48 Recent Literature. [January, 
the Annales des Sciences Naturelles for 1380, bears particularly 
on the histology and embryology of the sea-anemonies and the 
coral Balanophyllia, and should be studied in connection with the 
brothers Hertwig’s nearly contemporaneous work on the his- 
‘tology of the Actiniz, now brought to a close in the Jena Zeit- 
schrift. 
BasTIAN’s THE BRAIN AS AN ORGAN OF Minp.'—One of the au- 
thor’s objects in the preparation of this book was to show that 
not the brain alone, but the entire nervous system, is the organ 
of the creature’s “mind,” and this is shown by reference to the 
lower animals as well’as the vertebrates. He also attacks Ferrier’s 
conclusions as to the localization of the different intellectual 
powers in the human brain, believing that our knowledge is too 
imperfect to decide that. But while these are salient points which 
give tone to the book, the author has presented us with a most 
useful work upon the nervous systems of animals in general and 
the correspondence between the structure of the brain of the 
different classes of vertebrates and their mental powers, which is 
both novel and useful. 
After treating of the nervous system of mollusks, worms and 
arthropods (crustacea and insects), the author reviews the data 
derived from a study of the nervous system of invertebrates, and 
‘claims that in insects the sense of smell is “marvelously keen,” 
while that of hearing is ‘developed to a very slight extent.” 
Here we may say that Dr. Bastian has not apparently availed himself 
of the latest studies on the internal structure of the brain of crus- 
tacea and insects by Dietl, Flogel and Krieger, and his own coun- 
tryman, Mr. E. T. Newton; nor do we think he treats with suffi- 
cient detail or comprehensiveness the intellectual powers of in- 
sects. He is evidently more at home in the comparative struc- 
ture of the brain of vertebrates, and here his conclusions and 
general views appear to us to be well grounded and sound. 
s regards the vertebrates, beginning with an account of the 
brain of fishes and of Amphibia, he goes on to that of the reptiles 
and birds, and with these as a standard of comparison, pauses to 
consider the scope of mind in general, of reflex action and un- 
conscious cognition, sensation, ideation and perception, and then 
discusses consciousness in the lower animals, the nature and origin 
of instinct, and of nascent reason, emotion, imagination and voli- 
tion. These subjects will be interesting to those biologists who 
may be engaged in studying the habits and psychology of animals. 
Dr. Bastian regards the whole nervous system as the “ organ” 
of mind, the brain being merely its principal component part. 
According to his view, instead of supposing that mind and con- 
sciousness (in its ordinary acceptation) are co-extensive, mind 
should include all unconscious nerve actions as well as those 
1 The Brain as an Organ of Mind. By H. Charlton Bastian. With 184 illustra- 
tions. New York, 1880. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo,, pp. 708. 
