Brain Personality 1906 Thom

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BRAIN AND PERSONALITY

OR THE PHYSICAL RELATIONS OF
THE BRAIN TO THE MIND
BY
WILLIAM HANNA THOMSON,
M.D., L.L.D.
PHYSICIAN TO THE ROOSEVELT HOSPirAL; CONSULTING

PHYSICIAN TO NEW YORK STATE MANHATTAN HOSPITALS FOR THE insane; CONSULTING PHYSICIAN TO
HOSPITAL; FORMERLY
THJl NEW YORK RED CROSS
PROFESSOR OF THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE AND OF
DISEASES OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, NEW YORK
EX-PRESIDENT OF
VNIVERSITY MEDICAL COLLEGE;
tHB NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, JBTC.
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1907
577y
Copyright, 1906, by
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

^
Published, September, 1906
Printed in America
CONTENTS
PAOa
CHAPTER
II
Historical Introduction
Account op the Physical Basis op

THE Mind
.32
III
Brain Weight and Mental Faculty
IV
Significance of TUm
3xvAIN
V The
VII
VIII
IX
Faculty of speech
48
Being a
Double or Paih Organ
VI
60
.75
The Faculty of Speech Continued
104
Evolution of a Nervous System
130
The Brain and Personality
173
Practical Applications
234
278
The Significance of sleep
Digitized by the Internet Arcinive

in
2010 with funding from
Open Knowledge Commons and Harvard Medical School
http://www.archive.org/details/brainpersonality1906thom

CHAPTER
HISTOEICAL INTEODUCTION
Theke
is
no more interesting subject in
science than the physical conditions under
which we become thinking beings.

science
is
concerned with the
Though
knowledge
which comes from investigation and experi-
ment
in the physical world, yet she cannot
evade being questioned about the relations

of matter to mind, because the bodily organ
of the
mind
however
is
Hence
a thing of physics.
discussion
waived as pertaining
about
mind
may
to the province of
be
meta-
physics this cannot be done with that collection of matter which is called the brain.
it
mind and matter come

1
together,
In
and there-

fore
is
we cannot help asking how much
the one
dependent upon the other.
As
mind
far as the
is
concerned,
be admitted that no study of
its
tions can give the least inkling

tion,
it
own
on
must
opera-
this ques-
any more than a study of the words of
a telegram would reveal
and of words
equally invisible.
lowed up until
a wire came to
The passage of thought
conduct them.
the one case
how
it
in
in the other are
But the wire can be
fol-
connects with a mechanism
which generates the words for the wire to

transmit.
Can any analogous
result be ex-
pected from an examination of the physical
mechanism through which the mind acts?
The answer
seems
to
is
that something of the kind
be assured by modern discoveries
of definite relations between particular portions
of brain matter
and thought.
there are certain material seats of
mental functions in the brain

trated beyond mistake by the
That
purely
now demonfact that when

is
these are physically disorganized their spe-
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
cial
mental functions are forthwith abolished,
though
all
other places in the brain remain
intact.
It is significant,
however, that these dis-
coveries relate in the first instance to the
working of the brain of
Man
from the brains of animals.
in distinction
Restricted to
the brains of animals which they could ex-
periment
been but
with,
little
would
physiologists
able to determine
what
special
relations the brain held to thought.
with the brain of
man
it
But
has proved to be
wholly different, because, unlike animals,

possesses a faculty which
have
is
man
directly related
to thought, the great faculty of speech,
and
the specific anatomical seats of speech have
been found in the

as the ticker
graph
is
human
found in
brain as certainly
its
place in a tele-
office.
It should be
remarked, however, that
it
was reserved for physicians and not for

psychologists to light upon these great discoveries by their observing
what may be

termed the
human
effects of
experiments with the
brain which disease makes for them.
While
it
has been a distinct gain for psy-
chologists to leave metaphysics
and turn their
attention to the general physiology of the
nervous system, the criticism

that apart
psychology
be
from the human brain the

is
mind
tion of
may
made
field of
very limited as far as the rela-
to
matter
is
concerned.
A single
very circumscribed injury to a place in the
human
brain
may
teach
more on
this subject
than a survey of the whole domain of nervous

physiology in animals.
This
is
well illus-
trated by the fact that the identification of
speech centers in the brain ere long led to

the discovery, again by medical men, of the
material seats of a whole series of other faculties
both sensory and intellectual; so that
taken together these findings give to the

subject of the physical relations of the brain
to the
mind an
entirely
new
aspect.
These discoveries, however, have
made
within the lifetime of our
all
been
own genera-
tion.
On
known
to the general public,
that account tliey
are
scarcely
and their impor-
tant bearing on the old question of matter
and mind
is
even less appreciated.
sons are aware
how slow
Few per-
the progress of
knowledge has been of the actual physical

lations of the
mind
historical review
seem
to the body,
of that
re-
and hence an
progress
to be a fitting introduction to
would
our pres-
ent discussion.
Thus the word brain does not once occur
in
the Bible, for the good reason that during the

centuries in which its different books were
written scarcely any one in the world sus-
pected that this most silent and secluded of
organs had anything to do with thought or

feeling.
With
the Hebrews, the heart
chief seat of the soul, while the
cated in the kidneys, and
mind was
lo-
tender emotions
Thus, one psalmist says that
in the bowels.
*'
all
was the
His reins [kidneys] instruct him in the
night
seasons
Lord
trieth
'^;
the
and another that
^'
The
heart and the kidneys.''

The prophet Jeremiah denounces the hypohad the Lord in their
crites of his day, who
^ ^
months, bnt not in their kidneys.
'
In keep-
ing with similar expressions in the Old Testa-
ment
St.
Paul speaks of
cies.''
*'
bowels of mer-
survival of these conceptions
found in our English phrase,

of the
Nor
Two
^'
is
fellows
same kidney.''
for a long time were the ideas of the
Greeks on this subject much nearer the mark.

It is true that Plato assigns the
of the
mind
supreme seat
to the brain, but
speculative were his views
how purely
is illustrated
by
the following quotation:
*^The creation of bones and flesh was in

this wise.
The foundation of these is the marrow

which binds together body and soul, and the
^^
marrow
is
made out
of such of the primary
triangles as are adapted

to
produce
all
by
their perfection
the four elements.
These God
took and mingled them in due proportion,
making as many kinds of marrow as there

6
were
The
to be hereafter kinds of souls.
ceptacle of the divine soul
He made
re-
round,
and called that portion of the marrow brain,

intending that the vessel containing this sub-
The bones were
stance should be the head.
formed by
sifting
with marrow.
into fire
ble
by
It
either.
As
was
the bone
insolu-
brittle
and
mortify and destroy the marrow by
too great rigidity,
the
it
was then thrust alternately
and water, and thus rendered
liable to
flesh,
pure earth and wetting
first to
He
contrived sinews and
give plasticity, the second to
guard against heat and
cold.
Having
this in
view, the Creator mingled earth with water,
and mixed with them a ferment with acid and

salt,
so as to
form pulpy
flesh, etc.
It is evident that Plato in this
'
'
confounded
the substance of the brain and of the spinal
marrow of the bones, and thus

got M^ conception of marrow as the foundacord with the
tion of the living body.
temporary, Aristotle,
*
But
circ.
Jowett's Translation, vol.
his
younger con-
B.C. 335,
iii,,
who was
pp. 339 sq. 362.

the foremost physiologist of his day, and himself the
son of a physician, scouted
vital farrago of Plato
out of his
it all
own
's,
and as Plato evolved
head, without troubling
himself about facts, he had
doing
little difficulty
in
Aristotle examined the brain for
so.
himself,
all this
and came
to the conclusion that its
function had nothing to do with mind, but

that
it
was a
cool organ which properly re-
frigerated the blood for the heart
We may
conclusion, but Aristotle

rist,
method from
facts as he
must put ourselves
at this
was no mere
and he reasoned according
scientific
We
now
be tempted to smile
to a
theo-
sound
knew them.
in his place, with
nothing to go by more than certain patent

facts of
life,
the explanation of which
other facts was then
unknown
to him.
by
He
found the brain an apparently insensible and

inexcitable organ, while the heart
tremely excitable.
He
therefore
was
only
exfol-
lowed his great predecessor Hippocrates,

the Father of Medicine, who,
8
recognizing
how
quickly consciousness
loss of blood, or
is
abolished by
deranged by blood poisons,
or by the heated blood of fevers, inferred

that the conscious
mind resided
in the blood,
and hence that the heart, as the central organ

of the circulation,
was
itself the chief seat of
the soul.
Another cause of misunderstanding was

that, as the arteries are
found empty after
death, owing to their contractile walls expelling the blood
cluded that
these
ethereal spirits
of the body.
from them,
vessels
it
carried
from the heart
We
air or
to the rest
shall see that nothing so
contributed to delay for centuries

ress as this mistake,
existence
was con-
by
its
all
prog-
suggesting the
and all-pervading power of
vital
spirits.
Supported by such great names as Hippocrates
and
Aristotle, these beliefs held
sway
for fully five centuries, along with speculations
how from
the blood the different or-
gans of the body, such as the stomach,

9
liver,

spleen, intestmes,
etc.,
elaborated each
its
share of the various appetites or emotions.
Meanwhile, in
this
speculation, a voice
wilderness
of
had been crying
Greek
in vain
the true doctrine about the brain long before
Plato or any of the rest.
Alcmseon, the Py-
thagorean of Crotona, who lived about B.C.

500, a
man who was
both an anatomist and an
experimental physiologist, taught that the

brain was the sole seat of the mind and the
source of feeling and of movement, and that
at the brain arrived all sensation
the nerves.
this
It is evident that
by means of
he was led to do
by noting that severing the
optic nerves
leading from the eyes to the brain produced

total blindness.
Unfortunately he called the
nerves tendons, a term which, with
its
er-
roneous suggestions, continued to be applied

to
them for two thousand years,
until finally
the great Descartes demonstrated the essential difference
between tendons and nerves.
(Even Shakespeare when he spoke of nerves
meant sinews.)
10
But whether from AlcmsBon's
gin, or because
he was far in advance of his
time, both Plato
and
istotle,
''
who must
Aristotle,
have read his works, alluded

temptuously as
colonial ori-
somebody's
them con-
to
'^
Ar-
views.
indeed, taught that the spinal cord
had nothing
in
evidently paid
common with
little
the brain, and
attention to
its
^^
ten-
dons " or nerves.

In progress of time a great school of anatomists and experimental physiologists arose
in Alexandria,
of
whom
Herophilus,
circ.
B.C. 300, and his contemporary, Erastistratus,
were the
chief,
who
the brain and traced to
carefully dissected
it
special senses, as Alcmason
went so far as
the nerves of the
had done.
They
to divide the nerves into those
and of motion, though they were

hampered by Alcmaeon's term " ten-
of sensation
still
don,''
and apparently they could not wholly
shake oft the authority of Aristotle as to the

functions of the brain.
They prepared the way, however, for Gall

len, circ.
whom we
A.D. 160, to
are chiefly in-
debted for the overthrow of Aristotle's doctrine abont the brain,
of its exclnsive
and
feeling.
To
title
and the demonstration

as the seat of thought
this great physician belongs
the distinction of establishing this doctrine

for all time.
taens of
contemporary of
Cappadocia,
circ.
his,
Are-
A.D. 170, advanced
so far as to recognize correctly that the brain
dominated the muscular movements of the
body by nerves, which, originating
in the
brain, crossed their tracts below in the
of
the
letter
X,
so that
injuries
in
form
one
hemisphere of the brain paralyzed the muscles of the opposite side of the body, while
if
they occurred in the spinal cord below the
medulla, the resulting paralysis was on the
same
tseus
side with the injury.
But even Are-
held that the seat of the soul was in the
heart.
After Galen the progress of discovery of

the true functions of the brain
was extraor-
From the middle
of the second
dinarily slow.
12
century A.D. to the middle of the nineteenth
century, or 1,700 years, the actual gains in
this
knowledge were relatively most
nificant
compared with the splendid advances
in astronomy, geography, physical
chemistry and geology.

if
^'
to
insig-
know
''
thyself
It
science,
would seem as
rather
scientifically
than metaphysically, instead of being the
was destined
to be
among
the latest of
first
human
achievements.
One great cause for

the persistent
tions about
this
backwardness was
sway of teleology
Men were
life.
plain the reasons of things
in all ques-
ever trying to ex-
by the imagined
purposes of things, and to find the causes

in the purposes.
Thus we have seen that
Plato's whole physiology originated in what
he fancied the Creator and the gods intended
when they made

body.
turies
And
all
this or that part of the living
the long
way down
we meet with examples
the cen-
of reasoning
on these subjects not unlike that of the philosopher
who admired
13
the benevolent wis-

dom
of Providence in arranging that large
rivers should flow past large towns.
One
of the greatest of these hindrances
was the conception of the brain
as a secret-
ing gland, which dates from Hippocrates and

continues
down
Karl Vogt, Cabanis, and
to
other writers in the

nineteenth century,
years
earlier
who maintained
of the
that the
brain secreted thought just as the liver secretes bile.
Hippocrates writes that:
^'
The
brain resembles a gland, being white and soft

like glands.
It discharges the
same glandu-
lar offices as regards the head.
head of
its
It rids the
humidity, and returns to the ex-
tremities the surplus of

postulate, that
after another
it
is
its flux.
'
'
With
this
a gland, one authority
attempted to represent the
brain's secretion as a kind of subtle fluid
termed ''animal
the
spirits,''
body through the blood.
taught that the
which permeated
Thus Descartes
left ventricle of the
heart sep-
arated these animal spirits, which had been
generated in the brain, and distilled them out

14
*^
of the blood into a
pure
and then
flame,''
distributed
These animal
through the arteries.

therefore,
very living and very
were readily made
to noxious
Hence,
tions
illustrate
how
all
progress in
we may quote one
from a ponderous volume

the date 1618, on
its rise.
effectually such concep-
served to block
science of life
it
vapors and humors that
every variety of bodily disorder took
To
spirits,
to account for
everything, normal and abnormal.
was due
them
' ^
in
the
instance
my library
with
Physiology and Anat-
omy," by Hilkiah Crooke, Physician and

Professor on
Anatomy and Chirurgery
His Majesty, James
I.
Speaking of the origin and growth of

he says:
haires
is
^^
The immediate matter
of
hair,
the
a sooty, thicke, and earthy vapour,
which in the time of the third concoction

tillation]
to
is
[dis-
elevated by the strength of the
action of naturall heate, and passeth through

the pores of the skin, which heate exiceateth
or drieth this moysture of these sootie and

15

tliicke
vapours, for the vapour being thicke,
in his passage leaveth
some part
to wit, the grossest, in the

it is
very
if it selfe,
outlet,
where
impacted by a succeeding vapour arising
where the former
did,
is
and
protruded
thrust forward, so that they are wrought to-
The straightness
gether in one body.
of the
passages of the skin where through the matter of the haires is auoyded, formeth
into a small roundness, even as a
them
wyre
re-
ceyeth that proportion whereof the whole
where through
One great
it is
office
is,
drawne."
of the hairs of the head,
therefore, Crooke perceived to be to lead off

^^
the vapours which otherwise would choke
and make smoaky the
braine,''
hopelessly choked the
though how
brains of
all
bald
heads hence would be he does not mention.
Crooke 's
illustrious
contemporary. Lord Ba-
con, held that the blood did not distend the
heart, nor cause
by
its
it
to beat, but that
contained spirits.
was done
Even Harvey's
dis-
covery of the circulation of the blood did not

16
dislodge these
brain, for
we
pure nonentities
from the
find as late as 1824, Dr. J.
son Good, in his
''
Ma-
Study of Medicine/^ men-
tioning the fact that the brain being a gland,

the nervous
power or energy
as a fluid of a peculiar kind,
uted by
It
its
issues
and
is
from
it
so distrib^
nerves.
was the introduction of the microscope

of nervous
the investigation
into
which
first really
spirits
''
exorcised
the
from the medical world.
jective existence in fact
in question before, but
^'
tissues
animal
Their ob-
had often been
it
was
difficult to
ish these airy creations altogether until

solid physical facts
called
ban-
some
could be found which
would dispose of them.

