FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN. 23 



zation and barbarism. Physiologically interpreted, chastity 

 means nothing more than the fact that present solicitations 

 of sense are overpowered by suggestions of aesthetic and 

 moral fitness which the circumstances awaken in the 

 cerebrum ; and that upon the inhibitory or permissive in- 

 fluence of these alone action directly depends. 



Within the psychic life due to the cerebrum itself the 

 same general distinction obtains, between considerations of 

 the more immediate and considerations of the more remote. 

 In all ages the man whose determinations are swayed by 

 reference to the most distant ends has been held to possess 

 the highest intelligence. The tramp who lives from hour 

 to hour ; the boliemian whose engagements are from day 

 to day ; the bachelor who builds but for a single life ; 

 the father who acts for another generation ; the patriot 

 who thinks of a whole community and many generations ; 

 and finally, the philosopher and saint whose cares are for 

 humanity and for eternity, — these range themselves in an 

 unbroken hierarchy, wherein each successive grade results 

 from an increased manifestation of the special form of 

 action by which the cerebral centres are distinguished 

 *rom all below them. 



In the ' loop-line ' along which the memories and ideas 

 of the distant are supposed to lie, the action, so far as it is 

 a physical process, must be interpreted after the type of the 

 action in the lower centres. If regarded here as a reflex 

 process, it mast be reflex there as well. The current in 

 both places runs out into the muscles only after it has first 

 run in ; but whilst the path by which it runs out is deter- 

 mined in the lower centres by reflections few and fixed 

 amongst the cell-arrangements, in the hemispheres the 

 reflections are many and instable. This, it will be seen, is 

 only a difference of degree and not of kind, and does not 

 change the reflex type. The conception of all action as 

 conforming to this type is the fundamental conception of 

 modern nerve-physiology. So much for our general pre- 

 liminary conception of the nerve-centres ! Let us define it 

 more distinctly before we see how well physiological ob- 

 servation will bear it out in detail. 



