264 Heredity. 



hermaphrodite usually possesses all the psychological tastes which 

 appertain to the predominant sex : thus the masculine hermaphro- 

 dite likes tobacco, brandy, and women. Neuter hermaphrodites 

 have been known to engage with equal pleasure in the violent 

 sports of boys, and in the quieter amusements of girls. 1 



We have now to consider another category of passions, which 

 are not connected in the same way with the organs namely, am- 

 bition, avarice, love of truth ; in a word, those sentiments which are 

 called intellectual. These are very complex sentiments, consist- 

 ing of a number of heterogeneous elements, but in which ideas 

 play the chief part. Yet it is certain that they are accompanied 

 by pleasure or pain, and that these two phenomena, under what- 

 ever form, are never entirely separable from the organism. Besides, 

 ideas themselves have their physiological antecedents ; they have 

 their condition in a cerebral state, as we shall see on looking at 

 our problem from another point of view. 



in. 



Every intellectual state has for its condition and antecedent a 

 physiological state. 



First, as regards the phenomena of perception, memory, and 

 imagination, the fact is so plain that there is no need for us to 

 dwell upon it 



But when the question- is with regard to the higher modes of 

 thought, such as comparison, abstraction, generalization, judgment, 

 reasoning, will, the answer is more difficult. It will be admitted 

 that idiocy, insanity, ecstasy, general paralysis, and delirium always 

 have their cause in a state of the brain. It will further be ad- 

 mitted that the development of the understanding depends on the 

 weight, form, and chemical constitution of the brain, and on the 

 number of its convolutions, though with regard to this point much 

 obscurity still exists. But there is generally much repugnance in 

 admitting that the meditation of a Newton or a Spinoza on ab- 

 stract truths implies a corresponding cerebral state, and we must 



1 Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturdles, Art. 'Hermaphrodisme.' On all these 

 questions consult Cabanis, pp. 222, 223, 253 (Peisse's edition) j Moreau, 329 ; 

 Coste, Devdoppement des Corps Organises, vol. i. pp. 232 239. 



