344 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF 



M. Couerbe discovered a large quantity of cholesterine in the 

 brain ; and asserts that in the brain of sound persons as much as 

 2 or 2 per cent, of phosphorus exists, but about half as much 

 in the brain of idiots, and nearly double in the brain of maniacs ! 

 M. John finds firmer albumen and more fat in the fibrous than in 

 the pulpy substance. 2 The oblong and spinal chords, according 

 to Vauquelin, contain more fat, and less albumen, osmazome, and 

 water: the nerves much less fat, much more albumen, and more 

 fat analogous to adipocire. M. Raspail remarks that the invest- 

 ments of the nervous fibrils, chords, and trunks, explain the pre- 

 dominance of albumen. He also reminds us that a nervous dries 

 to a horny substance without putrefying, whereas the brain putre- 

 fies in twenty-four hours. 



Where feeling occurs in matter, mind exists. But the capa- 

 bility of feeling would be useless, were not volition united with it. 

 Feeling might exist without will, but could lead to nothing : and 

 means neither of obtaining or protracting pleasant sensations, nor 

 of escaping from painful ones, could be adopted. Volition could not 

 exist without feeling ; for we will through motives only. Neither 

 can the existence of feeling be known, but by the certain effects 

 of volition sensible to others. Now feeling may be excited by 

 external things, or by changes within. In the former case, some 

 Scotch metaphysicians term it sensation, and, if an idea of the 

 external thing is also excited, perception : in the latter case, they 

 term it consciousness. When we smell, we have a sensation ; when 

 we see an object, we have a perception ; when we have a wish, or 

 an idea, or an internal pain, we are conscious. But sensation and 

 consciousness are the same, except as to their immediate causes. 

 Before will is exerted, on the occurrence of feeling, a wish must 

 also be felt a desire to escape from the feeling, or to increase 

 or prolong it : and, therefore, even in the lowest and most simple 

 cases, a faculty, if so it may be called, probably must be sup- 

 posed to exist wherever there are feeling and volition. 



There are various feelings, and modifications of feelings. The 

 external world produces immediately as many as five kinds 



z Journal de Chimie Medicate, Aotit, 1835. 



