December 28, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



327 



MENTAL SCIENCE. 



Brain and Sociability. 



This is the title of an address delivered at the Congress of Ger- 

 man Naturalists of this year, by Prof. Theodore Meynert, whose 

 works on the nervous system have given him a world-wide reputa- 

 tion. Like much that he writes, it contains many digressions, and 

 in particular enters into details concerning the nature of instinct. 

 The portion of the address most germane to the title is reproduced 

 in abstract here.^ 



The struggle for existence has its origin in the tendency of or- 

 ganisms to multiply indefinitely. Sociability consists in the moder- 

 ation of this strife ; in the more or less conscious resolve of a certain 

 portion of the animal kingdom to live and let live. The Hindoo 

 philosophy attempts to embrace the entire animal world under such 

 a law, but this is practically impossible. The Christian ideal of a 

 single brotherhood of man is realizable, because it includes but one 

 animal species. Such communities confined to one species, or still 

 more frequently to one society, are to be seen in the animal world- 

 The organized troops of elephants, the communities of ants and 

 bees, illustrate it abundantly. With what kind of psychic or physi- 

 ological activity to connect these manifestations is a question capa- 

 ble of various answers. One finds it difficult to draw the line sepa- 

 rating the conscious from the unconscious, the designed from the 

 instinctive, the voluntary from the reflex. It is somewhat less 

 hopeless to arrange organisms by means of an anatomical com- 

 parison of their nervous systems. This would not coincide with 

 the zoological scale throughout ; for the Ainphioxus, though a 

 vertebrate, has almost no brain. By the classification here adopted, 

 the ant and the bee would stand high in the scale. In man the 

 cortical organ is situated to one side, the reflex organs to the other 

 side, of the base of the cranium ; and the ganglia furnishing com- 

 munication with the organs of sense are between. In the same 

 way in the invertebrates the ganglia anterior to the oesophageal 

 arch are subordinate to those posterior : they play the rS/c of 

 higher and lower brain, and have the same significance as volun- 

 tary and reflex action have in the vertebrates. In the ants, ac- 

 cording to Forel, the greater the intelligence of the animal, the 

 more developed are these ganglia. Passing upward from the leech 

 to the water-beetle {Dy/zsciis), to the ant, one passes from a nervous 

 system in which the inferior cerebral ganglia are larger than the 

 superior, to one in which they are equal, to one in which the supe- 

 rior gains the ascendency. Forel finds among ants that these gan- 

 glia are much reduced in the incapable males, a little larger in the 

 females, and well developed in the workers. While consciousness 

 need not be exclusively connected with these anterior ganglia, their 

 high development eclipses the powers of the lower centres ; and 

 this seems to be the more perfect the greater the excess of the 

 superior over the inferior ganglia. 



The methods by which the sociability is retained among animal 

 communities, — the power of communication, the power of recogni- 

 tion of friends and enemies, the selection of a single queen so that 

 there shall be unity in the government, — all this need not detain 

 us here. The point to be noted is the type of sociability represented 

 by an insect community, — a sociability limited in its scope, but 

 within that limit rendering the struggle for existence less keen. .A.n 

 ant of another species is treated as an enemy : degree of resem- 

 blance determines communism. Sympathy is not developed among 

 the lower animals. Nutrition is the prime object of each. The 

 most common dependence of one animal form upon another is par- 

 asitism. Parasites have been divided into those that do not feed 

 upon the animal itself but take its nutriment, those that make re- 

 turn for what they take, and parasites proper. Parasitism in gen- 

 eral is the anti-social characteristic both in animals and men. Its 

 most perfect expression is ' slavery ; ' while ' reciprocity,' ' mutual- 

 ism,' is the essence of all sociability, and is the ideal towards which 

 civilization is striving. 



