2S9 
REVIEWS. 
MENTAL PHYSIOLOGY.* 
I T cannot be doubted that the study of the mind, or, in other words, the 
pursuit of mental physiology, is at once the most difficult and attractive 
study within the wide range of scientific subjects. Its difficulty results 
from the very nature of the subject, for it has within its grasp the important 
questions — Is the mind exclusively the result of the merely physical opera- 
tions of brain-substance, or is there another and more mysterious agent 
engaged in the elaboration of thought ? These are grave questions, and' 
ones which unhappily cannot be decided positively at present, nor in all 
probability in futuro. Still it is possible to arrive, from a mass of evidence, 
at some sort of conclusion ; and we are aware that certain men of consider- 
able mental powers have arrived at the decision that mind is simply 
brain-power, i. e. the result of physical or chemical changes in the sub- 
stance of the tissue, and that there is nothing whatever present in the- 
shape of a soul or spirit. That, however, is not the view propounded by 
Dr. Carpenter, who, so far as we can perceive, believes unquestionably in 
the existence of a soul, but endeavours to explain most mental phenomena 
by ordinary physiological laws. The difficulty of doing for mental questions 
what is a comparatively easy matter in the case of the ordinary organs of 
the body, is admitted on all hands ; and indeed this purely physiological 
mode of treatment is a method which the great metaphysician, Sir W. 
Hamilton, never for a moment attempted, and which we may say has not 
been tried on any extensive scale till Dr. Carpenter took the matter in hand. 
And indeed it would have been difficult for any ordinary student of mental 
operations to attempt, for he who would endeavour to solve the various 
questions it involves must possess an intimate acquaintance, not only with 
the laws laid down by the metaphysical schools, but must also have given 
serious attention to the physiology of the mind of the healthy and the 
insane. We cannot say that Dr. Carpenter has satisfied his readers on the 
question of the existence of a soul, for we ourselves fail to be convinced by 
any physical facts adduced by him in this part of the testimony. But we 
cannot help expressing our admiration of the cogency of his arguments — their- 
number, power, and immense variety— in proving that the several psychical 
* 11 Principles of Mental Physiology, with their Application to the Training - 
and Discipline of the Mind, and the Study of its Morbid Phenomena,” By 
W. B. Carpenter, M.D., F.R.S. London : Henry S. King & Co., 1874. 
VOL. XIII. — NO. LII. U 
