100 FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN. 



poeia is quite inefficient ; and no real benefit can be con- 

 ferred without vigorous medical treatment, which is as 

 efficacious in these affections as in the diseases of any 

 other organs. 



In thus drawing your attention to the physiology of the 

 brain, 1 have been influenced, not merely by the intrinsic 

 interest and importance of the subject, but a wish to exem- 

 plify the aid which human and comparative anatomy and 

 physiology are capable of affording each other, and to shew 

 liow the data furnished by both tend to illustrate pathology. 

 I have purposely avoided noticing those considerations of 

 the tendency of certain physiological doctrines, which have 

 sometimes been industriously mixed up with these disqui- 

 sitions. In defence of a weak cause, and in failure of direct 

 arguments, appeals to the passions and prejudices have 

 been indulged; attempts have been made to fix public 

 odium on the supporters of this or that opinion ; and direct 

 charges of bad motives and injurious consequences have 

 been reinforced by all the arts of misrepresentation, insi- 

 nuation, and inuendo. 



To discover truth, and to represent it in the clearest and 

 most intelligible manner, seem to me the only proper ob- 

 jects of physiological, or indeed any other inquiries. Free 

 discussion is the surest way, not only to disclose and 

 strengthen wliat is true, but to detect and expose what is 

 fallacious. Let us not then pay so bad a compliment to 

 truth, as to use in its defence foul blows and unlawful 

 weapons. Its adversaries, if it has any, will be dispatched 

 soon enough, without the aid of the stiletto and the bowl. 



The argument against the expediency of divulging an 

 opinion, although it may be true, from the possibility of 

 Its being perverted, has been so much hackneyed, so often 

 employed in the last resort by the defenders of all esta- 

 blished abuses and errors, that every one, who is conversant 

 with controversy, rejects it immediately, as the sure mark of 

 a bad cause, as the last refuge of retreating error. 



