TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 135 



may be viewed, why should not both be looked at carefully? If it be also 

 admitted that it is impossible to conuect any physical process (supposing we knew 

 it) occurring in brain-cells with an act of consciousness, what is the use of taking 

 a one-sided ^iew of the phenomena in question ? Why not study both sides of the 

 ])roblem, and give up the attempt at reconciliation, which is entirely beyond the 

 pale of our faculties ? This mystery of mind and matter has puzzled thoughtful 

 men from the earliest times. Some have attempted a reconciliation. They have 

 leasoned in a circle, so that most people, after perusing tlieir works, are no nearer 

 an ultimate solution than they were at the beginning. We always come back to 

 this view of the case, namely, that every fact of mind has two aspects, a physio- 

 logical and a psychological. That is one way of looking at the problem, and it is 

 tlio one which, in the present state of knowledge, personally I prefer. ]3ut there 

 is another. Thus, as has been well argued hj Mr. George Henry Lewes in his 

 recent work, ' Problems of Life and Mind,' two very diti'erent descriptions may be 

 given of one and the same mental activity. The one may be expressed in the 

 language of psychology, which is tb.e language we commoiJy use to describe our 

 feelings ; the other may be stated in the language of physiology, a language intel- 

 ligible only to those acquainted with the present state of physiological research. 

 lie says, " AU that we have to guard against is the tendency to mistake difference 

 of aspect for diflerence of process, and to suppose that changes in feeling can exist 

 independently of changes in the organism, or that any change in the organism can 

 be effected otherwise than by some previous change." This way of stating the 

 question may be more satisfactory to some minds. At all events it is a fair attempt 

 to solve the puzzle of our present state of existence, in which we are constantly 

 brought face to face with the antithesis of object and subject. 



Abandoning these speculations, wliicli are fruitless in practical effects, let me now 

 endeavour very briefly to indicate the lines of inquiry in the domain of physiology 

 along which progress has been and may be made in the attempt to solve psycho- 

 logical phenomena ; and I wish it to be understood that I do not take these in any 

 logical order, but merely adduce them by way of illustration. It will also be my 

 aim not so much to describe what has been done in the past, as to iridicate what 

 remains to be done in the future. 



Ressakch in Physiological Psychology. 



Fh'st of all, tlien, it is quite evident that all researches on the general physiology 

 of the great nerve-centres are of paramoimt importance. Such researches as those 

 of Hitzig, Fritsch, and Ferrier on the excitability of the cerebral hemispheres, 

 supplying new ideas regarding the mechanism of the bram as a compound organ ; 

 of Wundt on central innervation and consciousness, in which he discusses in a 

 manner never before attempted, the phenomena of reflex excitation ; of ^^'iUiam 

 Stirling on the summation of excitations in reflex mechanisms ; of various French 

 phj'siologists on the mode of action of ganglia in Insecta ; and of many others, are 

 all recent important contributions to this department of science. Here, however, 

 we have to confess that we have little accurate information regarding the minute 

 structiu-e of the parts involved, and con.sequently no anatomical basis on which to 

 foimd our views. We have a general idea of strands of nerve-fibres iind groups of 

 nerve-cells of various forms, but we have no precise knowledge of the relative 

 quantity of these, or of the relation of one group of ner^e-cells to another group. 

 We are unacquainted with any peculiarity in structure, for example, by which even 

 an accomplished histologist could identify three microscopical sections as respec- 

 tively portions of the brain of a man, of a monkey, and of a sheep. All this has 

 still to be work out. Every little area of brain-matter has to be survej-ed and 

 carefidly described. Supposing this were done in the case of the human brain, and 

 of the brains of the higher animals, the same must be attempted witli the brainy 

 of animals lower in the scale. I can then conceive a grand collection of facts 

 which may throw light on the intricate working of different kinds of brains, and, 

 perhaps, afford a rational explanation of certain simple psychological characters. 



