Miscellanea. 355 
process as that of gazing for a time at a small fixed object at arm’s length 
from the eyes.* 
It is not, however, in any large proportion of individuals, that this state 
can be induced; probably not more than one in twenty, or at most one in 
twelve. Males appear equally susceptible of it with females; so that it 
cannot be fairly set down as a variety of “ hysterical” disorder. Generally 
speaking, those who have most of the power of voluntary abstraction are 
most easily affected in this mode; more especially if, at the same time, 
they are of an excitable or imaginative temperament. 
It now remains to enquire, whether any such Physiological account can 
be given of this state, as shall enable us to refer it to any of the admitted 
laws of action of the Nervous system. This, the Lecturer stated, was the 
point which he was most desirous of elucidating; and in order to prepare 
his auditors for the reception of his views, he gave a brief explanation 
of those phenomena, of “ reflex”? action (now universally recognized by 
Physiologists), in which impressions made upon the nervous system are 
followed by respondent automatic movements. Such movements have 
hitherto been distinguished into the excito-motor, which are performed 
without the exciting impression being necessarily felt, through the in- 
strumertality of the Spinal Cord and the nerves connected with it; and 
the sensori-motor, in whieh sensation necessarily participates, the respond- 
ent motions not being executed unless the impressions are felt, and their 
instrument being the Chain of Sensory Ganglia (collectively constituting 
the “sensorium ’’) which lies between the Spinal Cord and the Cerebrum, 
and is intimately connected with both. The automatic movements of 
breathing and swallowing, which continue during a state of profound in- 
sensibility, are examples of the former group; whilst the start upon a loud 
sound, the closure of the lids to a flash of light, or the sneezing induced by 
dazzling of the eyes, as well as by irritation in the nasal passages, are in- 
stances of the latter. The whole class of purely emotional movements may 
be likened to these; for in so far as they are involuntary, and depend upon 
the excitation of certain states of mind by external impressions, they must 
be considered as ‘ reflex” in the general sense of that term. 
Now the usual modus operandi of sensations is to call forth cdeas in the 
mind; and these ideas, associated or not with emotional states, become 
the subjects of intellectual processes, which result at last in a determination 
of the Will. The movements which we term voluntary or volitional differ 
from the emotional and automatic, in being guided by a distinct conception 
of the object to be attained, and by a rational choice of the means employed. 
And so long as the Voluntary power asserts its due predominance, so long 
can it keep in check all tendency to any other kind of action, save such as 
ministers directly to the bodily wants, as the automatic movements of 
breathing and swallowing. 
* The “ Electro-Biologists,” as they term themselves, at first maintained 
that a wonderful virtue resided in the little disk of copper with a zinc 
centre, to which they directed the gaze of their ‘“‘ subjects.” It is now 
universally admitted, however, that any object which serves as a point 
WMappui fox the fixed gaze is equally efficacious. 
