546 PHRENOLOGY: OLD AND NEW. 



which does not commend itself very highly when judgecl 

 by general evidence open to all. It is surely a little 

 repugnant to warrantable inferences to be asked to believe 

 that impressions so primordial as the ' systemic ' through- 

 out the Vertebrate Series (and which would seem to 

 diminish rather than increase in importance in the higher 

 members of the series) should have most to do with one 

 of the latest evolved and most specialized portions of the 

 Cerebrum. This general evidence, indeed, as the writer 

 has elsewhere suggested, points rather to the greater pro- 

 portionate implication of the Occipital Lobes with the 

 higher Intellectual Activity of which the animal is 

 capable.* The latter notion has also been supported by 

 Dr. Hughlings Jackson and others, because of its accord- 

 ance with many facts supplied by sufferers from diseases 

 of the Brain. 



It does not at all follow that Visceral Impressions from 

 the two sides of the body should, like the majority of 

 sensory impressions, decussate in some part of their 

 course to the Cerebral Hemispheres. No similar advantage 

 would result from the decussation of such impressions. 

 In the first place, no uniform bilateral symmetry is met 

 with throughout the Viscera ; and secondly, if the crossing 

 of other sensory strands has been brought about in the 

 manner we have attempted to indicate (p. 478) no object 

 would be gained by a similar decussation of Visceral Im- 

 pressions. This is obvious when we consider that Visceral 

 Impressions carry with them no tendency or need to evoke 

 the activity of merely one side of the body. So far as 

 they pass to the Cerebrum, and excite the action of ' organs 

 of relation,' they would aj^pear to act only through the 



* "The Human Brain," Macmillan's Magazine, Nov. 1865. 

 The same view, it appears, was put forward by Dr. Carpenter in 

 the BriL ^ For, Med. Chir. Review for Oct. 18-iti. 