Without the microscope we could never
have known what every living texture really
is,
nor after what fashion
With
the microscope
it is
constructed.
Ehrenberg made
in 1833
the first discovery of a nerve cell in a spinal
ganglion, and four years later Purkinje dem-
onstrated that the gray matter of the cere17

brum and
nervous
of
great
the
of
their
work
made up
is
This
fibers.
by the pub-
in the next year
and Schwann,
all
and
cells
was followed
lication
cerebellum
of the
of
Sclileiden
which they proved that
in
vegetable and animal tissues are
up of
cells
intimate
and the products of
structure
of
cells.
tissues
all
made
The
and
or-
gans was thus revealed, and each was found

to be perfectly characteristic
of its kind,
whether bony, tendinous, glandular, muscular,
nervous,
etc.
Nervous tissue especially
is
very peculiar and unlike anything else in the

body, and least of
The
all like
brain, therefore,
glandular tissue.
was thus shown
no more a gland than a hand or foot

that
it
instead
never secretes anything.

is
to be
is,
and
The brain
a special and distinct organ, con-
necting with nothing but nerves, acting and
acted upon only through nerves or nervous
masses, called ganglia, which are distributed
through the body.

It
was not long before

18
this conception of
the brain as a separate meclianism in us, con-
structed after
rise to
whom
its
own
new batch
pattern, began to give
Gall
of theories.
to
brain anatomy owes a good deal, par-
ticularly in the tracing of the course of the
down through
brain fibers
longata
regarding
conceived that
mark
it
with
its
the brain as one organ,
convolutions
its
off into so
served
many compartments,
distinctive
to
each
mental functions which
he proceeded to identify.
a
the medulla ob-
He
thus
made
out
of twenty-four brain localities pos-
list
with
sessed
attributes,
intellectual
special
and which
his pupil
increased to thirty-eight.
Now
or
moral
Spurzheim
as all individ-
uals have their personal peculiarities of
and of
mind
disposition, these, in turn, could be
explained by the development of their cor-
responding convolutions.
tician
Thus, a mathema-
would have a highly developed mathe-
matical convolution, and a combative
man
would possess his brain seat of combativeness, etc.
This so-called science of phren19

ology had great vogue for a time, owing to
its
further assumption that the outer contour of

the head corresponded to the arrangements
of the convolutions within, and thus afforded
a ready physical basis for estimating what
manner
man
of
or
woman
So popular became
this
each person was.
supposed
scientific
standard of individuality, that I once heard

a prominent clergyman remark that before
he addressed a young
wished he
^'
could
be
man
about his soul he
allowed
feel
to
his
bumps."
But as
in the case of
phrenology had
to
animal
spirits,
disappear before
facts.
so
It
was shown that Gall and his followers did not

study a
sufficient
number
of brains, because,
on the one hand, their mathematical convolutions
were found as largely developed in
the brains of paupers, dying in hospitals, as

in the
few mathematicians whose brains Gall
had investigated; while the brains of some

eminent
men had no
specially developed con-
volutions where they ought to have had them.
20
On
the other hand, while the inner table of
the skull corresponds in a general

the subjacent convolutions,
it
way with
does not keep
shape with any special convolution whatever

while as respects the outer table of the skull
there
may
be no correspondence
at
all.
Phrenology, therefore, gradually became the

exclusive property of popular lecturers,
who
illustrated its doctrines with plates of vari-
ously labeled heads.
The period between 1845 and 1860 was

marked by notable advances, not only
in gen-
eral physiology, but also in the physiology of
the brain
and of the nervous system.
great principle of reflex action, that

afferent
and efferent elements
processes,
was
established,
out.
and
of the
in all nervous
and many of the
amazingly intricate paths of nerve

the spinal cord
is,
The
in the brain
fibers in
were traced
France at that time took the lead
in all
branches of medical science, and the names of

Majendie, Longet, Flourens, Gratiolet, and
others like them will always rank high in the
21

annals of neurology.
day
to appreciate
was exerted
It is not
easy at this
what a paramount
in the medical
influence
world by
this
school of Paris, whose lecture rooms were
crowded by students from
all countries.
But, partly as a reaction from the doctrines of phrenology, all separate localiza-
tion of functions in the brain
denied, while the opposite
was strongly
and no
less erro-
neous teaching was promulgated, that the

brain always acts as a whole.
The cerebral
convolutions were regarded as the
^'
senso-
rium commune," and, as one of them expressed
^'
it,
any
specific vibration initiated
in each kind of sensory nerve thrills through-
out the whole or greater part of the mass of

the brain.
settle
'
'
down
Thus medical opinion seemed

to the conclusion that
to
our two
brain hemispheres corresponded to our two

lungs, in the respect that every part dis-
charges the same functions with the
rest.
But a great change was impending.

April
14, 1861,
On
an eminent French hospital

22
surgeon, Paul Broca, read a paper before the
d Ântliropologie of Paris, in which
Societe
he adduced evidences to prove:
That there
brain which
a definite locality in the
is
the sole seat of articulate
is
speech, found in a limited area in the lower
and posterior part of the convolution called

the third frontal
^^
Broca's
and which
convolution."
is
now named
This
fact,
course, could only be demonstrated
human
ries to that part in the
Broca showed, by
citing a
mortem examinations
by
inju-
subject,
number
of
and
of post-
of persons dying after
paralysis of the right side of the body, usually
due
to
apoplexy and who with the onset of the
paralysis lost the

in all such cases
demonstrable.
first to
ology,
sion
power of utterance
damage
As
this
that
to that locality
was
statement seemed at
be a reversion to the tenets of phren-
gave
it
and
1865 that
What
rise to so
denial, that
it
began
it
much heated
was not
discus-
until about
to be generally admitted.
chiefly led to its final acceptance
23
was

the further discovery that the two other ele-
ments of human speech besides articulate

utterance also have each their distinct and
separate brain localities; one
place
being
found for the words we receive through the

ear,
damage
ness, even
to
which place causes word-deai-
though there be no deafness to
other sounds than words
and, secondly, one
place for words received through the eye in

reading,
damage
see
which causes the subject
become wholly
at once to
may
to
and recognize
sight, except
illiterate,
all
though he
other objects of
words, as well as ever.
The demonstration
of
these
anatomical
bases of the faculty of speech soon led to careful experimental investigation of the brain in
animals for other seats of distinct functions,

constituting
calization,
what
and
is
to a
now termed
cerebral lo-
comparison of the results
achieved with the effects of injury or of disease in the brain of man.
By
1870, through
the labors of both experimental physiologists
and practicing physicians, such as

24
Hitzig,
Ferrier,
it
Munk, Luciani, Charcot and
was shown that each of the
has
others,
special senses
anatomical seat in the brain; and, in
its
addition to that, in a centrally placed zone
are to be found the seats governing the vol-
untary movements of the muscles of the body,

so that each muscle, or
be
made
to contract
group of muscles, can
by excitation of the
cor-
responding locality in the cortex or surface of

the brain.
These discoveries were great enough of

themselves, but they are relatively of sec-
ondary
importance
compared with those
which followed and which
will cause the
of Broca, as yet scarcely
known by
name
the gen-
eral public, to rank in the history of science
along with the names of Copernicus and of

Isaac Newton.
senses,
The anatomical
seats of the
and those of muscular movements, are
found equally in both hemispheres

brain,
of the
and their functions, as such, are doubt-
less congenital.
fer, as the
brain
It
was thus natural
is
a double organ, like our

25
to in-

two eyes and our two ears, each hemisphere
being the duphcate of the other, that both
brains would equally participate in
all
brain
work.
But a most unexpected
fact,
and one of
far-
reaching significance, was soon demonstrated,
namely, that the anatomical seats of the
faculty of speech are found only in one of the
two hemispheres.
lution,
which
is
Thus,
if
the Broca convo-
the seat of articulate speech,
be damaged in a person after middle

loss is usually irremediable, so that
life,
the
he can
speak no longer though the same convolution

in the other
same
is
hemisphere be wholly
intact.
The
true as regards word-deafness or
word-blindness from injury of their respective places, for the corresponding localities in
the other hemisphere, though not hurt at
nevertheless
are
entirely
word-deaf
all,
and
word-blind, simply because they never had
anything to do with speech.
But here again another new element

problem presented
itself,
26
in the
which proved that
the
endowment of one hemisphere with the
great gift of speech was not owing to any

original or special fitness of that hemisphere
for such a function, but solely because
was the hemisphere related

hand
in childhood.
sons,
it is
In
all
to the
it
most used
right-handed per-
in the left brain that the speech
centers are located

sons, they are
while in left-handed per-
found exclusively in the right
brain.
Two
conclusions
these facts,
first,
inevitably follow
upon
that brain matter, as such,
does not originate speech, for then both hemispheres would have their speech centers and
;
equally good for speech,
if
early enough in life to use
That something
is
"the
hand by the human

is
hemispheres
the
second, that either of
it
something begins
for that purpose.
most commonly used
child at the time
when
learning everything, for self -education
ways begins
it
al-
in our race with the stretching
may note
in the
purposive actions of an infant.
The
forth of the hand, as any one

first
is
27

hand which
it
then most used to learn by de-
termined which of
should
should
know
and which hemisphere
speech,
remain
thoughtless, for
This latter
two brain hemispheres
its
wordless,
and
therefore
life.
statement,
that
thought,
as
such, is a function only of the hemisphere con-
nected with the faculty of speech, was deci-
by the next revelation
sively demonstrated
which followed upon Broca's fruitful discovery.
Without any help from metaphysics,
and upon a much surer basis than any metaphysical theories,
it
was simply found as a
physical fact that our mental faculties, as

such, are quite distinct
from the elementary
functions of sensation and of motion.
These
latter are congenital, but our ability to recog-
nize and, therefore, to

lar objects or
know what
the particu-
meanings be of what our senses
report, is not congenital, but as
quired by us as
and not congenital.
our
speech
is
much
ac-
acquired
Because, connected with
the original anatomical seats of sight and of
28
hearing were found certain physical, anatomical
areas of brain matter, injury of which
abolished
all
power
to recognize
In the visual area
sees or the ear hears.
a place which,
if
what the eye

is
damaged, renders the per-
son unable to recognize members of his

family, though he see them;
and
own
in the audi-
tory area are places, one of which,
if
hurt,
causes the person to be no longer able to
know
his
most familiar tunes when he hears
them; while, by injury in another spot, he

loses all
power of distinguishing sounds
in
general, so that he cannot tell the bark of a
dog from the song of a
bird, because they are
alike only noises to him.
And
here again,
these important brain areas in us, interpret-
ing what sights or sounds mean, are found
only
in the left
hemisphere of the
right-
handed, and in the right hemisphere of the

left-handed; in other words, in the hemi-
sphere in which the seats of the faculty of

speech are located.
The
decisive bearing of these pure mat-
29

ters of fact
upon our whole discussion of the
to the Personality is plain
Mind
enough. As
none of these wonderful mental
faculties, in-
Physical Relations of the Brain to the
and
cluding that of speech, were connected with
brain matter at birth, but were created after-
wards,
it
follows that they were created by
the individual himself anatomically modify-
ing his
itself
own
brain.
That brain matter did not
organize these physical areas of mental
function
is
shown by
their entire absence
from the convolutions of the wordless hemisphere.
As
the
these physical relations of the brain to
mind are
to be fully discussed in our suc-
ceeding chapters,
we would have preferred
not to have alluded to them so far in advance,
and we have done so now only for
Many
persons
may
imagine
this reason.
that
such
theme must involve a discussion of what the
mind
is,
and, therefore, enter upon the wide
domain of metaphysics.
We propose to avoid
anything of the kind, as our subject deals pri30
marily with a thing of physics, namely, the
brain.
But the main
facts about the structure
and working of the brain are of such recent

discovery that they scarcely yet have become
generally known, at least in comparison with
the latest discoveries in the physical sciences.
Regarded, however, simply as matters of

knowledge, these new additions to our infor-
mation about the one organ in us which
is re-
lated to thought can be second to none in interest
and importance.
CHAPTER
ACCOUNT OF THE PHYSICAL
Two
fundamentally
II
BASIS OF
opposed
THE MIND
conceptions
have existed about the relations of the Brain

to the Mind,
which
may be illustrated by com-
paring the brain to either one of two different instruments or mechanisms for producing
music, an
ôlian harp or a
the brain
if
may
violin.
Thus,
be regarded as an organ
from which thoughts proceed, the question

then becomes.
Do
thoughts arise in
it
as
musical sounds flow from an ôlian harp or

as they
come from a
violin?
Both the ôlian harp and the
violin are
constructed by threads of catgut stretched
over apertures in a wooden box.

of the
ôlian
harj)
comes from
The music
it
when
it is
placed where currents of air can flow through

its
threads, and its notes will then vary ac-
32
THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND

cording to the direction, the strength and the
The
velocity of the currents.
air
which gen-
erates the music is a part of the whole outside atmosphere,
own
and while each harp has
number
peculiarities of size,
of threads,
position, etc., its function source has
one and the same in
culiarity, but is
like
its
no peall.
In
manner, some hold, currents of thought
are excited in the brain by the incoming

sensations transmitted
from without by the
vibrations of the various nerve fibers which
are
specially
sions,
adapted to receive impres-
and these vibrations
those responses
among
in turn
the fibers
awaken
and
of the brain which constitute feelings
cells
and
ideas.
On this view a man's brain may be regarded

mechanism whose
as a specially constructed
individual peculiarities in
shown
in his daily life, are all
arrangement of
Some
its
its
due
to the
material component parts.
lives give forth long, rich,
notes throughout
working, as
others,
33
harmonious
from unhappy
dis-

position of their fibers, give forth
than
prolonged
discords;
strange mixture of both; bnt
and
all
little else
others
these indi-
vidual, or so-called personal characteristics
are matters of cerebral structure, as this

is
upon by the innumerable nerve
acted
stimuli proceeding
More or
from the outer world.

