340 



DISCOVERY 



well be that the protopathic and epicritic ' systems 

 have been differentiated in man from a single cruder 

 system in which neither can be separately recognised. 

 From a physiological aspect, the distinction of proto- 

 pathic from epicritic sensibihty is, so far, devoid of 

 neurological basis : we cannot say that the one 

 system is related to one set of nerves, the other to 

 another. At the same time, by such investigations 

 physiology has learnt of the existence of a diffuse 

 " massive " reaction in the divided human cord, 

 the progressive grouping and regrouping of various 

 afferent impulses at different levels of the central 

 nervous system, the probable localisation of primary 

 sense quahties, and of crude pleasure, displeasure, and 

 emotion, in the thalamus, and of the more complex 

 sensory and higher mental characters in the cerebral 

 cortex. * In the cortex, indeed, they strongly suggest an 

 entirely novel conception of the principles of localisa- 

 tion. 



Interesting as the knowledge of such physiological 

 discoveries is for psychology, this interest is comparable 

 to that of being able to translate the knowledge obtained 

 in one language into another language. The two lan- 

 gujiges must be regarded as distinct ; their relation is 

 uncertain ; they do not, of necessity, " think " identi- 

 cally ; they must therefore never be confused with one 

 another. Yet at any time the knowledge learnt through 

 the one language may be helpful to that learnt through 

 the other, which runs to a certain, but unknown, extent 

 parallel with it. No psychologist can read of the 

 brilliant investigations of Sherrington on reflex action 

 without appreciating their suggestiveness in regard to 

 the course and characters of the higher mental processes 

 in which he is himself concerned. Some day, we may 

 hojje, the researches on the behaviour of the intact 

 human and animal organism, which, owing perhaps to 

 their complexity, have been neglected by the physiolo- 

 gist and zoologist and studied almost solely by the 

 psychologist, may be correlated with physiological 

 structure ; but the interests of the psychologist and the 

 physiologist must always remain different, the former 

 relating behaviour to vienlal structure, the latter re- 

 lating it to bodily structure. 



The day is far distant when consciousness will be 

 correlated with changes in living matter ; and, indeed, 

 conceivably it may never arrive. Wliether it can arrive 

 or not, psychology will always claim a position of inde- 

 pendence, interested, it is true, in the physiology of 

 the nervous system, but closely relating itself to medi- 



' Skin sensation is often supposed to be divisible into a more 

 primitive type known as protopathic. and one more recently 

 developed and more accurate which is known as epicritic. 



• The cortex cerebri is the external layer of nerve cells of 

 the " brain," or cerebral hemispheres. The nerve cells of the 

 optic thalamus form connections with the cerebral hemispheres, 

 the cerebellum, and lower levels of the central nervous system. 



cine, education, industry, and art, to the study of 

 human institutions and beliefs, and indeed of all pro- 

 cesses and products of mental life, in a manner and 

 with an outlook quite distinct from the methods and 

 the standpoint of physiology. The time has come, 

 I submit, when a .separate Section of this Association 

 should be devoted to Psychology, grateful though this 

 subject must always remain to the hospitality which 

 Physiology has always offered her, and to the help she 

 has received from Physiology in her advance to the 

 position of an independent Natural Science. 



The People of Ancient 

 Rome 



By Joshua Whatmough, M.A. 



Faulkner FcHuw o/ llic Vniversily 0/ Manchester 



" There hath been in Rome strange insurrections : the people 

 against the senators, patricians, and nobles." 



Shakespeare, Coriolanus. 



Modern forms of law and government and the names 

 used to describe them are largely derived from those 

 of ancient Rome ; yet the two words patrician and 

 plebeian, which denoted the two classes into which the 

 Roman people was sharply divided for five centuries 

 and more, though they have been taken over into 

 modern languages — our own, for example — have not 

 retained any political significance. In ancient Rome 

 they were highly political, but they marked something 

 very different from our system of party pohtics, and 

 in modern English, as well as in French and Itahan, 

 the words suggest distinctions which are social, not 

 pohtical. Still, the words are significant enough, and 

 some account, in the light of recent research, of the 

 two classes, the patricii, or " folk with fathers," and the 

 plebs, or " multitude," in the ancient Roman state, 

 may not be without interest for the general reader. 



The Romans themselves, as we shall see, preserved 

 a tradition concerning the nature of the distinction 

 both in Italy generally and in Rome itself, but they 

 could not point to any definite historical events with 

 wliich they might connect it ; for its primitive char- 

 acter had been altogether changed before they began 

 to make the written records which we still possess. 

 Mommsen, the famous German historian of Rome, 

 made a pronouncement wliich was accepted \sithout 

 question, and may be found in nearly every textbook 

 on Roman history pubhshed since he wrote— namely, 

 that the distinction between the two classes was 



