764 The Relations of Mind and Matter. [August, 
out any conflicting orders from the intelligence. Such cases are 
those named instinctive. Their steady course is towards the 
fully reflex condition. The memory record of them may become 
so complete, through frequent repetition, that finally they fail to 
produce any effect, or to arouse consciousness. Cases of this 
kind are by no means confined to the lower animals, but may be 
found in some of the most difficult operations of the human sen- 
sory organism. In the oft-quoted case of the skillful pianist, for 
instance, as the fingers become habituated to a certain series of 
movements, attention may be more and more withdrawn from the 
action until it reaches the instinctive stage, a vague consciousness 
of the movement perhaps persisting but no intelligent oversight 
being necessary. Only when some change in the succession of 
sound is produced, however-caused, does consciousness at once 
become again active. The element of the unusual has been intro- 
duced and the sensory current immediately makes its way in its 
full force to the cerebrum, arousing the powers of the dormant 
attention. 
The cerebral organ of man does not seem to be a constitu- 
ent part of the general nervous system. Its sole duties are con- 
nected with the evolution of the mind. If it be completely 
removed animal life does not necessarily cease. But its removal 
shows to what an extent the life action is reflex. The lower ver- 
tebrates may continue to live for a long time without the cere- 
brum, and perform most of the essential duties of life. Yet every 
trace of memory goes with its removal, and they act only as au- 
tomata. In insects the life functions are still more fully performed, 
showing here an inferior dominance of the mental powers. Pos- 
sibly but for the shock to the organic system by its removal, its 
function of memorizing might be in part relegated to the cerebel- 
lum, and the embryo state of a new mental sae oe ak be pro- 
duced. 
According to the hypothesis of Professor Christiani, devised 
from experiments with disbrained rabbits, the cerebrum forms a 
kind of secondary circuit, into which a large portion of the ener- 
gies enter and are stored up, while the basal ganglia form a pri- 
Mary circuit, which transforms the energies into reflex motions. 
He found that with the removal of the cerebrum all energy was 
nsferred into reflex motion, so that disbrained and snes 
| ouna ot: Physiological Society, June 20, 1884. 