kind
less defined conceptions of this
about the relation of the brain to the mind are

quite prevalent, particularly
who emphasize
among
those
the influence of heredity in
the genesis of individual or moral traits.

logical conclusion of this position
mind on
the last analysis
is
is,
The
that the
the product of
the composition and properties of brain matter,
and
its
reactions
operations of whatever sort are
among
the brain elements to the
play of external forces.
The other and
essentially different concep-
tion is that the brain, if likened to a musical
instrument, resembles a violin in that, how-
ever good
it
be as a musical instrument, and
however carefully
it
has to be constructed in
34

all its
parts to become such an instrument,
yet of itself
note,
much
it
cannot give forth a musical
less take
part in a complex sym-
phony, without a musician to use

fore,
it.
There-
though no musician can give us violin
music without a
no violin can be
violin, so
It should
musical without a musician.
be
noted that this theory requires mechanism,
and the complete integrity of the mechanism,

quite as
much
In
as the other.
cal vibrations within the
is
musi-
box depend so much
for their qualities upon
which the violin
fact, the
made
wood out
the
of
that extraordinary
sums have been paid for a Stradivarius on

that account alone.
But though mechanism
be such an essential element in both, the entrance of a wholly different factor in the case
of the violin, namely, the musician,
impossible to harmonize
the
makes
analogies
it
to
brain function drawn from these two instruments.

of
In the one we have only the effects
external
forces
acting
things; while in the other
35
upon material
we
likewise have

material things, but the effects come from a
source entirely distinct from and wholly inde-
We
pendent of them.
only need
now
to fol-
low up each of these views to their inevitable

conclusions to recognize
are.
how
far apart they
The one regards the mind
mind can have no
the brain, and hence the

existence apart
as wholly of
from the
brain.
The other
regards the brain as nothing more than the
instrument of the mind, and no instrument
can possibly be identical with the agency
which uses
As
it.
the brain itself gave not the least sign
much
of its activities, so
so that, as already
mentioned, the world for ages did not suspect that
it
or feeling,
had any connection with thought

it
should center
body.
was natural that the discussion

first
about the terms mind and
As regards
the mind, the processes
themselves of thought appeared to offer in

their genesis
and sequence the only elements
for examination.
Metaphysicians, therefore,
have labored at the problem for centuries,

36

but without coming to any agreement, one
chief reason for their failure being that in
their
methods of investigation they have had
to rely
upon
with introspection
ing to
lift
But the
introspection.
that
is
it is
man
own boot
himself by his
As our mental
like
difficulty
try-
straps.
processes both begin and end
within ourselves, they offer
We
jective for us to go by.
some external fulcrum
little
which
is
need instead
draw upon for
to
ob-
sat-
isfactory inferences.
Such a fulcrum seems

ised to us
by modern discoveries connected
with the brain
ganism
prom-
at last to be
itself in its relations as
to certain definite
an
or-
mental functions.
This was not possible so long as the brain
was regarded as a
single
organ working as
a unit, with the same relations in
all its
parts
and thought that the
air cells
wherever located in the lungs bear
to res-
to consciousness
piration.
Looked
at thus, the physiologist
with the brain before him was even worse off
than the metaphysician, for nothing could be

37

more undemonstrative
to
mere inspection
than healthy brain matter.

therefore,
brain, bit
of
it
were obliged
by
bit, to find
Physiologists,
investigate
to
whether some parts
were more connected with certain psy-
chical functions than others.
extensive
brains
experiments
of
living
tant facts were
After the most
were made
animals,
certain
these
on the
impor-
demonstrated which have
most direct bearings on the problem.

over,
the
More-
experimental deductions have
been further confirmed by observations of the

effects of local brain
by
injuries or disease.
now proven
surface
is
in
man
means
it is
damage caused
By
these
that the gray matter of the brain
specially arranged to subserve cer-
tain specific psychical functions only in certain localities in its substance.
It is not the
whole brain which sees or hears, but only particular limited areas to
which the conscious-
ness of sight and of hearing respectively are

confined.
Likewise the voluntary movements
of each group of muscles in the body have
38

been found to proceed from certain welldefined starting points on the brain surface,
and these are so well demonstrated that the

surgeon often knows, by noting what muscles
are implicated, just where to open the skull
with his trephine so as to find the lesion or

injury in the brain.
On these grounds
the inference seems prob-
able that every special psychical function
subserved by
rial
its
own
special seat in the mate-
organ of the mind.
coveries
we do seem
is
to
Hence, by these dis-
have come into pos-
session of really objective facts where before
everything was subjective; because nothing

could partake more of the nature of an objective fact than the identification of
an area
of brain matter with a given brain function,
by that function becoming invariably impaired according as
its
brain place
is
dam-
aged.
We
propose, therefore, to discuss in the
following pages the bearing which these
now
demonstrated relations of brain structure to

39

mental operations have upon the two opposite
views above stated of the relations of the
brain to the mind.
Fortunately for the general reader, the essential facts bearing
cussion can be
is
dis-
and
readily demonstrated
easily understood.
as the brain
upon our present
All are agreed that as far
concerned, the gray matter of
the brain surface, technically called the cortex, is the ultimate seat of all processes con-
nected with sensation and thought.
This
gray matter consists of a continuous layer,
whose average thickness

to one-eighth of
an
from one-twelfth
is
inch, of a soft material of
a very complex structure, in which are im-
bedded immense numbers of

of various shapes
called
^^
sizes,
bodies,
unfortunately
cells," for they are not hollow.
tween these
numerable
this
and
little
cells ramifies
fine
layer
folded upon
of
gray
a network of in-
fibers.
gray matter
itself,
Be-
To save space
is
everywhere
as one would crumple
up
a handkerchief in his hand, so that the sur40

face of the brain presents a
rows or creases between the
number
folds.
of fur-
The
chief
furrows, however, are quite definite in their
main
location, so that the

lobes,
folds are called
and the smaller ones convolutions, and
these in turn serve to
map
out the different
regions of the brain surface which are then
named
accordingly.
Underneath and within the gray
layer,
and
constituting the greater part of the brain
mass,
is
bundles
the white matter, which consists of

of
gray
contained
fibers
within
sheaths of apparently an insulating material
and white
ever,
in color.
Some gray
have no coating.
nerve fiber
is
fibers,
how-
The function
of a
wholly that of a conductor to
and from the gray matter.
On
the white matter
the gray matter
is not, like
that account
of the surface, the primary seat of any

tal
power, though in
fibers
form important
many
links
men-
instances these
between the vari-
ous cortical areas which seem to promote

associated actions between them.
41

Here, therefore, in the gray matter of the
we have a material
surface of the brain

stance which
is
scious mind.
For, as just stated,
the definite seat of the con-
ticular area of this
sight
if
one par-
gray layer be destroyed,
is totally lost,
all its parts,
sub-
though the eye
itself in
with the nervous tract leading
therefrom to the brain, be wholly

another particular cortical area
intact.
is
If
similarly
injured, hearing is abolished, though the ear
with
all its
apparatus be uninjured.
The con-
sciousness of sight or of hearing, therefore,

is
neither in the eye nor ear respectively, but
in these special localities on the brain surface.
To use
the phrase of an old anatomist,
the gray matter

thus, this
is
the animal.
form of matter
is
Regarded
the most interest-
ing and important substance in the world, for

it is
the only matter which
is directly
we know
of that
associated with mind.
There can be no question also that upon

the integrity of this gray matter depends
the integrity of all
mental processes,
42
for

these can be proportionately perverted
by
anything which interferes with the physical

conditions of the gray tissue, or
which derange
its
working.
cal injuries of the brain in
by agents
Thus mechani-
man
often have
been followed by peculiar mental disorders,
sometimes including change in disposition

or in moral character.
The most
striking illustrations of this kind,
however, and which can be produced at
will,
are furnished by the action of brain poisons.
In fact a curiously interesting treatise might

be written with the
of a
Drug Store."
title
of the
'
'
Metaphysics
Thus, opium powerfully
stimulates those mental processes which are

related to the imagination, so that the
opium
taker becomes intensely interested in his

trains
of
suggested ideas.
He
is
own
there-
fore silent and solitary, and thus contrasts
with the alcohol taker,

ings and emotions
so
who has
his
feel-
stimulated by that
poison that he would fain share them with

other persons, and becomes both familiar
43

and
talkative.
in its effects
dian hemp.
One
on the mind
When
most singular
of the
fnlly
is
haschish or In-
nnder
the haschish smoker can be
its influence,
made
to entertain
a most vivid sense of the objective reality of
any suggestion which

I once
knew a party
drunk together with
is
of
made
to his fancy.
Arabs who, while
this drug,
came
to
all
an
opening in an over-arched street in an Oriental
town through which the moonlight
streamed upon the pavement.
The leader
of
the party took the moonlight for a pool of
water and forthwith drew up his trousers to
wade
carefully through
by
the rest of
all
it,
and was followed
them doing the same
thing.
Hence, by merely introducing certain
defi-
nite substances into the blood stream, as
rapidly courses through the brain from
it
its
four great arteries, we can produce well-defined mental processes characteristic of the
operations
of
these
agents;
or,
in
words, sensations, feelings and ideas

cally
other
specifi-
generated by these wholly material
44

things.
In time also the persistent nse of
these agents seems to alter the personality
Thus, a confirmed drunkard finally
itself.
becomes more unlike his former
self
than an
average European differs from an average

Asiatic.
At
first sight
such facts as these seem to
and mind are
indicate that the brain
Change the
is
state of the brain,
changed accordingly.
one.
and the thinker
It is not surprising,
therefore, that previous to the progress of
discovery within the last twenty-five years,
appeared as
if
it
nothing could be postulated
about mental phenomena apart from the material condition of the
mind's organ.
The
ôlian harp theory that sensation and

thought
are
the
products
of
vibrations
through a specially arranged mechanism,
seemed
to correspond
most naturally with
the facts.
But unfortunately for

the facts adduced in
its
this conclusion, all
support can be ad-
duced just as conclusively in support of the

45

opposite theory of the brain being but the in-
strument of the thinker, as the violin
is
the
instrument of the musician who plays upon
The most
it.
would draw
skillful violinist
forth nothing but crazy sounds from his in-
strument
if
cords were smeared with
its
grease instead of with rosin, and every mental disorder
from delirium
by
paralleled
to
coma can be
corresponding
musical
de-
rangements due to purely structural conditions in the violin itself,
performer.
It then
of his, but solely
and not
at all in the
would be from no fault
from conditions
in his in-
strument that every sound which he can get

out of
it is
faulty.
tor of thought
Indeed, the rightful direc-
may
often appear to be striv-
ing to regulate the brain of a drunkard, just

as a musician would deal with a disordered
instrument; and
still
more
strikingly do
we
see something akin to this, in certain states
of insanity.
We
just
are thus left by these considerations
where we were before; and hence we

46

must go further and deeper than physical
changes in brain matter can take us to arrive
at satisfactory conceptions of the true rela-
tions of the brain to the mind.
47
CHAPTEE
III
BEAIN WEIGHT AND MENTAL FACULTY
What we
have arrived at so far
gray matter
now
is
is tliat tlie
the physical basis of the mind.
The eye does not
No
one
see
any more than an opera glass
is
disputes this.
sees.
It
one place only in the gray cortex which
actually sees.
And
as with the consciousness
of sight, so doubtless the seat of every other

special
where
form of mind consciousness
in this mysterious layer.
is
some-
But how far
does this take us?
Not very
far,
because
if
we hence should
infer that consciousness in all its forms of

sensation, feeling, perception, thought,
etc.,
depended wholly on the existence of so much

gray matter, we should soon encounter a
physical, facts
and
series of material,
i.
conditions which,
they did not actually con-
if
e.,
18
WEIGHT OF BRAIN
tradict such inferences,
would at
least seri-
ously modify them.
To begin with
most physical
the simplest as well as the
In
facts.
animals there
all
is
a close correspondence between the degree of
development of any organ and
power or
activity.
its
functional
powerful arm implies
a big arm, or at least not an undersized one.

Is a powerful brain likewise a big brain, or
an undersized brain!
at least not
In other
words, does the actual size of brain in
man
bear any direct relation to mental capacity?

This question
ative, only,
tions that
may
be answered in the affirm-
however, with so
it
most
qualifica-
then becomes by itself of
account in our discussion.

of
many
idiots
little
Thus the brains
and of half-witted persons are
usually smaller and weigh less than the aver-
age of normal brains, while
many men
dis-
tinguished for their mental powers have had

large and heavy brains.
But the exceptions
are very numerous both ways.
Thus, assum-
ing the average weight of normal European
49

brains
among men
the following
tinguished
shall
list
men
to be 49.5 ounces,
we bave
of tbe brain weights of dis-
given by Prof. John Mar-
:^
Abercrombie
64.7
Lord Campbelh .,,
56.7
Webstej^^rrTT
.>^.
ChalHi&!rr..
55.5
.<\. 54.8
Whbwell Pr."?.... ^..^^.y.. 51.2

Tiedma&n-.-,,^
47.4
-^rvrr'.
Hansemann
The
45.4
last two, a distinguished physiologist
and a mineralogist, were below the normal.
But
just such variations are found
people in general not at
Even among paupers,
all
among
distinguished.
in a large series of
observations cited by Professor Marshall,

thirteen brains
among
nine hundred were
found to weigh above sixty ounces.

iJour.
Anatomy and
The
Physiology, 1892-1893, vol. xxvii.,
pp. 21-65.
50
WEIGHT OF BRAIN
was that of
heaviest, perfectly healthy brain
mechanic,
weighed
which
just
above
seventy ounces.
In the Journal of the Biometrical Society,

June, 1905,^ Prof. Karl Pearson, F.R.S., and
Dr.
Raymond Pearl
give the results of an
analysis of 2,100 adult male and 1,034 adult
female
races
brain
weights,
belonging
Swedish, Bavarian,
ian and
a There
to
{ive
Hessian, Bohem-
Englishwith the conclusion that

no evidence that brain weight
is
is
sensibly correlated with intellectual ability.
Of the
investigated by the bio-
five races
metricians, the English have the smallest
mean brain
weight.
Englishman
is
The mean
of the adult
27 grams less than the Bavar-
ian mean, 57 grams less than the Hessian
mean, 65 grams
less
and 120 grams

mean.
On
than the Swedish mean,
less
than the
Bohemian
'
the other hand, brain bulk as such
varies according to racial peculiarities, with

