♦ KNOWLEDGE 



I have ; 



aontal plu. 



iven so many examples, in my essays on 

 iniena, of entire change of mental and moral 

 ulnii.;- from injury to the brain or disease 

 I if should hardly be necessary for me to 

 . ' W believe unhesitatinorly in the depen- 

 li iiKin's nature 



which s 

 I the 



! most pi'i jr '. . 1 ; ' . wlio 



theologically dogin;;; : ,:;.|.; ,. , i ;i n of 

 every scientific doctrine — can hardly uli.^uutU^.^lai^d its 

 significance. 



Two brothers showed, at the age of five and ten 

 respectively, a singularly close attachment. When the 

 elder was sent to school, both children were so unhappy, 

 and became so ill, that, to save their lives, their father 

 brought the elder home again, and a little later sent both 

 to one school. The boys made rapid progress, and 

 "their parents' hearts were filled with thankfulness" 

 by the news they received about the lads' moral and 

 mental qualities. Suddenly, the schoolmaster had to 

 announce an entire change in the character of the elder 

 brother. " He had begun to exercise a very unreasonable 

 and tyrannical authority over the younger ; he had been 

 repeatedly punished for it ; but although he always 

 promised amendment, and could assign no cause — 

 reasonable or unreasonable — for his conduct, he soon 

 relapsed into his usual habits." The father, after due 

 inquiry, inflicted severe corporal punishment on the 

 elder brother, and confined him to his room for some 

 days with nothing but bread and water for food. The 

 lad earnestly promised amendment. But on his return 

 to school, he presently resumed his misconduct. At last, 

 the father took him away from the school. Severe 

 punishments, long incarceration, and the censure of all 

 his relatives had no effect in changing his disposition. 

 His hatred for his brother increased, until at length the 

 life of the younger was no longer safe from the fury of 

 the brother who had once loved him so well, had 

 " watched him with a kind of parental solicitude, keeping 

 a vigilant eye on the character of the boys who sought 

 his society, and admitting none to intimacy of whom he 

 did not entirely approve !" 



A boy who had been exemplary in all his conduct, and 

 actually remarkable for the warmth of his brotherly love, 

 had thus become a monster of cruelty towards his brother 

 who still loved him so much that he would say with 

 streaming eyes, " He might beat me every day if he 

 e ; but he hates me, and I shall never 



be happy again.' 

 But the boy v 

 of fifteen he v 



a other ways. At the age 

 seized by a violent passion for a lady 

 more than forty years old and the mother of five children, 

 the eldest older than himself. There was no depravity 

 about this passion ; but its intensity was astounding. 

 His paroxysms of fury when he could not see her became 

 frightful ; " he made several attempts to destroy himself ; 

 yet in the very torrent and whirlwind of his rage, if this lady 

 would allow him to sit down at her feet and lay his head 

 on her knee, he would burst into tears and go off into a 

 sound sleep, wake up perfectly calm and composed, and 

 looking up into her face with lack-lustre eye, would say, 

 ' Pity me : I can't help it.' " 



In old times, the idea of demoniac possession would 

 af suredly have been entertained respecting this boy. He 

 vas not mad, though he seemed on the way to madness 

 or to death. But a devil urging him to fury against his 

 Irothcr, and to a wild passion for a lady more than old 



enough to be his mo 

 of him. Plato and 

 about physiological 

 niscd such a devil, m 



!.ikfn possession 

 lis, ill-informed 



r>. w ' iiM rii'iiiMily liiive recog- 

 vr sti-ixrii Im (list 'him forth by 

 moral, as they supposed they 

 wn-c :i(i|u:iHii ( d with. Yet even j^rayer and fasting 

 wouM J ii.liiilily liavo failed, as entreaty and starvation 

 had already failed, in restoring this wicked but once good 

 lad to good and kindly ways. 



When, however, a little later, the boy was manifestly 

 becoming idiotic, care for his mind led to a sudden " con- 

 version " which had not rowaTrled and was not likely to 

 reward the anxiety witli ^\lii(li his moral character had 

 been so long viewed. A ihictor i x:imiiicd the Iioy'shead, 

 and found a jilacc win !■.■ fh.' slaill was slijlitly depressed. 

 "The indication is va-nc" 1,. .-.iJ, -.nJ uc should not 



piece or the linne l,y tin' tivphin,'. \w v, ii not that in this 

 case no harm can be done; the hoy must soon die, 

 whether or no." The trephine was applied, and on the 

 inner surface of the part of the skull thus removed, a long 

 sijicula of bone was found which had been growing so as 

 to pierce the brain. So soon as this piece of bone had 

 been removed the boy became himself again ; his love 

 for his brother returned and his passion for the lady dis- 

 appeared.* Can it be denied that such a case as this 

 affords the strongest possiljle ai'L:aunent against the 

 popular conceiitioH of iiersnnal imnu i-iility r For here 

 were two entirely distinct jierx.nilit i^s, a kind and 

 gentle one, a brutal and wicke.l one. Which of these 

 was to be immortal? According to the popular con- 

 ception, as the tree fell it was to lie, for ever. Did the 

 tre])hine decide between an infinity of happiness and an 

 infinity of misery ? Does not a similar objection arise 

 against the popular conception of immortality, when the 

 man who has lived a goodly, kindly, and honest life, till 

 old age, becomes weak, spiteful, and dishonest through some 

 decay and degradation of brain substance, — and so dies ? 

 And now, duly to show the real connection, or want of 

 connection, between George Eliot's remarks and religion, 

 I propose to present a conversation similar to that 

 rcpori' I 1 y >l !■- I'ou-lmnan, but witli a change of subject. 

 I\\ill ' ■ ■ ' uutors simply A, B, and C; the subject 



is ;h J ^i of musical instruments, and "the 



f(jl!o\\ iii^ -I,,.-;' -I ive remarks are interchanged " : — 



^1. Were it not better that the instrument whose tones 

 we have learned to love should be destroyed while as yet 

 it has not lost its excellence, than that it should be 

 suffered to grow so worn and old that its tones can cause 

 but discomfort and annoyance ? 



B. You are right. It is but sentiment which makes 

 novelists speak of the charms of worn-out spinnets and 

 harpsichords. There is nothing so distressing to the 

 musician as the slow and certain wearing out of what 

 has once been a fine instrument. 



C. But is not the softening, though it be the weakening, 

 of the tones, beautiful too ? 



B. Apart from fanciful fallacies not at all. Tour 

 favourite poet has correctly sjioken of the decay of an 

 instrument as ruinous, of the " rift within the lyre " 

 which, slowly widening, in the end must silence all. Old 

 instruments (even the violin when realhj old) are simply 

 distressing. 



* It may be mentioned that the mischief to the skull had been 

 caused by a blow on the head with a hard ruler, given by one of 

 those brutal ruffians who are allowed, for want of duo inquiry into 

 their fitness, to undertake the teaching of boys when themselrea 

 mere savages. The above narrative is from Dr. Wigan'a work on 

 ■' The Duality of the Brain.'' 



