310 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Oct. 17, 1884. 



nothing during the second state about what had occurred 

 in previous periods of that same condition ; but he knew 

 full well all that had occurred then, and his recollection of 

 everything was as perfect then as it was during his ordi- 

 nary life concerning the ordinary acts of that life. He had, 

 therefore, two actually dit-tinct lives, in each of which he 

 knew everything which belonged to the wakeful period of 

 that lite, and in neither of which did he know anything of 

 what had occurred in the other. He remained in the 

 abnormal — or rather the less usual state, for a time which 

 was extremely variable — between one and three hours, and 

 after that he fell asleep, and got out of that state of mind 

 pretty much in the same way that he had got into it. I 

 have seen three other cases of that kind, and as so many 

 have fallen under the eyes of a single medical practitioner, 

 such cases cannot be extremely rare." 



The circumstances just described will probably remind 

 the reader of cases of somnambulism, during the recurrence 

 of which the person aifected recalls the circumstances which 

 had taken place during the previous attack, of which in 

 the intervening wakeful state he had been altogether 

 oblivious. Dr. Carpenter, in his fine work on " Mental 

 Physiology," records several instances.* Forbes Winslow 

 cites cases in which intoxication has produced similar 

 effects ; as, for instance, when a drunken messenger left a 

 parcel in a place which he was quite unable to recall when 

 sober ; but, becoming drunk again, remembered where it 

 was, and so saved his character for honesty through the 

 loss of his sobriety. 



It may fairly be reasoned, however, that the actual 

 duality of the brain is not demonstrated or even suggested 

 by cases such as these last. In fact, it is not difficult to 

 cite evidence which, if interpreted in the same way, would 

 show that we have three brains, or four or more. Thus Dr. 

 Rush, of Philadelphia, records that " an Italian gentleman, 

 who died of yellow fever in New York, in the beginning of 

 his illness spoke English, in the middle of it French, but on 

 the day of his death only Italian." It is manifest that the 

 interpretation of this case, and therefore of others of the 

 same kind, must be very different from that which Brown- 

 S^quard assigns, perhaps correctly, to the case of two-fold 

 mental life above related. Knowing as we do how greatly 

 brain action depends on the circulation of the blood in the 

 vessels of the brain, we can be at no loss to understand the 

 cases of the former kind, without requiring a distinct brain 



the effect of a lecturo, regarded either as a demonstration or as a 

 work of art. Still more unfortunate will it be for a lecturer if he 

 should be carried away by his subject, and pour forth rapidly the 

 thoughts which have come uncalled into existence. Take the most 

 eloquent passage from the pages of Sir J. Herschel, Tyndall, or 

 Huxley, strike out as many words, not quite necessary to the sense, 

 as shall destroy completely the flow and rhythm of the passage, 

 omit every third sentence, and leave the rest to be slowly read by 

 a perplexed student, and the effect will correspond to the report of 

 passages which, as delivered, formed the most effective part of a 

 lecture. The result may bo a useful mental exercise, but will 

 surely not be suggestive of fervid eloquence. The student of such 

 reports will do well to read, as it were, between the lines, taking 

 what appears as rather the symbol of what was said than its actual 

 substance. So read such reports are of great value. 



* One of these, however, is scarcely worthy of a place in Dr. 

 Carpenter's book. I refer to the narrative at p. 596, of a servant- 

 maid, rather given to sleep-walkiug, who missed one of her combs, 

 and charged a fellow-servant who slept in the same room with 

 stealing it, but one morning awoke with the comb in her hand. 

 " There is no doubt," says Dr. Carpenter, " that she had put it 

 awny on a previous night without preserving any waking remem- 

 brance of the occurrence ; and that she had recovered it when the 

 remembrance of its hidiug-place was brought to her by the recur- 

 rence of the state in which it had been secreted." This is not 

 altogether certain. The other servant might have been able to 

 give a different account of the matter. 



for the different memories excited.* In the same way, 

 possibly we might explain the well-known case of an insane 

 person who became sane during an attack of typhus fever 

 at the stage when sane persons commonly become delirious, 

 his insanity returning as the fever declined. But we seem 

 led rather to Dr. Brown-Sequard's interpretation, by a 

 case which recently came under discussion in our law 

 courts, where a gentleman whose mind had become diseased 

 was restored to sanity by a fall which was so serious in its 

 bodily consequences as to be the subject of an action for 

 damages. 



(To he continued.) 



DREAMS : 



THEIK PLACE IN THE GKOWTH OF PRIMITIVE 

 BELIEFS. 



By Edw.\rd Clodd. 



X. 



THE existence of the ghost-soul or other-self being un- 

 questioned, the inquiry follows, where does it dwell ? 

 Like the Trolls of Noz'se myth who burst at sunrise, the 

 Hitting spirit vanishes in the light and comes with the 

 darkness ; but what places does it haunt when the quiet of 

 the night is unbroken by its intrusion, and where are they ? 

 The answers to these are as varied as the vagaries of 

 rude imagination permit We must not expect to find 

 any theories of the soul's prolonged after-existence among 

 races who have but a dim remembrance of yesterday and 

 but a hazy conception of a to-morrow. Neither, among 

 such, any theories of the soul abiding in a place of reward 

 or punishment, as the result of things done in tlie body. 

 S])eaking of the heaven of the red man. Dr. Brinton re- 

 marks that " No contrast Ls discoverable between a place 

 of torment and a realm of joy ; at the worst but a negative 

 castigatiou awaited the liar, the coward, or the niggard." 

 Ideas of a devil and a hell are altogether absent from the 

 barbaric mind, since it is obvious that any theory of retri- 

 bution can arise only when mans moral nature had so 

 developed as to awaken questions about the government 

 of the universe, and to call another world into existence 

 to redress the wrongs and balance the injustices of 

 this. His earliest queries were concerned with the 

 whereabouts of the soul more than with its destiny, 

 and it was, and stiU is among the lower races, thought 

 of as haunting its old abode or the burial-place of its 

 body, and as acting very much as it had acted when in the 

 flesh. The custom of placing articles whose manes would 

 serve its supposed needs is an evidence of this. The shade 

 of the Algonquin hunter chases the spirits of the beaver 

 and the elk with the spirits of his bow and arrow, and 

 stalks on the spirits of his snow-shoes over the spirit of 

 the snow. Among the Costa Ricans the spirits of the 

 dead are supposed to remain near their bodies for a year, 

 and the explorer Swan relates that when he was with the 

 North-Western Indians he was not allowed to attend a 

 funeral, lest he offended the spirits hovering round ; whilst 

 the Indians of North America often destroy or abandon 

 the dwellings of the dead, the object being to prevent the 

 ghost from returning, or to leave it free so to do. But it is 



* "No simple term," says Sir Henry Holland, "can express the 

 various effects of accident, disease, or decay, upon this faculty, so 

 strangely partial in their aspect, and so abrupt in the changes they 

 undergo, that the attempt to classify them is almost as vain as the 

 research into their cause." The term "dislocation of memory" 

 was proposed by him for the phenomena of complete but temporary 

 forgetfulness. 