1
Nature, Dec. 28, 1905, p. 200.
51

little
or no reference to mental faculty. Thus
the ancient Peruvians,

pire of the Incas,
who founded
the em-
must be regarded as an
tellectual people, but they
in-
were remarkable
both for the small size of their skulls and for

brains which were on an average no larger
than those of
many
idiots.
One
of the latest discussions on this sub-
ject is
by Prof. David Hansemann,^ who made
a most careful examination of the brain of

the most remarkable
man
in
modern times
Hermann von
Hansemann was much dis-
for pure intellectual powers,
Helmholtz.
Prof.
appointed to find that Helmholtz 's brain
weighed barely 45 ounces.
But the brain of
Dr. Dollinger, the eminent historian, weighed
only 37.7 ounces.
paper on
all
He
concludes his elaborate
this subject with the
remark, that
investigators agree that the weight of
the brain bears no relation to the mental
capacity
of
man.
Likewise
the
external
Ueber das Gehirn von Hermann von Helmholtz von ProDavid Hansemann. Zeitschrift fiir Psychologic und
Physiologic der Sinnesorgane, 20. Band. Leipzig, 1899
^
fessor
52
WEIGHT OF BRAIN
measure of the head
No man's
ever.
is
of no account what-
can be judged by
intellect
Johannes Muller's had
the size of his hat.
the large circumference of 614 millimetres,
Richard Wagner 's 600 millimetres, but Napoleon 's
was only 564 and Darwin's 563
milli-
metres.
Therefore
if
any conclusions can be drawn
from these considerations

if
would seem as
it
brain organization was more important
than mere
size.
Hence
it
follows that neither
of our two opposing theories
these anatomical facts.
would greatly prefer
to
is
helped by
gifted violinist
play upon a violin
of standard make, however expensive
than appear before a
critical
it
was,
audience with
the cheap product of a village artificer.
No
one can doubt that an originally well-organized brain is a
good thing
to have, but that
does not affect the real point at issue, which

is,
whether the best-organized brain, or for
that matter any other brain, can be
think without a thinker.
53
made
to

We
have, therefore, again to go further
mere
into the subject than the
brain in
man
will carry ns.
size of the
But onr very
next step brings ns to an anatomical fact of
primary importance, which seems
to
make
our previous discussion about the bulk of
To some,
brain matter quite superfluous.
indeed, this anatomical fact appears to dis-
pose of the ôlian harp theory altogether,

as far as a physical basis for
So sweeping
it is
concerned.
in reality are the conclusions
which follow upon
this single material fac-
tor in the problem that
take our bearings on
it is
well to pause and
all sides to
be sure of
the full import of its significance.
The question
all
all
along has been
are agreed that the gray matter
material seat of thought,

source of thought?
etc., is it
The dictum
of
As
this.
the
is
also the
Bory
Vincent, Cabanis, Karl Vogt and others,
St.
was
that the brain secretes thought just as the

liver secretes bile.
intelligible
As
enough, and
54
a statement this
all
writers
who
is
ad-
WEIGHT OF BRAIN
we have represented
vocate what
ôlian harp theory
as
the
of the relation of the
brain to the mind will be found on examination to hold essentially the
however they may
opinion,
differ in their statement
Thought, feeling, volition,
of details.
are,
same
on the
last analysis,
etc.,
according to any
such view, the products of the material organization of the gray matter as
responds
it
to its appropriate specific stimuli.
Now
it is
evident that such a premise in-
volves one inevitable conclusion, namely, that

the
more gray matter you have
thought,
granted
tative
etc.,
it
you
will
of as a
If
more
this
be
becomes then a question of quanti-
gray matter, and
modern
have.
the
conceptions,
if,
in accordance with
thought be conceived
form of energy stored up by the gray
matter, then the amount of this energy liber-
ated will be proportionate to the quantity of

the specific substance which stores
it
up.
But
even on this hypothesis, mere quantity of the
mind generating material

55
is
not enough. An-

other factor has to be taken fully into ac-
how
count, namely,
it is
only by
its
it is
organized, because
special organization that one
portion of this gray matter
is
endowed with
the faculty of sight, and another in a different place does not see but hear, and so on for
But for the present we
each special sense.
may let
this inconvenient factor pass,
and
re-
vert to the original proposition, that how-
ever complex the organizing be,
matter which
more there be
is
it is
the gray
organized, and hence the
of this cerebral stuff, the more,
correspondingly,
will
its
various
mental
products be.
But the anatomical

poses of this theory
fact
is
which wholly
dis-
that we, like most
people, and particularly these reasoners, are

quite
''
inaccurate
brain.''
in a
There
when we use
is
the
word
no such thing as a brain
human being. He always has two
brains,
and never one
brain, just as he has two eyes
and two
And
ears.
these two brains are just
as perfectly matched and duplicates of each
56
WEIGHT OF BRAIN
other in
all their
two ears
his
parts as his two eyes and
are.
Therefore
the quantity of gray matter
if
the fact for us to found our superstructure
is
upon, one-half of this matter being in the

right brain
brain,
it
and the other half in the
follows that
if
left
one of the two brains
be rendered useless by any chance, either

half the mind, or half of the mental capacity
will
be gone.
Is that so!
Instead of being
so, it
has been abundantly
demonstrated that one of the two brains can

do
all
the thinking necessary for the pur-
poses of
life.
No
addition of mental power,
nor of mental endowment
is
secured by our
having two brains, any more than the faculty

of sight
eyes.
as
we
is
increased in us by our having two
This, however, is only in accordance,

shall see,
with the general law of
all
pair organs in the body, whose existence in

pairs
is
for quite other reasons than for in-
crease in function.
to see
why our
It is difficult, therefore,
paired brains should consti57

tute
an exception
and that they
to this law;
do not do so in fact we shall show by anatomical evidence of the most convincing kind.
We may
observe here in passing that this
pairing of the mind's organ
a very per-
is
As one
plexing problem to some reasoners.

authority^
dark
the
in
^'
remarks,
as
We
the
to
reason
possess two hemispheres."
mainly
arises
from
completely
are
This
certain
why we
difficulty
assumptions
about the relations of thought to matter,

while the constant use of the term brain unconsciously leads
single
to
the
conception
of
organ as the source of thought, just
as the liver is the only source of

in fact,
bile.
It
is,
an illustration of the dominance of
this conception that this identical
compari-
son of the brain to the liver occurs so often
among writers
may
of this school.
correctly speak of the eye
ear in the singular, as long as

of the function itself
'
But though we
and of the
we are
talking
of sight or of hearing,
Sir Michael Foster, Physiology, p. 872, 5th Edition.
58
WEIGHT OF BRAIN
such language
is
no longer correct when we
speak of them in the plural, for we then are

only referring to them as the instruments of
For instruments, and
sight or of hearing.
nothing but instruments, these pair organs

certainly are.
would be no
Though without
and without the ear no
sight,
hearing, yet the eye
source of sight than

scope.
the eye there
is
is
no more the seat or
a telescope or a micro-
Whether, therefore, our two per-
fectly symmetrical brains are likewise not
the sources, but rather the instruments, of
thought,
we
will
now proceed
59
to examine.
CHAPTEE
IV
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAIN BEING A DOUBLE OR

PAIR ORGAN
Our
brains consist of two perfectly matched
organs technically called the right and

hemispheres.
As regards
their
left
gray matter,
they correspond furrow for fnrrow, lobe for

lobe,
and convolution for convolution.
Now
with the partial exception of the hands and

feet, the salient fact
in the
body
is this:
about other pair organs
That either one of the
pair can do the whole business of both

necessary.
It is not one of the
if
two eyes
which sees red while the other sees green;

nor, if a
man knows
the two languages, does
one ear hear only English and the other only
German.
so that
if
What
a man
one eye sees, the other sees,

should lose one eye, with the
60
THE BRAIN A PAIR ORGAN

remaining eye he might become either an
astronomer or a microscopist.
sons have been
known
to live for
Some permany years
with only one Inng to breathe with.
was
I once
called in consultation to see a strong
workingman who had
lived for thirteen years
wholly unaware that he had only one kidney,

the other having been destroyed
by a stone
becoming impacted in the tube leading from

it,
when he had an
attack of kidney
colic.
It
was a similar mishap
in the tube of the re-
maining kidney which
first
defect was.
his
It is evident, therefore, that the
chief reasons
first,
showed what
why we have
pair organs
is,
for convenience, due to the body itself
being generally two-sided, right and left;

and, secondly, to insure against emergencies,
just as a
man
will
provide himself with two
keys for the same lock,
As regards our
lest
he lose one.
brains, however, there is
one exception to this rule about pair organs,

in a division of labor
between the two hemi-
spheres, in respect of the control of those
61
BRAIN AJND PERSONALITY

muscular movements which are of a voluntary;
character, the centers of those governing the
right half of the
body occupying a
gray cortex of the
left brain,
tract in the
while those of
the left half of the body are correspondingly

located in the right hemisphere.
The most
probable explanation of this arrangement

that
it
insures a
more perfect balance
tween the two sides of the body in

lar
movements.
move
in
be-
muscu-
Thus the two eyes need
to
most perfect harmony, and on that
account there
fibers
its
is
from
of action.
is
a special crossing of nerve
side to side to secure this unity
But with respect
to thought itself
the above mentioned law about pair organs
holds perfectly.
It
has been repeatedly shown by post-mor-
tem examinations that persons have lived for

years with only one hemisphere in working
order, the other having been virtually de-
stroyed by disease but with the exception of

;
parts in one-half of their bodies being paralyzed for voluntary movements, such as those
62

of the
arms and
legs, tliey
have thought and
acted and transacted business as well with

one-half of the gray matter with which they
started in
life,
i. e.,
with only one hemisphere,
as others are able to use one eye for
poses after losing
its
all
pur-
cite
only
for several years
was
mate.
Of many such instances we need

that of a
man who
under the observation of an expert neurologist,
who published a
history of his case with
found in
full description of the conditions
his brain after death.^
The
and
patient
well,
had
always
been
and was forty-seven years of
when he awoke one morning with

left side
numb and
paralyzed.
thus paralyzed for ten years
meantime
strong
his speech
his
age,
whole
He remained
till
he died, but
was perfectly normal,
his reading
good and his memory unaffected.
He gave no
sign of mental weakness, but
always
intelligent, patient, cheerful
ticularly
*
good in
Dr. Pearce Bailey,
attention.
Am.
He
was
and parread the
Jour. Med. Sciences, March, 1889
63

papers constantly, and liked to talk
He
bore his disability bravely,
politics.
and was
neither depressed, emotional, irritable nor

apathetic.
At
the antopsy a large cyst, full
of fluid, occupied the anterior part of the

right hemisphere, with the whole tissue dis-
organized and without any remains of gray

matter, while the posterior half of the hemi-
sphere was everywhere atrophied.
Micro-
scopical examination of the tissues
showed
the
same destruction of the nerve elements.
Dr. Bailey concludes with saying:

ting all together the
man
(during
life)
fested nothing to indicate that the
*^
Put-
mani-
power of
operations of his mind had been affected, and

yet after death the whole of one hemisphere
was found
to be greatly lessened in size,
and
impoverished in cellular constituents, and the

frontal lobes which
some regard as the
seat
of the highest cerebral functions were almost

totally annihilated
On
on one
the other hand, there
fact which
side.''
is
might give color

64
one anatomical
to the supposi-

tion that our
two brains are constructed
At
operate virtually as one organ.
tom
to
the bot-
of the cleft separating the two hemi-
spheres there
a large bridge
is
named
the
corpus callosum, four inches in length, and
which
is
made up
of bundles of white fibers
which pass from one brain to the other.
It
has been supposed that the function of this

commissure, as
it
is
called, is to
make
the
various brain centers in the two hemispheres
work
together, as
some of
its fibers
have been
down
traced from certain areas of the cortex

to this bridge
and across
it
to corresponding
areas in the opposite brain.
This surmise
was apparently strengthened by the frequent

absence, or only partial development, of this
commissure in the brains of idiots or of feeble
minded
subjects.
But the progress
of re-
search has not confirmed the theory that the
two hemispheres are functionally united by

this connecting bridge.
tally defective
For
subjects,
in cases of
men-
where the corpus
callosum was found wanting, other organic

65

abnormalities
which had
were also invariably found
to be taken into account as well.
Meantime numerous reports have been published
post-mortem
of
examinations
per-
formed by distinguished neurologists on persons
who during
tal defect,
corpus
life
and yet
callosum
showed no signs of men-
whom
in
between
was no
there
two
the
hemi-
In each of these subjects also there
spheres.
was no other abnormality present
Most of these cases were only
brain.
the
in
acci-
dentally discovered in the bodies of persons
dying from ordinary diseases, because nothing in their antecedent history suggested the
existence
of
their
anatomical
peculiarity.
Thus Eichler reports the case of a man

three years of age,
life
''
a laborer
had showed no mental
was a
diligent, capable
f :^rty-
who during
peculiarities, but
workman, a good hus-
band, and in every respect sober, quiet and

well-behaved, and could read and write, ' but
'
in
whom
absent.
the corpus callosum
The eminent
was
entirely
neurologist, Professor
66

Erb, in reporting two similar cases, remarks
*^
that
when
the brain is otherwise well-de-
veloped, with absence of the corpus callosnm,
there
may
be no disturbance of motility, co-
ordination, general or special sensibility, reflexes,
speech or intelligence.
'
'
Considering
the rarity of autopsies in which careful ex-
aminations of the brain are made, such cases
may
be quite
common
in the general popula-
tion without anything in life betraying their

existence.
Undoubtedly
tween the two brains
this connection be-
may
be of use in pro-
viding against some accidents to either of the

cerebral pairs, but these instances of
its
ab-
sence only serve to prove that for perform-
ing the ordinary functions of mental
life,
the
two hemispheres are wholly independent of

each other.
Indeed, one investigator of this
subject remarks that the problem of the use

of the corpus callosum
is still
absence appears to be so
unsolved, as
little
its
missed.^
This subject of absence of the corpus callosum is fully

by the well-known brain anatomist, Prof,
Alex. Bruce, in Brain, 1889, pp. 171-9.
*
treated in an article
67

The inference from these
facts is perfectly
If one-half of the total
obvious.
of our brains
is
gray matter
distributed in one hemi-
sphere, and the other half in the second hemisphere,
it is
not for the purpose of doubling,
or even increasing our mental capacity.
We
might lose one-half of our gray matter, provided the loss
is
only on one side and the
other side remains whole, without losing a

idea thereby.
In other words, we
might reason, argue,
calculate, love or hate,
single
like or dislike, or, in short,
be altogether our-
selves mentally with only one-half of our
We,
gray matter
left to us.
sons, do not
depend for our personality upon
number
of ounces of gray matter which
the
therefore, as per-
our cranial cavity contains, but rather on the

fact
whether the gray matter of one of our
hemispheres be in good condition or not.

