June 11, 1886.1 



SCIENCE, 



533 



organism, and that the individual is a part of a 

 larger whole. Rudolph von Ihering develops 

 this idea in the second volume of his ' Zvveck im 

 Recht.' The source of ethics he finds in society ; 

 the end of ethics likewise is discovered in society ; 

 and from society, according to this theory, is de- 

 rived the ethical motive-power which resides in 

 the human will. 1 Social ethics thus replaces in- 

 dividual ethics. Ethics becomes one of the social 

 sciences, and indeed, to use Ihering's expression, 

 the ' queen ' of them all. With this view of Iher- 

 ing, should be compared the teachings of Lotze ; 

 and I will close this paper with a quotation of 

 some length from his ' Practical philosophy: ' "To 

 antiquity, man appeared without any manifest 

 attachment to a coherent system, transcending 

 his earthly life, pre-eminently as a creature of 

 nature, whose aim — not so much moral as alto- 

 gether natural — could only consist in bringing 

 all the bodily and spiritual capacities with which 

 he is endowed by nature, to the most intensive, 

 and at the same time harmonious, cultivation. 

 . . . This whole culture is not a preparation of 

 the powers for a work to be accomplished ; but it 

 is a self-aim to such an extent that the self -en- 

 joyment of one's own fair personality, and its 

 secure tenure against all attacks from without, 

 form the sole content of such a life. . . . Just 

 the opposite of this, under the influence of Chris- 

 tianity, the conviction is formed, that, strictly 

 speaking, every man is called only to the service 

 of others ; that the effort to concentrate all pos- 

 sible excellences in one's own person is, at bot- 

 tom, only a ' shining vice ; ' but true morality con- 

 sists in the complete surrender of one's own self, 

 and in self-sacrifice for others. . . . Nothing, there- 

 fore, remains for us to do but to supplement the 

 ancient self-satisfaction, without surrendering 

 aesthetic culture, by having all the powers ac- 

 quired by such culture placed at command for 

 the accomplishment of a life-aim in accordance 

 with motions of benevolence ; " and "benevolence, 

 . . . the service of others, constitutes the focal 

 point of ethical ideas." 2 Richard T. Ely. 



[A reply by Prof. Simon Newcomb, to this 

 article, will appear in an early number. — Ed.] 



DR. HUGHLINGS- JACKSON ON EPILEPSY. 



For many years Dr. Hughlings - Jackson of 

 London has been advocating a theory of epilep- 

 sy highly important for its general bearings on 



1 See work, ' Zweckim recht.' A resume of his arguments 

 may be found in his article, " Die geschichtlich-gesellschaft- 

 lichen grundlagen der ethik," in Jahrbuch fiir gesetzge- 

 bung, verwaltung, und volkswirthschaft, fur 1882. 



2 See Lotze's ' Practical philosophy,' Professor Ladd's 

 edition, Boston, 1855, pp. 58-60. 



physiology and psychology, and for its harmoniz- 

 ing with recent results obtained by experiments 

 on animals. An era in the study of cerebral phy- 

 siology was made when Fritsch and Hitzig dis- 

 covered that the cortex of the brains of dogs was 

 directly excitable, and that the result of such 

 excitation was a series of co-ordinated movements 

 of definite parts of the body. Dr. Jackson carried 

 this fact over into pathology, and interpreted an 

 epileptic discharge as nothing else than a sudden, 

 rapid, excessive, and discharging cortical lesion : 

 to use his own forcible language, it is simply a 

 brutish development of many of the patient's or- 

 dinary movements. "Speaking figuratively, we 

 may say that the epileptic discharge is trying to 

 develop all the functions of the body excessively, 

 and all at once : a severe fit is a fairly successful 

 attempt. Let me give a very simple illustration. 

 If there be a centre for locomotion, then, during 

 slight sequent discharges of its elements in health, 

 there is walking or running ; but if very many of 

 those elements were to discharge suddenly, rap- 

 idly, and excessively, the man walking or running- 

 would not go faster : on the contrary, he would 

 be stopped, would be stiffened up into a tetanus- 

 like attitude by the contemporaneous development 

 of many locomotive movements." 



In a recent article {Brain, April, 1886), Dr. Jack- 

 son has further extended and in part modified his 

 theory. His former position was that all dis- 

 charging lesions issued from the cortex; i.e., the 

 highest developed centres. He now admits that 

 some such discharges have their central seat in 

 less highly organized brain parts. That such is 

 the case in animals was shown by such facts as 

 that convulsions are possible in a rabbit through 

 rapid bleeding, when the brain proper has been 

 removed. This fact Dr. Jackson now carries over 

 to human pathology in a very ingenious way. 

 The fits involved by a discharging lesion of a 

 lower centre, i.e., a medullary centre, would be 

 apt to be connected with the respiratory appara- 

 tus which is represented in that region. Now, 

 these ' inward fits,' or respiratory convulsions 

 (laryngismus stridulus), occur mostly in children 

 under one year of age, not often after two. This 

 fact Dr. Jackson interprets as follows : at that 

 period the highest cortical centres are not devel- 

 oped ; of the activities developed in the infant at 

 that time, these automatic vital functions are 

 represented in what are then its highest func- 

 tioning centres ; and it is a discharging lesion 

 from these that we see in a respiratory convul- 

 sion. The cause of the rapid and excessive dis- 

 charge is shown to be a rapid increase in the 

 venosity of the blood, which, when mild and 

 gradual, serves as the normal stimulant of that 



