G-3 2 REVIEW— INAUGURAL DISSERTATION ON THE 
the higher faculties and instincts of living beings keep pace with 
the development of that organ. 
The brain and nervous system being allowed to furnish those 
conditions that were necessary for the manifestation of sensation, 
motion, and intelligence, it was natural to inquire in what par- 
ticular parts of that system the conditions of each were to be 
found. Strange and wild were the fancies of our early and late 
physiologists on this subject. Des Cartes had placed the seat of 
sensation in the pineal gland — Willis, in the corpora striata — La 
Peyronie, in the corpus callosum — Soemmering, in the water of 
the ventricles — Digby, in the septum lucidum — Le Cas, in the 
pia mater — Haller, in the medulla of the cerebrum 1 — Petit and 
Zoville, in the cerebellum — and Richerand, in the annular 
protuberance. 
Motion had been located by Willis in the cerebrum, by Haller 
and Rolando in the cerebellum, and by Magendie and others in 
the corpora striata and quadrigemina, as well as the cerebellum. 
Le Gallois considered that both sensation and motion were 
dependent on the spinal cord — Dr. Wilson Philip, that motion 
is independent of the brain and spinal cord — Flourens, that the 
cerebral lobes are the seat both of sensation and volition ; and he 
seems to have established that the cerebellum is the regulator of 
motion. Magendie and Desmoulins imagine that all special 
sensibility is referable to the influence of the fifth pair of nerves. 
Bellingeri attributes to the hemispheres the power of producing 
the motions of flexion, and to the cerebellum that of causing 
extension. 
Dr. Bennet proceeds (not to reconcile these strangely-contra- 
dictory opinions of talented and honest inquirers, but) to explain 
that simple and satisfactory history of nervous influence, which 
gradually arose from all these experiments and theories, and which 
may now be considered as established. He commences with the 
fact, that in no single instance has mind been manifested with- 
out a brain, and that sensation and motion remain perfect after 
the removal of a large portion of the brain, but cease on the 
destruction of the spinal marrow ; hence he concludes, that 
the principle on which sensation and motion depend resides in 
the spinal cord, but that some part of the brain is associated 
with these functions. The superior portion of the spinal cord — 
my readers are mostly veterinarians — is connected with sensa- 
tion — the inferior with motion — they both consist of fibres, 
arranged in parallel lines. On tracing both of them downward, 
they form nerves which ramify on various parts of the body, and 
partake of the property of mobility and sensibility. On tracing 
them upward, they partially decussate, and then proceed onward 