If
it
is,
then the gray matter of the other
hemisphere
is
not needed by us for the pur-
pose of thinking.
is
halved, but
we
Our gray matter
as such
ourselves are not only not
68

halved into two half selves by this bilateral
we remain
distribution, but
tal unit as
ever
only
if
the
same men-
we can keep
intact
that one of the two hemispheres which, as
we
will see later, is the sole seat of thought.
These undoubted
just as
facts, therefore, lead to
undoubted a conclusion, namely, that
everything involved in our conscious personality,
while related to gray matter,
only
is
related to, but not originated by, gray matter
for
if it
then both
were originated by gray matter,

hemispheres
would be equally
necessary to our complete personality.
stream
of
water
comes from two
sources, the drying
If a
equal
up of one stream
will
leave only half the quantity of water run-
ning and just so must the stream of thought

;
fall off one-half
jured, if
it
when one hemisphere
originates in the two perfectly
equal hemispheres.
if
is in-
Or, to put
it
conversely,
gray matter originates thought, then both
our hemispheres must share equally in producing thought, for one has just as much gray
69

matter as the other, and with just the same
arrangement and organization of

It is these
it.
demonstrated truths which, as
we have remarked before, prove so embarrassing to those who hold the view that the
brain makes the mind. As one hemisphere
qnite enough for all mental requirements,
is
they cannot but regard on their principles

the other hemisphere as quite superfluous.
So
it
would be
if their
principles were valid.
If thought is actually a secretion or product
of the brain, as bile
is
a secretion of the
then the case with the brain

if
we had two
is
the
liver,
same as
fully developed livers which,
however, could not be made to produce more

bile
than one alone does.
If our brains are
never anything more than the instruments

of a thinker, the thinker might very well have
two such instruments, and use either one as

he chooses.
I have been informed
by watchmakers that
they grow so accustomed to use only one of

their eyes at their work, that in time they be-
70

come unable
to use the other eye for
shall see further
We
it.
on that the human thinker
likewise becomes so accustomed to use only
one of his brain pair for thought that

doubtful
if
he ever uses
late a single idea.
its
it is
fellow to formu-
With which one
of the pair
he will choose to do his thinking for
life
de-
pends upon a sort of accident, almost of the

nature of a whim, during the days of childhood.
So far we have been gradually approaching the central subject of
all
our discussion,
namely, the relation of the brain to thought.
Heretofore we have referred to certain ascertained localizations of brain functions in

special places in the brain cortex.
But none
of these functions yet mentioned are necessarily identical with thinking or thought.
sensation like that of sight
is
however much of thought, after

it
may
give rise
movement
to.
not thought,
its
reception,
Likewise a muscular
in response to excitation of the
corresponding area in the cortex
71
is
not itself

an act of thought, however
Now what
upon thought.
is
it
may
follow
thinking?
We
are precluded from asking metaphysics to
answer
this
question because
our subject
deals only with the relations of a thing of

physics,
i.
e.,
brain substance, to mind.
We
are called upon instead to answer the question,
Are there
definite localities in the brain
substance which have as close relations to

acts of pure thinking as
we have found
to be
the case in connection with acts of seeing or

of hearing?
Unlike the metaphysician,
who would begin
with defining what thought and

are,
we can only
cite concrete
its
elements
examples of
human
thinking done by or through an active

brain.
judge when he takes the briefs
submitted to him, and
sits
down
to write out
his opinion, is thinking; an orator
making
ready his oration to sway an assembly,
is
work on a book
is
thinking; an author at
thinking; a philosopher pondering a subject

in philosophy is thinking;
72
and so
on.
Now

is this
ent
mental faculty of thinking so depend-
upon the material arrangement
gray matter
of brain
in special localities thereof that,
just as physical injury in the cortical sight
area
may
cause total blindness, so a similar
injury in these special areas

areas remaining intact
other brain
all
would
make
it
im-
possible for the judge to write an opinion,

the orator to
compose
his
speech, or the
author to go on with his book?

It is
even
and why
so,
it is
and the demonstration of how
so furnishes
more data for the
correct estimation of the true relation of the
brain to the
mind than any
we have heretofore been

been
discovered
that
of the facts which
considering.
certain
It
has
well-defined
areas of the brain cortex minister as directly

to
human
thinking as others do to special
when once
sensations or to movements, and
we appreciate
their
significance,
we must
admit that no greater discoveries than these
have been achieved in
science.
We
cannot
ask to be led higher than to the very seats

73
BRAIN' AND PERSONALITY

where thought becomes
may
well pause
when we
find ourselves un-
mistakably there, to ask what
it
We
the
have been
for
seeking
whereabouts of mind,
if
and we
articulate,
all
means.
material
such there be, and
hence the question whether we can come

into the physical neighborhood of
some great
and purely mental faculty cannot but
in-
volve the solution of our whole problem.
It
was indeed a great step
discover just
to
where a sensory stimulus traveling from the

outside world along a nerve fiber ends, not
only in a physical stopping place, but in a

conscious perception.
We
more than conscious
selves only.
are,
however, far
We
are
thinking selves, and nothing could be more
important than to investigate the physical

bases of the one transcendent
ment which
itself that
without
is
human endow-
so associated with thought
no true thinking
its exercise.
is
possible in
man
CHAPTER Y
THE FACULTY OF SPEECH
Before entering upon the consideration of
the Faculty of Speech and
its
the subject of our discussion
bearing upon
it is fitting
to
note the fact that no investigation of the hu-
man body
why man
itself affords the least

is
man.
There
is
explanation
nothing in his
him
physical frame which truly separates
from other animals, because every member

and organ of
his
body has
its
counterpart or
analogue in the bodies of other animals.

shares with other
mammalia
of lungs to breathe with
the
Man
same kind
his blood circulates
through the same kind of heart and arteries
and veins; he digests and assimilates

food by the same kind of apparatus, with
its
varieties of parts
and accessories;
his
all
his
secreting glands, his muscles, his bones and,
75

in short, every other bodily thing in
like
unto theirs.
him
is
Also not only the anatomy,
but the physiology, that
is,
the working of
every physical element in man,

in keeping with that of other
is
so strictly
mammals
that
much the greater part of our knowledge of

human physiology is derived from investigations into the physiology of other animals.
We
how
even deduce from experiments on them

either medicines or poisons
may
affect
ourselves.
But there
is
one organ of his body which
immediately suggests
great exception to
what must
human
tional
its
itself as necessarily
The mind of man;
all this.
organ be!
How
could the
brain be other than a most excep-
brain in the whole
animal series?
This inference seemed so certain that the
most diligent search was long continued for

the physical counterpart in man's brain to
his
marvelous
intellect.
Nothing, therefore,
could have been more disappointing than to

discover that the brain of the chimpanzee,
76

as far as structure goes, presents us with not
only every lobe, but with every convolution

of the
human
The
brain.
respecting
the
functions of the diiferent areas of our
own
chief
facts,
indeed,
brain cortex, so far determined by physiologists,
have been deduced from experiments
on the brains of anthropoid apes.
All at-
tempts to demonstrate a new, or superadded,

or special collection or arrangement of gray
matter in
man 's
brain, which no other animal
possesses, have failed.
Ever
since
showed, against Owen, that the
Huxley
human
brain
has not even one peculiarity not found in a
baboon ^s brain, no one expects that the
scal-
pel will reveal a single physical explanation
as to
of a
why the mind of

physiologist who
finitely apart.
a baboon and the mind

dissects
him are
so in-
If the similarity of brain for-
mation and mechanism, carried out to the

smallest details, be all that
is
needed, there
would be no reason why baboons could not
become
philosophers
77
or
mathematicians.

Man's body,
therefore, including
man
leaves
wholly
himself
Professor Huxley puts the
''As
Ms
brain,
unexplained.
subject
thus:
to the convolutions, the brains of the
apes exhibit every stage of progress, from

the almost smooth brain of the
marmoset
to
the orang and chimpanzee, which fall but

little
And
below man.
it is
most remarkable
that as soon as all the principal sulci
appear,
sures]
the
pattern
which they are arranged
is
[fis-
according
to
identical with
that of the corresponding sulci of man.
So far as cerebral structure goes, therefore,

it
is
clear that
man
differs less
from the
chimpanzee and orang, than these do even
from the monkeys, and that the difference

between the brain of the chimpanzee and of
man
is
almost insignificant when compared
with that between the chimpanzee brain and

that of a lemur.''
But there
which
man
plies
to
is
one physiological standard by
can be truly measured, which ap-
him
alone,
and which rounds

78
his

marvelous
whole
being
faculty
liis
of
speech.
The immeasurable distance between
man and
every other animal on earth
is fully
accounted for by the existence, the nature
and the
significance of
man's words.
we
sayings of Francis Bacon
By
the
find ourselves
in the presence of an intellect
which grasps
the principles of all knowledge.
In the words
of Shakespeare wellnigh every experience
of
human
vividly embodied.
life is
awed by the sublimity and

the thoughts of
in the
We
are
the solemnity of
him who expressed himself
words of the Ninetieth Psalm,
more we ponder
it,
So, the
more impassable
the
grows the gulf between the minds of those
who could speak thus and

animals.
in kind,
the minds of
dumb
They cannot be the same beings

however similar
tionships be, because the
their bodily rela-
more we recognize
man imreason why he
what the presence of the Logos

plies, the plainer
becomes the
in
stands alone in this world.
Professor Huxley remarks on this sub-
79

*^
ject:^
died
After passion and prejudice have
away
the
same
result will attend the
teachings of the naturalist respecting that
great Alps and Andes of the living world
Our reverence
Man.
hood
that
for the nobility of
by the knowledge
will not be lessened
Man is
in substance
man-
and
in structure one
with the brutes, for he alone possesses the
marvellous
endowment
rational speech.
mountain
by
from the
top, far
ble fellows,
nature,
of
intelligible
Thus he stands as on a
above the level of his hum-
and transfigured from

reflecting here
infinite
and
his lower
and there a ray
source of truth."
Regarded as a physiological study the
fac-
ulty of speech consists not in uttering words,
but in the power of word making.
mary truth about a word

from mind.
a personality which
it.
that
Apart from mind
Every word was
istence.
vented
is
No
first
comes only
it
has no ex-
made by
designed and
in-
making of a
in Nature, pp. 119, 132.
80
pri-
it
originally
personality, no
Man's Place
The

word
is
Hence no word ever
forever true.
came, or can come, into existence sponta-
No human being was
neously.
a word.
man
ever born with
A word, therefore, is an artificial hu-
product, the outgrowth of a need, just
was
as a knife
wanted
tions,
made by some one who

Being purely human crea-
first
to cut.
words, like
all
man's works, sooner or
Some of the finest

languages ever spoken are now dead. Therelater
fore
grow
it
is
old and die.
not words as such which concern
the physiologist, but the capacity for
them, for this
is
making
the faculty of speech
it-
self.
This faculty has
the characters of a
all
fundamental physiological
absolutely generic.
man
No
fact,
because
it is
speechless race of
has yet been found, however low we go
in the scale of
human
intelligence, or
how-
ever isolated the race; and every speech of
savage
tribes
consists,
speech, not of so
many
like
other
sounds, but of verbs,
nouns, and partitives, that
81
every
is,
with
all
of

distinctively
the
mental elements of true
language.
least impressive fact about this
Not the
human
exclusively
power of
faculty
creation.
its
limitless
The remarkable
lence of the languages of

is
is
excel-
many savage
races
a testimony to the innate power of this
human endowment.
Thus the Turks were
originally a barbarous horde of
High Asia.
Their language was wholly formed while

they were
so.
It is
one of the
finest, if
not
the finest, sounding languages in the world.

It
has been the least modified by foreign
influences or admixture of
Europe.
its
It
any language
has never had any literature of
own worth mentioning, but
Max
in
Miiller says of
it
' ^
We
this is
what
have before
us in the Turkish a language of perfectly
transparent structure, and a grammar, the

inner workings of which
watching the building of
An
we can study
cells in
as
if
a beehive.
eminent Orientalist remarked, that we

*
Science of Language, First Series, p. 309.
82

might imagine Turkish
to be the result of the
some famous society of
deliberations
of
learned men.
But no such
devised what the mind of

to itself in the steppes of
only by
society could have
man produced
left
Tartary and guided
innate laws, or by an intuitive
its
power as wonderful as any within the realm

of Nature."
Mr. Crisp, in a paper read at the Anthropological Section of the British Association of
Bantu
Science, August, 1905, said:^ ^'The
languages of Africa will express any idea,
however
esoteric,
and
will
do
it
with extraor-
dinary precision and often with great
who has acquired one

leave his own language
Bantu word, because
more aptly and
it
tersely.
intended to say.
incisive,
delicacy
what
it
in the
and their native
Nature, Nov. 16, 1905, p. 66.
83
empha-
They are masters
art of destructive criticism,
to use
Bantu proverbs and
much power and
sizing with
them
conveys his thought
metaphors are often most
is
of
foreigner
will often
felicity.

shrewdness, observation and wit render them
dangerous disputants.
'
In the infancy of philology some theorists

ascribed the beginning of words to phonetic
imitations of natural sounds.
wow
theory, as
it
But
this
bow-
has been called, soon died
after the recognition of the infinite
human
As
natural
capacity for making languages.
sounds are the same the world over,
view were correct, some similarity

should be found in
words
so derived,
case.
Even
would expect
in
all
sound
languages among the

is
by no means the
talk,
where most we
which
baby
in
if this
to find them, the
words vary
in
sound between the different races as much as
Thus the word 'bow-
do the words of adults.
wow, '^ meaning a dog,

lish.
is
found only in Eng-
Indeed, one might as well trace a navi-
gable river to a bottle of water, as to sup-
pose that the inexhaustible stream of
human
speech has any other source than the limitless

spirit of
speech
man,
is
for,
owing
to that fact,
human
far richer than any one language
84

possibly can be.
saying that a
learns a
There
man
is
much
truth in the
doubles himself
when he
new language. Whoever enters upon
the study of one of the great languages of

the East, such as the Arabic, soon notes not
only
how
but that
tions
unlike any
European tongue
teems with words and construc-
it
and meanings which have no equiva-
lents in
any Western speech.
The necessary
conclusion, therefore, which
the philologist must
come
to
from
conscious
all
words
facts, is that the source of all
these
is
the
mind or human personality
itself.
some reasoners loosely
state,
as
It is not,
that language
makes man, but
makes language.
is
it is,
it is
The mind comes
man who
first
and
altogether the beginning and cause of the
word.
We
truth lest
it
need
to
emphasize
escape us
when we
this
primary
find that all
words have their material anatomical seats

in the brain
finger.
upon which we can put our index
Otherwise we might infer that these
material localities, these speech areas of gray
85

matter, do themselves originate the words
We
which are located there.
shall find in-
stead that the material seats of words in the
make those words than
brain matter no more
make
the books ar-
The ultimate
fact is rather,
the shelves of a library
ranged on them.
as revealed by the physiological study of the

faculty of speech, that words are the instru-
ments which the thinker invents or makes for

himself
thought.
for
the
purpose
of
his
defining
Their relations to thought are just
as definitely instrumental as the violinist's

fingers are instrumental to the expression of
his thoughts
The
and feelings with the
violinist thinks first in time before
finger moves,
and the thinker thinks
time before a word rises to his

grees, however, the
ments that in adult
life
words becomes almost,

because in
all
lips.
mind becomes
ated to think only by using
ble,
violin.
if
its
first in
By
de-
so habitu-
word
instru-
thought without
not quite, impossi-
thinking, as such, the
man
whether he
will
talks to himself in words,
86

later talk to others or
any one doubt
If
alone.
whether he be thinking
this, let
him try
to
represent a true thought to his consciousness
without
accompanying words.
its
It should be clearly recognized that this
applies only to thought and not to feelings.
Thoughts
words
need
become
to
true
thoughts, but feelings do not need words to
become true feelings
in fact
we
often vainly
try to express our feelings in words, and find
words
fail us.
any excursion
for as
We
must again disclaim here
into the field of metaphysics,
we proceed with our
will
meet with
pen
to
illustrations of
discussion,
what
hap-
an adult 's power of pure thinking upon
actual material
apparatus.
damage
When
to his brain
such damage
is
though manifestations of feeling

main,
will
we
all
word
complete,
may
re-
recognizable signs of thought are
gone.
Having considered the

to thoughts,
relations of
we now come
words
to a crucial point
in all our discussion, namely, the relations of
87

words
to the brain.
"We can scarcely over-
state the importance of certain
modern
dis-
coveries on this subject, because they reveal
the
first
terial
recognizable link between the imma-
and the material, between mind and
matter, yet demonstrated in science.

