were indicative of consciousness on its part ; 
Yan. 20, 1870] 
NATURE a11 
°o) 
very fixation may be only attainable by a muscular move- 
ment, which movement is directly excited by the visual 
sense without any exertion of voluntary power over the 
muscles. Such is the case when we look steadily at an 
| 
object whilst we move the head from side to side ; for the | 
eyeballs will then be moved in a contrary direction by a 
kind of instinctive effort of the external and internal recti, 
to prevent the motion of the images over them.” 
are said to belong to the category of voluntary movements, 
and yet we are not ourselves conscious that they are taking | 
place; we know of it only, as Dr. Carpenter says—or 
rather learn to infer the existence of such movements in 
place in the spinal cord ; only that the discrimination in 
the former is of a higher type, and results in the more 
purposive movements, because it takes place in nerve- 
centres of higher rank. For the production of a distinct 
state of feeling or sensation, however, even of the 
simplest kind, conscious intellect is needed, and this can- 
\ : al a m | not be brought into operation without the conjoint activity 
which tends to keep the retina in their first position, and | 
These | 
ourselves—by observing what takes place in other persons. | 
We must make due allowances, therefore, for facts like 
these, when attempting to interpret what takes place in 
animals from whom a part of the brain has been removed ; | 
and we must also bear in mind that the endowments of 
the lower nerve-centres are different amongst different 
classes of animals, before we come hastily to the conclu- 
sion that movements of the kind mentioned in the pigeon | 
and still 
more before we conclude from such phenomena that the 
sensory ganglia in man are also seats of consciousness. 
As regards motor power, the differences are most notable 
amongst different groups of animals. Thus, after com- 
plete removal of the cerebral hemispheres, fish, reptiles, 
birds, and the lower mammalia experience extremely little | 
Carpand frogs | 
diminution in their powers of movement. 
continue to swim as well as before ; a pigeon when aban- 
doned in the air flies to the ground, settling lightly on 
its feet; whilst a rabbit runs away when irritated, 
performing these movements with no appreciable 
difficulty, and with only a slight evidence of weakness 
The weakness becomes much more notable when the 
operation is performed upon a dog, though it is less 
marked in proportion as the animal is.a young one. An 
adult dog deprived of his cerebral hemispheres is, how- 
ever, no longer capable of maintaining the erect position, 
though it can still move its legs freely whilst lving down. 
The effect in man, of even limited injuries to one 
or other hemisphere, in producing paralysis of the oppo- 
site side of the body, has been already referred to. Such 
variations must be taken into account in our interpreta- 
tions of Longet’s experiments with the pigeon. But even 
Longet himself, though he makes the ozs the centre for 
general sensibility and the corpora quadrigemina the 
centre for visual sensations, seems, after all, to entertain 
considerable doubts or to whether he is warranted in 
making use of the word “sensation.” Thus he says: 
“ Certes en prenant le mot sevsatzow dans son acceptation 
rigoureusement métaphysique, et ne Tappliquant qua 
tous les cas d’exercice dé la sensibilité avec conscienc “é, On 
devra admettre que la protubérance, siége de la sensibilité 
générale, et les lobes cérébraux, siége de intelligence, 
doivent nécessairement mettré, pour ainsi dire en com- 
mun leur activité, et concourir auméme acte.” But then he 
adds, “ Mais a la rigueur, ne pourrait-on pas permettre aux 
physiologistes de distinguer la Perception simple- (en 
quelque sorte é7w/e) des impressions, de l’attention qui leur 
est accordée, de l’aptitude 4 former des idées en rapport 
avec elles?” To this question we would reply that the 
power of simple perception with which Longet wishes to 
endow these lower centres is probably not attended by 
Consciousness, as he himself seems to intimate, and 
therefore such a word is altogether unsuitable to express 
that wzconsctous- discrimination of impressions, which 
may be followed by apparently purposive movements, 
resulting from the excitation of these lower centres. How 
this unconscious discrimination may occur, and how it 
may result in definite movements, have been shown. 
Thus, we think the experimental evidence leads us 
to the conclusion that wconsciows or organic discrimina- 
dion takes place in the sensory ganglia, just as it takes 
| long familiar to ourselves, has also occurred to Mr. 
of the cerebral hemispheres. 
We do not consider that such a conclusion is in the 
least shaken by the evidence furnished by comparative 
anatomy, notwithstanding what Dr. Carpenter™ says to 
the contrary. He writes as follows :—‘‘ Thus we are led 
by the very cogent evidence which comparative anatomy 
supplies, to regard this series of ganglionic centres as 
constituting the real sexsorzm, each ganglion having the 
power of rendering the mind conscious of the impressions 
derived from the organ with which it is connected. If this 
position be denied, we must either refuse the attribute of 
consciousness to such animals as possess no other ence- 
phalic centres than these, or we must believe that the 
addition of the cerebral hemispheres in the vertebrated 
series alters the endowment of the sensory ganglia,—an 
idea which is contrary to all analogy.” We feel most 
surprised that Dr. Carpenter should have expressed this 
latter view; in the first place, because it is quite adverse 
to the general doctrines of Von Baer, or, in other words, to 
the doctrines of Evolution which he has done his best to 
elucidate ; and, secondly, because such a notion is opposed 
to the information afforded by actual experiment as to the 
alteration in the endowment of the motor centres (to which 
we have already referred) in ascending the vertebrate scale. 
As specialisation of structure occurs, so must we get spe- 
cialisation of function; and we are glad to find that an idea, 
Herbert 
Spencer, and has been thus clearly expressed by him + :— 
“Tt does not follow, as it at first sight seems to do, that 
feelings are never located in the inferior nervous centres. 
On the contrary, it may well be that in lower types [of 
| animals] the homologues of these inferior centres are the 
| seats of consciousness. 
| come the places of “feeling 
The true implication is, that in 
any case the seat of consciousness is that nervous centre 
to which mediately or immediately the most heterogeneous 
impressions are brought ; and it is not improbable that 
in the course of nervous evolution, centres that were once 
the highest are supplemented by others. in which co-ordi- 
nation is carried a stage further, and which, therefore, be- 
while the centres before 
predominant become automatic.” 
The conclusions at which we have arrived have an 
important psychological bearing. Thus, Herbart in 
Germany, followed by Sir William Hamilton in our own 
country, made Cognition or discrimination the funda- 
mental fact of Mind, rather than Sensation or mere feeling 
(which is regarded as its basis by many others), and it must 
be confessed that physiological evidence accords with the 
former rather than with the latter view. In the first place, 
because no consciousness in the form of sensation can 
take place without the aid of intellectual activity under the 
form of cognition or discrimination ; whilst, on the other 
hand, cognition or intellectual action may take place 
under the form of a mere organzc or unconscious discri- 
mination, Without the intervention of consciousness. Thus, 
in the individual, consciousness or feeling comes to be 
superadded as an additional accompaniment to certain 
mere organic discriminations; so that consciousness, with- 
out which sensation cannot exist, is secondary, whilst 
cognition, in the form of unconscious discrimination, is 
primary. Out of this primary undifferentiated organic dis- 
| crimination, such as alone pertains to the lowest forms of 
animal life, there has been gradually evolved that which 
we know as feeling and consciousness, 
H. CHARLTON BASTIAN 
Op. cit., p. 503, 4 Principles of Psychology, Oct. 1868, No, 2, p. 105 
