Chap. XXV.] PHRENOLOGY : OLD AND NEW. 531 



with what we hold to he the more probable theory, viz.: 

 that such ' perceptive centres ' or mechanisms are diffuse 

 in seat and interblended with others. This, indeed, has 

 been pointed out by Prof. Croom Eobertson,* who says : — 

 ** so there is no intrinsic improbability — rather the reverse 

 — in the view, that impressions received by any organ of 

 sense are all carried up first to a particular region of the 

 cortical substance before they are brought into relation 

 with other impressions and with motor impulses, or are 

 otherwise elaborated in the brain. It may w^ell be that 

 there are special sensory regions in the brain-cortex, and 

 that Dr. Ferrier has given the first rough indication of 

 their locality." Each set of sensory fibres might, in fact, 

 direct themselves towards some particular part of the 

 cerebral cortex, whence the fibres might diffuse themselves 

 more or less widely. These ' first cortical stations,' or 

 regions from which sensory fibres diffuse themselves in 

 different directions, may have no real claim to be considered 

 as ' centres,' and yet the same kind of results may follow 

 from their destruction or stimulation as if they were real 

 * centres.'! And owing to the subsequent diffusion of the 

 several kinds of fibres, other regions are not likely to be 

 revealed by experimental investigation which w^ould have 

 any similar claims to be regarded as * sensory centres.' 

 Croom Robertson truly says, sensations themselves "can 

 neither be supposed to be consummated at their first 



* Sere a review of Dr. Ferrier's work in " Mind,' 1877, pp. 96, 97. 



t C. Eobertson aptly remarks, "Peripheral impressions may be 

 utterly prevented from coming into consciousness by the cortical 

 lesion ; but it does not follow that the last act of the nervous 

 process involved in a conscious sensation of touch is naturally 

 consummated there and nowhere else in the brain, or that in all 

 that region there is no work done but such as (objectively) we call 

 touch." 