link never
That
would have been guessed by meta-
physicians, for
it
was only physicians who
could have discovered such facts by their
noting the effects of small and strictly localized brain injuries.
The simplest way
illustrate this statement is to narrate
to
some
experience of physicians which teach these

lessons of such extreme interest.
was once hurriedly sent for by an
patient of mine.
I found her
much
old
disturbed
by a strange experience which she immediately detailed in the well-chosen
an educated woman.
Doctor," she
^^What
said, ^^that
or newspaper
is
words of
the reason,
everything in a book
is illegible to
me! Last
even-
ing I sent an advertisement to the Herald for
a waitress, and when the

88
girls
came this morn-

ing I could not read their references.
I then
took np the Herald and f onnd that I could not
read a word in
it.
At
first
I supposed
my
eyesight had failed, but I could see everything
around the room as well as ever, and so also

with
my
I then opened the
crochet work.
Bible, but could not read a word.
matter with
me ! "
What is
the
I at once recognized that
she had been struck with word-blindness, as

this affection is technically termed,
that
day
to her death,
never saw a word.
had become as
two years
and from
later, she
In a moment of time she
illiterate
as an Australian
savage, and she remained so.
Having calmed
her excitement as best I could, I was able to

note that she had absolutely no other disorder
of speech
and none of
vision.
She heard
every word that came to her ears, and she

could speak as fluently as ever, but no
word
could reach her consciousness through her

eyes.
All that which as yet
her was that a
little
had happened
to
artery which supplies
blood to a small area in the visual region of

89

her brain had become plugged, with the result
of
totally
disorganizing
gray matter
the
The words,
where eye words are registered.

'
'
the blood thereof, which
the life thereof,
is
find their best illustration in that
most living
of things, the brain gray matter, for
diately dies
if
it
imme-
supply of
of its
dejDrived
'
blood.
Another example of the
total loss of the
power of recognizing words occurred

hospital patient, but in
that
him
came through the
came through the

word-deafness.
gent young
was not words
eye, but
words that
which he could not
ear,
recognize, so that he
it
in a
had what
He was
man under
is
a naturally
thirty,
termed
intelli-
a clerk in a
mercantile establishment, and was supposed

to
have become insane, because though he
talked incessantly, he talked only gibberish,
and moreover he did not seem able
to under-
stand what was said to him.
was soon
It
found, however, that he could read and write

as well as ever, so that to all questions that
90

were put
answers.
to
him
in writing he wrote correct
The reason why he talked
so inco-
herently was because he could not hear his
own words, and
for the
same reason
all
words
addressed to his ears reached his consciousness only as sounds, but were otherwise as
unintelligible to
him
as the words of a lan-
guage which he had never heard.

also
It
was
words only that he could not hear, for he
heard and recognized
all
other sounds, in-
cluding the tick of a watch and the notes of a
canary bird.
Such cases of word-deafness
are due to the same kind of
damage
to a small
locality in the auditory area of the brain as
that which causes word-blindness in the visual

area.
A third form of loss of words is still more

common. A man retires to bed in good
health, but is
found in the morning utterly
unable to speak a word.
It is
soon ascer-
tained that he has no word-deafness, for he

evidently
understands
everything
that
is
spoken to him, and that he has no word91

blindness, because he can read.
not be able to utter a word,

tence.
In his distress, he
But
may make
hold a pen well and begin to write,
if
may
a sen-
still less
that he would like to write, but even
ally
lie
signs
he can
it is
usu-
found that he cannot find the words to
express himself by writing any more than he
can by speaking.
Thus
it is
that processes of disease enable
us to analyze our brain mechanism of speech
with
all
ments.
the precision of well-devised experi-
By this means we
we could
The
to
first
us,
learn, as otherwise
not, that speech is of
two kinds.
kind consists of words which come
and these are words which arrive
through the ear, and then go to a particular

locality in
what
is
convolution, which
called the first temporal

is
in the cortical area of
hearing, where they are received as words;
and the second consists of words which come

to us through the eye in reading, and which
go to an entirely different place from the ear
words, for they are received as words in a
92

special locality called the angular gyrus in
the cortical visual area.
bered that there
is
It is to
be remem-
no resemblance whatever
between the sound of the word man, for exampie,
and the written word man, for sound and
sight are
two wholly separate things; and
hence sound words and sight words have each
Modern
their different brain registries.
vention has doubtless added a third
word
in-
reg-
istry connected with the sense of touch,
by
which the blind are enabled to read, but
its
special
locality
has not yet been identi-
fied.
The second kind of speech consists of words

which go from
utter.
is
we
ourselves
This division of the faculty of speech
wholly different from the
that
we
first,
because in
are passive and receive the words,
while in this
we are
forth the words.

of
or which
us,
active
We
mouth or by word
do this either by word

of
hand
to thus express ourselves
mechanism
is
and ourselves give
in writing,
an entirely
required, because
93
it
and
distinct
involves

muscular movements.
It is therefore called
motor speech, and proceeds from an
alto-
gether different place in the brain cortex, in
a region from which muscular movements are

initiated, particularly in those regions
which
govern the movements of the tongue and

other muscles of articulation, and which are
also in proximity to the
ing the hands.
Here
motor areas govern-
in a small patch of
gray
matter, not larger than a hazel nut,^ located
Broca 's con-
in a part of a convolution called

volution,
from the French surgeon who
first
identified its connection with speech, resides
every word that can be spoken!
Let this
remarkable piece of matter be separately

destroyed, as
it
often
is
by a gush of blood
from a ruptured artery, and the consciousness

is
utterly unable to find a
to express itself.
to receive all
It still
word with which
may have
its
power
words from others through the
ear or eye, but not a word can
it
communicate
Rosenstein, quoted by Sir Wm. Gowers Diseases of the

Nervous System, vol. ii., p. 115, 2d Edition, 1901.
:
94

These different derangements of
in return.
speech, due to organic changes in the
word
mechanism, are technically called aphasias,
and divided into the sensory forms, when eye

or ear words are deranged, or motor aphasia,
when Broca's convolution
is
Now, as we have remarked
damaged.
before, the gray
matter of no one of these three seats of words

originates or
They are
makes any words.
simply registered there for use, as they would

be on a printed page, or on a
wax
phonograph, and how that
done we
is
leaf of a
will
learn further on.
We have already likened those speech areas

to the shelves of a library, with
ranged thereon
like so
many
these.
is
ar-
volumes, and
that something very similar to this

the case,
words
is
actually
demonstrated by facts such as
When
man
sets about to learn a
language new to him, he has to add another

brain shelf for that purpose, because the old
many books on it
row of entirely new
shelf has too
to allow
room
words.
for a
95
any
Pro-

fessor Hinslielwood/ of the University of
Glasgow, publishes the case of a highly educated
man who was
brought to him for an
attack of ordinary word-blindness.
He
could
read his native English in print only with the

greatest
difficulty,
and words in writing
As
Dr. Hinshelwood was told
scarcely at
all.
that the patient
had learned Greek, Latin and
French, he
tested
first
the patient
him with Greek, when
was surprised and delighted
find that he could read
to
Greek perfectly, as he
did paragraphs in Homer, Thucydides and
Xenophon.
read
it
Then
testing his Latin, he could
far better than he could English, but
not as perfectly as Greek, while in French he
made more mistakes than

read
it
in Latin, but
still
a great deal better than he could his
native English.
The only
course, of this case
is
that
explanation, of
ttê
injury to his
brain matter nearly ruined the English shelf,
then damaged to a less extent the French, and

*
Lancet, Feb.
Mind
8,
1902.
Also his book, Letter,
Blindness, London, 1901.
96
Word and

still
less the
Latin shelf, while the Greek shelf
escaped entirely.
The same arrangement holds true

the auditory
word mechanism.
wood reports
made
the case of a
his living in
also in
Dr. Hinshel-
Frenchman who
Glasgow as a teacher of
French for a number of years, during which

he learned English.
After returning to his
native country he had a stroke of apoplexy,
from which he became word-deaf
in French,
while his English shelf remained intact so

that his wife could speak to him, but only in
English.
These cerebral library shelves

partially, instead of completely,
may
also be
damaged by
accidents to the brain, with results not unlike
those which often disturb the equanimity of
a student
rives,
when
the house-cleaning season ar-
and women invade
his study for a gen-
For days
eral dusting of his books.
after-
wards he picks up the wrong book, because

it
has been put back where
So, after
it
does not belong.
some brain shock, a person may be

97

able to speak, but the
wrong word often vexa-
tiously conies to bis lips, jnst as if bis
sbelves
To
bad become badly jumbled.
condition tbe term paraphasia
may
Tbere
libraries,
is
Broca
tbis
given.
be sbelves in tbese cerebral
bowever, for otber tbings tban
Professor Edgren of Stockbolm bas
words.
publisbed tbe records of a number of patients
wbo bad
lost tbe
power of reading music,
tbougb tbey could
read words, tbat
still
is,
tbey became music-note-blind instead of wordblind.
In Dr. Hinsbelwood^s patient men-
tioned above,
wbo
could read Greek but not
Englisb, tbe reverse took place, for be could

still
read music as well as ever, tbougb be
could not read a sentence in Englisb.
Tbe most
interesting, bowever,
separate registries
tbe
damage
involves
tbat for figures.
is
to tbe speecb
more tban one
ing record of a case in

of interest, because
of tbe tbree speech
it
of tbese
As
apparatus often
registry, tbe follow-
my own
experience
proves tbat
if
is
only one
mecbanisms remain un98

injured, the personality can use that one
sufficiently well for all practical purposes.
gentleman who during a long, active busi-
ness career had accumulated a fortune, had
an attack of apoplexy which, while causing no

muscular paralysis, yet made him both word-
and wholly unable
blind
remained in
to utter
this condition for
a word.
He
seven years,
my office, in company
only son, was that my
but what brought him to
with his lawyer and
opinion was sought as to his competence to
make a
will.
His lawyer produced one in
which the patient devised a certain amount

of property, consisting of pieces of real estate
and of other items, each very
definitely
mentioned, to his married daughter, which

was, in the testator's opinion, a very fair
division of his property between his two chil-
dren.
His manufacturing business, however,
he devised exclusively to his son.

that his son-in-law
was
Learning
dissatisfied with this
arrangement, and might induce his wife to

contest her father's will after his death
99
by a

claim to a share in the profits of the factory,
on the ground that in his condition he was

incapable of making a
an expert
subject.
to give
It
my
will,
he came to
made
that a
as
written opinion on the
was naturally
felt
by
his son
his lawyer that a very plausible case
be
me
and
might
out to the jury by the other side,
man who
could not himself read a
of his will, nor utter a sound
word
by which he
could express what he wanted, might easily
be imposed upon by the persons interested to
my
it
was
found that though he could not read, and
like-
do
so.
In
examination of him
wise could not write, as his utterance speech
mechanism was wholly ruined, yet he could

both read and write figures as well as ever,
in fact that
he was unusually adept in
arithmetical calculations.
all
Meantime nothing
could persuade him to retire from business,
and so for seven years he continued
and
sell
as he always
the sums for
all
to
buy
had done, for he wrote
transactions and pointing to
the figures with his pencil, the bargain had
100

to be forthwith concluded.
In illustration he
produced a memorandum book of his, in which
were entered numerous such accounts, particularly directing

to one of
them
interest
in
in
my
by
his finger
which he had bought a third
a business enterprise, and in
which he had entered
on that
attention
all
payments correctly
sums varying according
basis, the
the year's profits.
As
to
questions relating to
the testamentary capacity of aphasics have
come up
in
many
courts of both
Europe and
America, quite a literature has grown up on

this subject,
and I proceeded
to test this par-
ticular case according to its accepted rules.
I took the will
and looked
it
fore him, and then read

item, to each of which he
carefully over beit
aloud, item
nodded
by
assent, until
I designedly misread one stipulation as in
favor of the son when

of the daughter.
furious at
my
it
The
was actually
in favor
old gentleman
was
supposed mistake, and was
quick to correct any other inaccuracies in
my
reading, however minor in importance they
101

were.
I therefore could give a decided opin-
ion that he
will,
was
entirely competent to devise
and I was glad
to learn afterwards
that this precautionary measure on his part
prevented any trouble in settling the estate
when he died some months afterwards.
The
place for
registering
somewhere
in the visual area of the cortex,
figures
is
doubtless
but in his case so removed from the eye-
word
registry that
it
escaped damage as
completely as his ear-word mechanism had

done.
Meantime
this patient
to learn to speak
and
to
had repeatedly
tried
read again after the
sudden onset of his calamity, but though he

endeavored with characteristic perseverance
to get
back some of the
lost parts of his
speech, yet he failed altogether.
was
just the same,
all its peculiarities
and
Mentally he
his personality with
remained the same, but
those particular chords of the instrument
were irretrievably broken.
Why he could not
substitute another set of precisely similar
102

chords which he had in his brain, and which
also
were perfectly
intact,
we
will explain in
the next chapter, because that explanation
covers the whole subject of

at
all.
103
how we
talk
CHAPTEE VI
It should be noted
the
human
first
CONTINUED
of all that no part of
brain has any original, that
is,
native connection with the gift of speech.
The material
seat or region in the brain of
comes always as an
this great faculty
ac-
quired change in the brain, for no one ever
was born with

no place or
sphere.
it.
Hence
locality
whatever in either hemi-
We may even go so far as to say that
if the distinguishing fact
he
is
at birth speech has
about
a speaking animal, this
is
man
is
that
not owing to
the structure of his brain, for not only has

the chimpanzee just the
same convolutions
man has for speech, but like the chimpanzee, man has the same convolutions in
pairs, that is, in both hemispheres. And yet
man uses only one of these pairs for speech,
which
1*04

while the same set of convolutions in his
other hemisphere
than either pair

the chimpanzee.
was an
ulty
word areas
in
no more used for speech
is
is
used for that purpose by
If,
word
therefore, the
fac-
endowment of those
original
man, on account of their par-
ticular construction, those areas being just

alike in each hemisphere, then both hemi-
spheres would be used for speech.
Instead of
this
being the case, the entire word mechan-
ism
in all its parts is
found only in one of the
two hemispheres, while the other hemisphere

remains wordless for
With
life.
the great majority of persons the
speech centers are located exclusively in the

left
hemisphere.
part of the
It is a
rior temporal convolution

it is
sees
a part of the
words and
;
left
it is
left supe-
which hears words
angular gyrus which
the left Broca's convolu-
tion which utters words.
In
all
such persons
the corresponding places in the right hemi-
sphere are not speech areas at

It
would be natural
to infer
105
all.
from
all this

that the left brain is organized differently
from the right brain as far as
endowment
is
this
Bnt
concerned.
for the good reason that in
supreme
it is
not
so,
some persons the
speech centers are in the right brain alone,
and
it is
their left brains
less ones.
which are the word-
Moreover such persons are not a
whit inferior to the others in everything
which language demands.

