112 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by the exigencies of practice, and pre- 

 pared with the requisite physiological 

 knowledge, who thoroughly accept this 

 point of view, but it is the point of view 

 that must yet be taken by all who deal 

 with the phenomena of human nature 

 on the basis of real and applicable 

 knowledge. Especially in that pro- 

 fession which aims to direct the devel- 

 opment of the mind and character of 

 the young, must the corporeal side of 

 their nature be thoroughly and syste- 

 matically studied. "We lately heard of 

 a professor, high in honor and reputa- 

 tion as a teacher of teachers, whose 

 text-books of mind are the metaphysi- 

 cal treatises of Stewart and Hamilton, 

 and who strenuously denies that cor- 

 poreal considerations have any right to 

 be imported into the question : happily, 

 the class to which he belongs is fast 

 passing away. He who aspires to the 

 noble work of developing a human 

 being must take the whole nature of 

 that being into account. He has no 

 right to cleave it asunder and throw 

 away one part of it, especially that part 

 which is the organism of life, and brings 

 the individual into relation with the 

 universe. The teacher who has only 

 attained an intellectual comprehension 

 of certain branches in which he is to 

 give instruction, has hardly entered 

 upon his preparation. As we have else- 

 where written : " Education is an affair 

 of the laws of our being, involving a 

 wide range of considerations — an affair 

 of the air respired, its moisture, tem- 

 perature, density, purity, and electrical 

 state in their physiological effects ; an 

 affair of food, digestion, and nutrition ; 

 of the quantity, quality, and speed of 

 the blood sent to the brain ; of clothing 

 and exercise, fatigue and repose; health 

 and disease, or variable volition and 

 automatic nerve-action ; of fluctuating 

 feeling, redundancy and exhaustion of 

 nerve-power, sensuous impressibility, 

 temperament, family history, constitu- 

 tional predisposition, and unconscious 

 influence ; of material surroundings, 



and a host of agencies which stamp 

 themselves upon the plastic organism 

 and reappear in character." 



The latest contribution to the litera- 

 ture of this subject is a little book 

 entit]ed " Mind and Body : the Theories 

 of their Relation, 1 ' 1 by Prof. Alexander 

 Bain, author of "The Senses and the 

 Intellect," and "The Emotions and the 

 "Will." The volume that now appears 

 represents the leading facts of the ques- 

 tion, and their latest theoretical inter- 

 pretations, and closes with an interest- 

 ing review of the course of past specu- 

 lation upon the subject. 



It being now established that the 

 brain is the material instrument of the 

 mind, the questions are inevitable, "What 

 do we actually know, and how much 

 is it possible to know, of the conditions 

 of this union ? It is not enough to rec- 

 ognize that when the circulation of the 

 blood in the brain is arrested, as in faint- 

 ing, consciousness ceases, nor that alco- 

 hol in its influence upon the nervous 

 system modifies mental action in one 

 way, and opium and hashish in other 

 ways ; that which we require to under- 

 stand is, in what manner the mechan- 

 ism and action of the brain are specially 

 related to the mechanism and action of 

 the mind. Nor is the question as to the 

 ultimate nature of mind and matter, or 

 how they can exist together, for this is 

 beyond the province of science to deter- 

 mine. "What are the essence of mind and 

 the essence of matter, and whether they 

 are at bottom two things or one thing, 

 are beyond ascertainment, and will prob- 



1 This is number IV. of " The International 

 Scientific Series." In arranging the works of this 

 series, which aims to represent the latest result of 

 thought, it was deemed important that the new 

 psychology should be fully treated, and by the most 

 competent men. Prof. Bain was accordingly en- 

 gaged to deal with the more general and philosophi- 

 cal aspects of the subject, while the volume of Dr. 

 William B. Carpenter, in the same series, will be a 

 regular practical text-book of mental philosophy 

 from the physiological point of view. It will be 

 issued in January, under the title of " The Princi- 

 ples of Mental Physiology : with their Applications 

 to the Training and Discipline of the Mind, and the 

 Study of its Morbid Conditions." 



