CABANIS AND MAUDSLEY. 241 



fallacy can hardly be said to lie with. Cabanis, whose 

 expression is : " In order to have a just idea of thought, 

 it is proper to consider the brain as an organ speci- 

 fically adapted to produce it, in the same way as the 

 stomach and intestines are adapted to produce diges- 

 tion." There is here no such fallacy as Dr. Maudsley 

 speaks of, and it is free from the ambiguity respecting 

 force. In fact, it is identical with the conclusion not only 

 of Claude Bernard, but of Dr. Maudsley himself, as ex- 

 pressed at page 44, thus " Nevertheless, it must be 

 distinctly laid down that mental action is as surely 

 dependent on the nervous structure as the function of 

 the liver confessedly is on the hepatic structure that 

 is the fundamental upon which the fabric of a mental 

 science must rest." Professor Bain, whom we may 

 count the highest authority, rejects the supposition of 

 a spiritual substance between the material and the im- 

 material shores of mental phenomena. Indeed, this 

 once so common notion (of an immaterial entity) ap- 

 pears to rest on the idea that, as we know much about 

 ordinary matter, all of which is totally dissimilar from 

 mind, it is difficult to imagine that as belonging in any 

 way to matter ; while, as we know absolutely nothing 

 about spiritual substances, it is easy to clothe them 

 with any powers we like.* But the language of Pro- 



* This is illustrated by the expressions of Mr. Ponton (" The Be- 

 ginning,") who adopts substantially Dr. Beale's "vital power or force," 

 under the name of " somewhats," or " organizers." He says it is not 

 necessary to have two kinds of " somewhats," one for giving mental 

 power, and the other for organizing the lower bodily parts. Then, at 

 page 314, he says " The circumstance that volition is exercised con- 

 sciously, and organizing power unconsciously, is not enough to warrant 

 our regarding these two as being exerted by wholly distinct essences." 

 He had just said that it was idle to attribute mental phenomena to 

 material elements ; but he has no difficulty in attributing various dis- 



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