for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and which 

 composed the article " Cranioscopy" in the last supplement 

 to that work, edited by Mr. Napier. 