Therefore, again,
it is
nor organization, nor

or
fibers,
first
is
not brain structure,
locality,
nor brain
nor any similar thing which
cause of word making.
That
cells
the
is
first
cause
something wholly different, namely, an
agency, or rather agent, which visits these
brain
localities,
and finding them originally
entirely unfamiliar with a single

kind, proceeds
word
of
any
by a long and incessant repe-
tition process of teaching, to fashion those
particles of
gray matter
poses, here to receive
utter words.
How
to
do what he pro-
words and there
he manages
to
do this
to
is
revealed by his original reason for choosing
106

the left brain in most persons, but in others
not the left but the right brain.
The
first
facts
which led
to the discovery of the
steps in the formation of the
anism in man were that
when sudden
of the body,
be the right side which
if it
is
governed by the
is
brain motor or uttering speech
very commonly affected.

is
was noted that
it
paralysis occurs on one side
paralyzed, the side which

left
word mech-
is
The reason for
also
this
that Broca^s convolution, which contains
the center for motor speech, as
already explained,
is
of the cortex which
is called
we have
situated in that part
the motor area,
because from that area proceed those excitations of
muscular movements which are of a
voluntary kind.
powerful spurt of blood
from a ruptured cerebral artery may
so tear
the brain tissue as to involve these
motor
centers or the fibers leading
from them, and
in so doing frequently involves Broca's con-
volution
among
aminations
the rest.
fully
confirm
107
Post-mortem exthis
statement.

Meantime as the right hemisphere
is
then
to be quite unaffected, including the
found
right Broca's convolution,

loss of speech is
it is
plain that the
due exclusively to the injury
to the left hemisphere.
On
the other hand, while loss of speech or-
accompanies
dinarily
left-sided paralysis,
ported in which
it
but
right-sided,
some cases have been

accompanied
and not right-sided paralysis.
not
re-
left-sided,
In time more
of these cases were published, along with the

significant
post-mortem findings of damage
to the right instead of the left
Broca ^s convo-
In other instances, in patients who,
lution.
with left-sided paralysis and loss of motor

speech,
ing
had
life,
tion,
also
showed word-blindness dur-
not only the right Broca's convolu-
but the region of the right angular
gyrus was likewise found damaged.

corresponding places in the
were
left
As
the
hemisphere
intact, it followed that in these
persons
the speech centers were in the right brain
and not
in the left.
108

It
was not long before
seemingly
this
curious
anomaly
which
that right-sided paralysis with loss
is
found
its
explanation,
of speech occurs in right-handed people, and

left-sided paralysis with loss of speech occurs
in persons
who have been
left-handed in
life.
In other words, the faculty of speech
is
located in the hemisphere which governs the
hand which
is
most used.
Hand and
speech,
therefore, are physiologically connected.
This remarkable fact brings us back to the

origin, to the
very beginning of this wonder-
ful faculty of expression in
man.
by one personality longing
to
with others, and the
thing which he
first
It
began
communicate
did then, as every
human being
when endeavoring
communicate with those
to
still
does
whose vocal speech he does not know, was
make
gestures with his hands.
guage, therefore, was the
first
to
Gesture lanlanguage, and
few persons are aware how much gesture

language
is
still
continues in living use.
particularly noticeable
109
among
all
This
peoples

who have no written language; but even
among the most civilized, whole races are
characterized by the number and variety of
their gestures while speaking, quite as much
as by their vocabulary.
Frenchman
is
uncommon
One has
Frenchman.
among
as
non-gesticulating
to learn
as a taciturn
two languages
the Arabs, for nothing can exceed the
expressiveness and piquancy of those gestures
the
by which they often more than double
meaning
of their words.
The important place which gesture

guage holds among primitive peoples
illustrated
lan-
well
is
by the following anecdote: Dr.
Walter Roth, in the preface

cal Studies of the
to his Ethnologi-
Northwestern Queensland
(Australia) Aborigines, says:
**
I was out
on horseback with some blacks, when one of

the boys riding
me
to halt, as a
by
my
mate of
some emus, consisting

young progeny.
rently to
As
side suddenly asked

his in front
was
of a hen bird
after
and her
there had been appa-
me no communication whatsoever
110

between the boy in front and
tlie
one close to
me, separated as they were by a distance of

quite one
hundred and
concluded that
falsehood,
my
fifty
yards, I naturally
informant was uttering a
and told him so
in pretty plain
terms, with the result, that after certain
mutual recriminations, he explained, on his

hands,
how he had
received his information,
the statement to be shortly afterwards con-
firmed by the arrival of the lad himself with

the dead bird and
tion.
some of the young
in ques-
... I afterwards found that there
is
an actual well-defined sign language which

extends through the entire Northwestern districts of Queensland.''
Among
our staid Anglo-Saxons a preacher
like Whitfield
moved
his audience
more by
what they saw him do with the muscles of

face and of his hands than
uttered,
for those words
printed sermons, and
by the words he
we have
we wonder
they had on his hearers.
his
in his
at the effect
His voice certainly
could not account for the whole difference.
Ill

An
inspection of the accompanying plate
shows in what close proximity
to the area
governing the movements of the hand in the
motor region of the brain are the centers

which preside over the movements of the
muscles of the face, of the lips and of the
tongue.
common and
associated action of
these parts, therefore, would be
much more
natural than between the muscles of the face,
We
for example, and those of the leg.
then see
how
can
readily facial expression, lend-
ing itself to gesture in attempts at communication,
would seek the co-operation of
and tongue for vocal sounds, soon
to
lips
become
words because of the human mind back of the

sounds.
This last element of mind, as we will
note later,
is
indispensable, because other-
wise the sounds would have remained forever only like those of an anthropoid ape.
But as the
right
hand
for every purpose, so
is
the oftenest used
is it
of the two hands
the oftenest used for gesture, which
of course for language.
112
As soon
means
as other

parts were sougtit for to co-operate with gesture in language, the appeal would necessarily be to the neighboring centers in the
and not by crossing the corpus
left brain,
callosum bridge to the corresponding centers

in the other hemisphere.
It
would not be
long, therefore, before the habit
became
set-
tled to use only parts in the left brain for

this specialized work, until finally the habit
became
Why
fixed for life.
some people are left-handed we do
The discussion on the origin of
not know.
right-handedness and left-handedness comes
down
to us
from ancient times and
is
ever
renewed.
Scarcely a month passes without
being
threshed out again in our medical
it
all
journals.
But the primary connection of the
hand with the fashioning of the word mechanism in the human brain
settled
is
conclusively
by the location of that mechanism in
the right hemisphere in left-handed persons.
Whence, therefore, the impulses mostly proceed for using the particular hand in ques-
113

tion
settles
words are
both to what cerebral places
to go,
and from what place
they;
are to come.
So far we have been led by anatomical

ThnSj Broca's convolution
facts.
a theory than a finger
it is
a definite
Evidently not simply be-
convolution talk?
is
for
no more
But what makes Broca's
material thing.
cause
is,
is
Broca's convolution, because there
it is
another Broca's convolution within the
same cranium which does not
talk.
This question, which really concerns the

origin of
human
speech,
by studying speech
how they
begin.
is
not best answered
in children
Many
and noting
reasoners go astray
here, because with preconceived views about
the automatic origin of words, which children
supposed to learn by imitation, they
are
wholly ignore the anatomical brain changes
which are necessary
what
it
studied
ical
is
it
to
make
which causes them.
will then
speech,
and
If they are
appear that these anatom-
changes cannot possibly be of automatic

114

must be the
origin, but rather
The
sults of purpose.
effects
and
re-
best age, therefore,
for starting this investigation is
when
the
subject begins to learn to read.
The
ability to
read constitutes an impor-
tant department of language, and no
human
race has yet been found which cannot be
taught to read
enough
W. A.
in life.
(in his
^*
tions that
to
wife
if
the attempt be
made
early
Thus Bishop Hale, of Perth,
Aborigines of Australia), men-
shepherd, Adams, has taken
native
woman, who had been
brought up at some settler's station and was

partially educated.
Adams
could not read,
and the black wife taught the white husband

to
read."
It is
man
no longer doubtful that every race of
can be educated to know anything, from
reading and writing to mathematics, philos-
ophy and
man
is
political
economy.
In other words
always and everywhere man, and
finitely distant in
mind from every
ape.
in-
Some
early anthropologists were mistaken enough
115

to say that certain races of
men were
too low
in the scale to be able to count above five, the
number
tribes
of their fingers,
and they
some
cited
among
the Australian savages as ex-
We
need only quote the following
amples.
as to the actual facts.
Mr.
James Dawson,
in
Australian
his
Aborigines, published in Melbourne in 1881,
records the following remarkable evidence:
*^The inspection
at
Eamahyuck,
past
eleven
of
in
years,
the
aboriginal
Gippsland,
gets
school
during the
percentage
of
results higher than the other state (white)
schools in Victoria,
and while no doubt
this
excellence is largely due to the regularity
with which the children attend school, and to

zeal of the gentlemen
the skill
and
them,
fairly
it
who
teach
shows that aboriginal children
are at least equal to others in power of learn-
ing those branches of education which are
taught in the state schools of Victoria.

several occasions of examination
On
by a gov-
ernment inspector, the percentage of the

116

Eamahyuck
school
'
Now
result
by any other school in the
unparalleled
colony.
was a hundred, a
'
no one can imagine that learning to

It requires instead
read can be automatic.
the most persevering attention and application for
many months. Over and
over again
the pictures of the separate letter have to be

identified so as to be distinguished
another,
from one
and then their combination
words successively mastered

symbol and
its
till
the
into
word
meaning are simultaneously
This process of brain shaping
recognized.
has to be done piece by piece, or layer by
some persons become word-
layer, so that
blind without being letter-blind.
spontaneous
cerebral
act
scarcely be conceived.
doing of what we
If
^See
article,
The
it is
call will,
But the most pregnant

Position
Human
of
than
But a
less
this
can
not wholly the
then what
is it?
fact about this prothe Australian Aborigines
by the Hon. J.
Mildred Creed, in the Nineteenth Century Magazine, January,
in
the
Scale
of
Intelligence,
1905.
117

by the con-
cess of learning to read is that
stant repetition of the will-directed effort to

see the letter
modification
and word
of
pictures,
an actual
gray matter results in a
limited portion of the visual area, so that
it
can do what no other gray matter anywhere

can do,
see and recognize words.
Here, surely,
we come upon a most im-
pressive fact, namely, that by constant repetition of a
given stimulus,
we can
effect
permanent anatomical change in our brain

stuff,
which
will
add a
and remarka-
specific
which
it
never had before, and which, therefore,
it
ble cerebral function to that place,
could not have had either originally or spontaneously.

there,
it,
This material change must be
though no microscope
will ever detect
or identify the English reading from the
French reading
cells,
in one
both languages, but yet there
a blood
material
rather
it
clot could
who can read

it
not destroy
must
it.
be, or
But
this
change was not effected easily;
came only by laborious and long

118
con-

tinned work spent on that collection of gray
matter, and work by something which mnst
be wholly extraneons to the gray matter

itself.
It is
absnrd
to
snppose that any other
areas of the cortex which cannot of themselves recognize a letter or word, are the
teachers of the cells in the angnlar gyrus
which do the reading.
It is the conscious per-
sonality alone which does this work,
better proof of this
is
and no
needed to show that
such must be the process than when, in later

years, a student learns to read Greek, Latin
and French, as did Dr. Hinshelwood's patient

above
cited.
When
that
man
separately
studied those three languages, in addition

to his childhood's speech, his consciousness
and
his will certainly co-operated in pro-
longed exercise, until wholly distinct portions

of his gray matter were fashioned, one for
Greek, another for Latin, and another for
French words, each so divided from each

other and from the earlier English stratum,
that
they
were
respectively
119
differently

affected
word
by the damage which involved
this
area.
"We must here pause in our discussion, because
we have come
which goes
to
a great principle
to the foundation of everything
nervous, from the nervous system of a polyp
up
to the brain of a philosopher.
ciple is this:
That a stimulus
That prinnervous
to
matter effects a change in that matter by

calling forth a reaction in
it.
This change
be exceedingly slight after the
first
may
stimulus,
but each repetition of the stimulus increases

the change, with its following specific reaction, until
by constant
repetition a
perma-
nent alteration in the nervous matter stimulated occurs, which produces a fixed habitual
way
of working in
In other words, the
it.
nervous matter acquires a special

working, that
is,
of function,
by
way
habit.
of
We
will find this principle constantly illustrated
many ways as we proceed

what concerns us now is that already,
and operative
but
from the
in
facts which
we have been
120
review-

ing,
we
arrive at one of the most important
of all conclusions, namely,
layer of our brains
that the gray
actually plastic
is
capable of being fashioned.

left
which Nature gives
can be fashioned
education, so that
new
need not be
It
with only the slender equipment of func-
tions
it
and
it
it
at birth.
that
artificially,
may
Instead,
by
is,
acquire very
functions or capacities which never
many
come
by birth nor by inheritance, but which can be

stamped upon
it
as so
many
physical altera-
tions in its proplasmic substance.

is
demonstrated beyond
cavil,
All this
by the textural
brain changes which the acquired and not

congenital function of speech depends upon.
This well-demonstrated truth

reaching significance, because
tirely
new
aspect to the
of Education.
it
is
of far-
gives an en-
momentous
subject
Most persons conceive of edu-
cation vaguely as only mental, a training of
the
mind as
such, with small thought that
it
involves physical changes in the brain itself
ere
it
can become real and permanent.