From this general point of view the enemy of sociability among 

 human communities, that is crime, is nothing but a form of para- 

 sitism. This it is that binds together criminals of all grades and 

 nations. It is a lack of the true social instinct. In the natural de- 

 velopment of the child, one can distinguish two egos. The primi- 



Rrviit ScUnlifiqur^ Nov. 34, 188S. 



live ego is formed by the consensus of sense-impressions, the mo- 

 tions, the pleasures and pains, yielded by its environment ; and 

 its activity is directed to the preservation of itself. Upon this is 

 built a second ego, which, however, is not limited, like the earlier. 

 It unites the individual to other men : it makes one share the life of 

 all. It founds societies, and Is the true germ of ' mutualism." It 

 contributes its activity to the general welfare of all. This wide 

 scope of the secondary ego is gained by an increase of intense cere- 

 bral work. Its motives of action become so complex and so many, 

 that the mind can no longer contain them. It brings about an 

 ethical, a social feeling, that prevents what Is harmful to the com- 

 munity, and opposes it. 



The deprivation of a moral sense would thus be a kind of imbe- 

 cility. It is a deficiency in the secondary ego; It reduces an indi- 

 vidual to the stage of childhood in which self-preservation Is the 

 only end. The criminal retains the parasitic nature of his Infancy, 

 feels his life to be different from those of his kindred, and is thus 

 excluded from the sentiment of sociability except towards those 

 like himself. In as far as this is a mal-direction, and not an ab- 

 sence, of the moral sense. It is subject to reformatory measures. 

 Other forms of anti-social psychic conditions exist, such as mania 

 and the entertainment of delusions. One can follow the mechanism 

 of sociability into the brain. The anterior portions of the brain ex- 

 ercise a control over the lower centres, — those connected with the 

 exercise of sense and the individual functions. The anterior brain, 

 then, can be regarded as the organ of sociability. Its development 

 increases the sense of 'mutualism.' The superiority of the lower 

 centres brings about the anti-social characteristics. Here are cen- 

 tred the parasitical, purely personal tendencies. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The growth of the electrical industry in a direction in which 

 less has been done, perhaps, than in some others, is shown by the 

 formation of the Anglo-American Electric Light Manufacturing 

 Company of this city, for the manufacture of a storage-battery 

 which they believe to have many merits. It is claimed that the 

 accumulator they are making requires no washing-out from the 

 time it is started till it is ready to be thrown aside ; that it will last 

 five years, which is guaranteed by the company ; that it will yield 

 90 to 92 per cent of the current put into it ; that it will not buckle 

 or break ; and that It requires no expert attendance. We hope to 

 publish a description of the battery, with illustrations, at an early 

 date. 



— In The Critic of Dec. 15, Mr. O. B. Bunce has an article on 

 ' Christmas Books,' in which he ascribes the greatest activity in the 

 bookstores during the holiday season to the purchase of children's 

 books, of the works^of poets, essayists, romancists, and historians, 

 of Bibles, prayer-books, hymn-books, and albums, and of numer- 

 ous miscellaneous selections ; the gay and sumptuous volumes, 

 which occupy so large a place on the counters, which have been 

 produced at such great cost and with so much watchful care, fill- 

 ing but a small part in the general bustle. 



— We learn from The Electrical Review that an electrical loco- 

 motive is building at the New York Locomotive Works, In Rome, 

 N.Y. The engine is to be operated solely by electricity, and is de- 

 signed to run on all roads where steam Is now used. It will weigh 

 fifteen tons, and when turned out of the shop will be an exact 

 counterpart of an ordlnar\' locomotive, though considerably smaller 

 and lighter. When finished, an electrician from New York will 

 take charge of it, and place in It the electrical apparatus to be used 

 as a motive power. "The inventor is W. H. Darling of Brooklyn. 



— Recent experiments with a submarine boat, ' Le Gymnote.' 

 made at Toulon, have been verj' successful. The boat moves hori- 

 zontally as well as vertically, and is easily kept at any depth that 

 is desired. It can be run at a speed of from nine to ten knots. 

 The light Is good, and respiration easy. Its crew is ordinarily 

 three, but during the experiments five persons were on board. The 

 Rcfue Scienti/igiie says that the new boat, an invention of Mr. 

 Krebs, is a complete success, and will become of the greatest im- 

 portance in marine warfare. 



