792 ELPOET— 1889. 



priori presumption could only be met by adducing some very cogent reasons of an 

 a posteriori kind, showing that there was some super-added element in human 

 intelligence. Only three such elements had been suggested — namely, conceptional 

 thought, morals, and religion, the two latter, however, being dependent upon the 

 former. The conclusion at which Professor Romanes arrived was that, although 

 it must be admitted that the distinction of a true self-consciousness from lower 

 grades of mental development was no doubt a very great and important matter, 

 still it was not so great and so important in comparison with what this develop- 

 ment was afterwards destined to become as to make us feel that it constituted any 

 distinction sui generis between man and the brute. Even when self-consciousness 

 arose, and it became fairly well developed, the powers of the human mind were 

 still in the most infantile condition. 



5. On the relations between Brain-Functions and Human Character. 

 Brj Bebnard Hollander. 



The failure of a scientific basis to human character and a correct analysis of 

 the fundamental human dispositions must be attributed to the want of knowledge 

 of the functions of the brain and nervous-system, and to the preference with which 

 men have hitherto followed metaphysical speculations on the human mind in 

 comparison to physical research. The study of comparative anatomy, of craniologj', 

 of the evolution of the intellect, of heredity, of mind in animals, of the growth 

 of intelligence in children, and the perversion of the faculties in the insane, and 

 other studies which help us to understand human nature, are of comparatively 

 recent origin, while the most important of all — that is, brain-physiology — is still 

 most obscure. It is only recently that the plurality of functions of the brain has 

 been demonstrated scientifically ; and though a number of English and foreign in- 

 vestigators have succeeded in localising centres for motion and sensation, we are 

 still in need of a method which will enable us to demonstrate centres of ideation 

 or thought. A number of experiments have been made on the cortex of animals, 

 with the result of defining distinct regions for motion and sensation, either by 

 exciting definite portions of brain, and watching the movements that occur, or by 

 destructive lesions and observation of the loss of movements; and though the 

 results in themselves were not, hitherto, considered to be of direct value to the 

 student of mental science, they demonstrate, as will be shown, the physical 

 parallel of certain emotions, and confirm actual localisations made empu-ically 

 by earlier investigators, whose work, however, has been long ago rejected on 

 account of the insufficiency of their method. 



This communication is intended to be a collection of facts relating to the subject 

 of brain-functions, in their subjective and objective aspects, with the view of 

 showing the possibility of a ' scientific ' phrenology and the necessity of re-examin- 

 ing the empirical observations made by Dr. Joseph Francis Gall, bearing in mind 

 the defects of his system and the overstrained pretensions of his followers. 



(a.) Experimental physiologists are agreed that the most intense centres for 

 movements of the ' facial ' muscles are in a portion of brain extending from the 

 gyrus centralis anterior to the latter end of the middle frontal convolution. This 

 localisation is confirmed by pathologists, and all observers are struck by the fre- 

 quency with which disease of the ' facial ' nerve occurs, together with loss of 

 articulation of speech (see Professor Di-. Sigmund Exner, ' Localisationen der Func- 

 tionen der Grosshirnrinde des Menschen,' Wien, 1881). This brain-area corre- 

 sponds with that in which Gall located his ' organ of mimicry,' which he supposed 

 to be the physical condition for a talent for the imitation of gestures of other 

 people, and which he noted to be often accompanied by a talent for imitating the 

 voice of others, thus constituting the necessary fundamental dispositions to the art 

 of 'acting.' 



(b.) Professor Ferrier's localisation of the ' gustatory, centre ' at the tip of the 

 lower temporal convolution, the centre which sometimes gives rise to ravenous 

 appetite, or sitophobia, exemplified in certain forms of insanity, is exactly the same 

 as that of ' gustativeness ' or ' alimentiveness ' as made by the early phrenologists, 