121
But

we have seen
tliat different
tion, as perfect
forms of educa-
examples of education as can
be named, are ultimately dependent upon the
sound condition of certain portions of the

''
gray matter which have been " educated
for each work.
Thus
to read
music requires
a great deal of education, and an apoplectic

clot
may
instantly deprive a person of a
laboriously gained
such an accident
of reading,
power
may
to read music, or
spoil every other kind
and yet leave the music-reading
place unharmed.
Wliat a burden of school
days arithmetic was every one remembers,

but in those same days figures were deeply
engraved in some part of the angular gyrus,

so that, as in the case mentioned on page 99,
when
all
other reading cells were ruined, they
remained as clear as ever for their owner's

use.
Or, again, they
may be
spoiled while the
reading of music notes remains.
So writing,
which heretofore has been regarded as a
form of Broca's convolution work, because

usually
when
this
convolution
122
is
damaged

speech by mouth and speech by hand are both
abolished, very probably has a center of its
own, since cases are reported where the
in-
dividual could not speak but could write.
Some
investigators claim to have identified
the writing center in a part of the
motor area
above Broca's convolution.^
From
all this it
follows that the brain
must
be modified by every process of true special

education.
A skilled
violinist
can play upon
his instrument as easily as another can read
But how did he acquire such an
a book.
complishment?
ac-
Without doubt by actually
fashioning a special violin center in his brain,

as reading cells are fashioned,
by the same
laborious iteration of exercise of those particular brain cells, until they
violin
craft.
music
cells.
And
to
become
so with every handi-
Instances which prove this have been
reported of mechanics,
attack,
tic
had
Prof. C.
K.
who
after an apoplec-
have had their right hand sudMills,
Am.
Jour.
1904.
123
Med. Sciences, September,

denly but permanently lose
but
Meantime one
lost.
fact about the plasticity of
the matter of the
human
brain cortex, in
that this plas-
its educability, is
ticity
diminishes
This
much more
is
cnnning, while
or nothing seemed to be
little else
other words,
its
progressively
with age.
evident with certain brain
functions than with others, but
is
particu-
larly the case with the acquisition of lan-
guage.
Children under ten years of age
acquire languages by the ear very easily;

that
is
is,
the gray matter of their
word centers
very plastic and can soon be fashioned for
that purpose.
But what
is
gained easily
lost easily, for if a child at that
moved
to
learned, he generally forgets
than two years.

are
age be re-
another country, where he no
longer hears the language
cases
is
On
reported
which he has
it
totally in less
the other hand,

of
children
many
becoming
aphasic just as adults do, by the onset of

right-sided paralysis with destruction of the
left
Broca's convolution, and yet they gradu124

much
ally learn to talk again in
the
fashion in which they acquired speech at
That they do
this
when
aphasia,
to their
proved by parallel cases
supervention
the
first.
by educating the centers
in the right brain is
of
same
afterwards
left-sided paralysis
of
total
was added
former right-sided paralysis,
i.
e.,
by
a second injury involving the right centers.
Facts of this kind have led some writers

to
draw
the erroneous conclusion that both
hemispheres are concerned in speech, so that

if
the
word centers
of one side are injured,
those of the other hemisphere can come to the
The
patient's help.
chief
argument for their
the transitory character of loss of
position
is
speech
in
certain
persons
affected
with
aphasia.
In a few weeks they recover their
ability to
read or speak as the case
and
it is
may
be,
therefore argued that they do so by
help from the centers in the unaffected hemisphere.
But
it
does not seem to occur to
these reasoners that,
aphasia
if so,
from injury
125
in
then every case of
one
hemisphere

should soon be recovered from by the aid of
But the
the other hemisphere.
facts are that
in the great majority of cases in adults, if the
aphasia does
not
improve within a few
months, certainly within a year,
My shrewd patient who
proves.
arithmetic so well took
years with
all
many
it
never im-
retained his
a lesson for six
the assiduity of an industrious
schoolboy, and yet he never got back a
word
in his left angular gyrus, nor in his left
Broca's convolution, nor of course in the

right
word
The most probable
centers.
ex-
planation of temporary aphasia and recovery

or improvement from
it is,
that the sudden
injury causes a shock, and thus paralysis of

the
word
centers, but not complete disorgan-
ization of them, so that in time they regain

their functions, rather than that the struc-
tures in the other hemisphere
for years been taught a
more than
of Chinese
word
is,
the
of English
any
should in a few weeks
be able to read or speak.

patient
which had not
more hopeless
126
The older the

the case, simply

because the unaffected word areas in the
other hemisphere have passed the time of
when
the gray matter is plastic enough to be
fashioned for any

healthy
life
man
new complex
function.
after forty scarcely ever learns
new language
well;
after fifty such in-
stances are of the rarest
best that can be expected
and
is
at seventy the
the mastery of a
very few foreign phrases, and badly pro-
nounced at
on
that.
We
need not dwell further
this subject, for it is
simply in keeping
with the facts connected with any other mental
acquirement which comes only by educa-
tion.
physician needs
his education,
Our study
years to get
and who would expect him at
or sixty to become a
fifty
many
civil
engineer?
of the cerebral relations of the
faculty of speech serves one purpose at least,
namely, that of revealing the great fact that
man
self
can be educated and does educate him-
by modifying
It is this fact
man.
his brain for that purpose.
which makes
man what
But for the purpose of our

127
he
is
discussion,

it
is
so important to be able to recognize
how onr brain matter can be made to

acquire wholly new functions, and according
clearly
to
what fundamental principles of nervous
physiology
it
does
so, that
we must
for the
present diverge from the subject of education to that of the great laws governing all
nervous
else
Above everything
development.
modern
science is indebted to the recog-
nition of the principle of evolution as the

chief
guide
to
the
deeper problems of
understanding of the
life.
By
this is
meant
that all life development, and certainly all
nervous
development,
been
has
orderly;
which, in turn, means that from the beginning,
however low,
to the end,
however high,
certain fundamental laws continuously operate.
We,
therefore, can best unravel the
most complex forms by studying the com-
mencement
sured that
tinuity
it
in the simplest forms; well asif
we never drop
will be our clue
the line of con-
through the most
intricate passages of our search.
128
We
will

then find that as
the brain of
we approach
man
the subject of
in its relation to thought
by another route entirely than that which we

have been following, namely, by the route
which leads from below upwards, we
rive all the
more
will ar-
certainly at the conclusions
to
which we have been so far tending, with
all
the added confirmation given by the con-
vergence of independent lines of research.
We
proceed, therefore, in the next chapter
to the consideration of the great
preside
laws which
over the evolution of a nervous
system.
129
CHAPTEE
VII
EVOLUTION- OF A ITEEVOUS SYSTEM

Ceetain^ fundamental principles are always
fonnd underlying the essential phenomena of

life,
which,
first
recognizable in the most
primitive, prove afterwards to be just as
The
operative in the most developed forms.
greatest growths, for example, in either the
vegetable or animal kingdoms, a towering
oak or an immense whale, have to begin
like
every other living thing as veritable microbes

in a single microscopic
cell.
The inner
struc-
ture of that cell itself has certain invariable
elements which are equally present in the

vegetable and in the
first
animal
cell.
first
Thus
every species of plant or animal contains in

its first cell
number
a fixed,
specific,
and always even
of bodies called chromosomes, be-
cause they can take a dye, and this number
130
NERVOUS SYSTEM EVOLUTION

regularly recurs in
the subsequent cells
all
of the future body, though they be millions.
Thus
in the cells of the mouse, the salaman-
der, the trout
and the
lily,
the chromosomes
always number twenty-four.
man and in
guinea pig, in
the onion, the chro-
mosomes always number

shark the number
and others
naturalist.
Von
sixteen.
is thirty-six
hopper twelve, and so

facts,
In the ox, the
like
on.
In the
in the grass-
It is
from such
them, that the eminent
was
led to say that
the steady
sway of funda-
Naegeli,
all life is one.
But nowhere
is
mental principles so illustrated as in the de-
velopment of a nervous system.

first
From
the
beginnings of a nervous system in a
polyp up to the marvelous brain of man, certain
primary laws are always operative, with-
out their ever being afterwards repealed or
superseded.
If,
therefore,
stand the complex,
we
we
first
are to under-
must study the
simplest organization, well assured that what

is illustrated
by
it
will continue recognizable
131

however great
in every further development,
or manifold.
In studying the development of a nervous
system from a physiological point of view,

the first principle discernible as governing
that development
is
what in any other con-
we would term Discipline, and we cannot do better than to note how the conceptions suggested by that word are applicable
nection
to
our subject.
One
the
of the definitions given in
word
rule,
^^
discipline
''
is
''
Webster of
subjection to
submission to order and control, by
The
severe systematic training. ''

idea conveyed by this definition
cipline
in
directs
it,
no way represses
is
central
that dis-
activity,
but
by means of regulated
restraint.
Without activity there could be no
discipline,
for there would be nothing then to discipline.
The word,
energy,
which
it
therefore, implies
made
to
subserve
would not
some kind of
some purpose
effect unless it be
under control.
132
put

But
discipline is not a
to
and most correct
in its usual
any inanimate
sense,
word which can be applied

It is
force.
nervous system word.
an exclusively
You cannot properly
say that you will discipline your watch

goes too
that
though you can say that you
fast,
will regulate
if it
Nor can you properly say
it.
you have disciplined the energy of
steam,
when you have made
purpose by putting
engine.
it
it
subserve your
under control in an
It
must always be something nerv-
is
disciplined, so that even in the
ous that
bodies of the highest animals, nothing but

that which is nervous can be either disci-
plined or trained.
This
may seem
a singular statement to
some, as they think of the highly trained muscles of the legs of a
a pianist.
But
cases, but the
it is
dancer or the fingers of

not the muscles in these
motor nerves of the muscles,
which have been so wonderfully disciplined.
For neither
of these instances of supposed
muscle training can be compared for com133

plexity and difficulty with the training of the
muscular organ, the tongue, for the move-
An
ments necessary for articulate speech.

animated orator has
to
make a greater num-
ber of rapidly succeeding and yet perfectly

adjusted contractions and relaxations of his
muscles of articulation, than any famous per-
former on a musical instrument.
But how
we explain the authenticated case of a

man who could speak English, French and
German, and who suddenly became unable,
shall
from an attack of right hemiplegia, or paralysis
on the right side of his body,
to
make
his
tongue work out a word in any one of the

three languages?
What was
the matter with his tongue?
Nothing, as a muscle or muscular organ. In

fact
ing
it
could work as well as ever in assist-
therefore, could
its
and
mastication
it
swallowing.
not talk?
Why,
Solely because
nervous direction for the movements in
speaking was
lost,
while
its
nervous direction
for the movements of mastication was re-
134

tained.
But
were also
if its
pair of hypoglossal nerves
cut, just as the accident
which had
caused his hemiplegia had severed the connection with the higher brain centers, then
the tongue would have failed equally to assist
in mastication
and
in deglutition.
It is
mistake, therefore, to say that muscles, as
Nothing
such, can be taught to do anything.
can be taught except that which

This
among
principle
far-reaching,
is
other things
nervous.
is
because
introduces us to a sec-
it
ond element of fundamental importance and

which
tem
in
is
characteristic of the nervous sys-
alone, namely, that of gradation of
work or
Every
function.
rank
tissue of the
body, except the nervous tissue, has but one
dead
cell
one bone or bone
has any higher rank than another bone or
bone
ing
No
level of function.
cell,
is
any more than one brick
of a higher or
in a build-
more important grade
than another brick, simply because
above or below.
else
And
it is
put
so muscles are little
than duplicates of each other in function,

135

because, wherever they are, they will be
found to do but one thing, namely, contract
and
relax,
fore,
and -nothing more. There
is,
there-
no such thing in the muscles as one
set
by virtue of pure
in-
governing another
set
nate superiority, as the rider
is
superior to
his horse.
The horse might claim against
rider the
greater importance, because he
does
all
the going, and so he might
if
his
he were
and not a broken-in horse. But
like his rider,
just this difference meets us in the case of
the gray motor cells of the spinal cord and

the gray
motor
cells of the
The gray motor
brain.
surface of the
cells of the
cord do
the going of the body, for even the so-
all
called cranial
system.
its
motor nerves really belong
to
Not a muscle of the body
is
directly under the control of those aristocratic
motor
The cord might say
brain.
you wish
ask
do
me
'
it,
topmost layer of the
cells in the
'
to
is
to
do
move hand
it
for you.
to the brain,
'
'
If
or foot you have to

'
''
'
the brain 's answer,
136
Very
' ^
well, then,
but don 't you

move hand
or foot
till
tell
you, for since I
have been evoluted np here, you have
lost
your senseless independence and must obey

me.
You were
the original nervous system,
to be sure, just as there
there were
men
come, I
am
it is, it
took
were horses before
to ride them, but since I
have
above and you are below, and, as
me
long patient training and a
my
great deal of trouble to break you in to

service, so that
my
you would
act according to
orders."
Rank, however, always implies an ultimate
from which everything
below,
common foundation for

tions, and so we will
all
starts as a
subsequent grada-
begin
now with
the
simplest illustration of what a nervous sys-
tem
as
Reduced
is.
it is
to its
most primitive form,
in the lowest animals
trace of a nervous system,

consist of three parts
(1)
it
which show a
is
proved to
A nerve filament
which receives and transmits a stimulus

(2)
a nerve center of soft gray
fibers,
which receive
this stimulus,
137
cells
to
and
and which

center reacts to this stimulus, never on the
nerve which brought
it,
but on (3) a nerve
filament which proceeds from the center.
Hence these two filaments are accordingly

named, the
mits
to,
first
Afferent^ because
it
trans-
and the second Efferent, because
transmits from, the center
One
vibration.
of the
it
some nervous
commonest examples
of efferent excitation is
when muscles
con-
tract in response to the efferent excitation
of their motor nerves.

this
mechanism can be found
the act of winking.
power
do
A fair illustration of
to
in ourselves in
You can
abolish the
wink in one of three ways. You may
it, first,
by cutting the branch of the
fifth
cranial nerve, which transmits sensation to
the nerve center for winking at the top of the

spinal cord.
that
it
This center then does not know
any winking ought
depends for
sensory
all
because
news of that kind on the
fifth nerve,
Or you may
to be done,
and that has been
abolish winking
cut.
by cutting the
proper branch of the seventh pair of cranial

138

nerves; then, no matter
tells
the center that
the center answers,
the fifth nerve
onght to wink hard,
it
* ^
how
I cannot do
the seventh nerve, which
it,
because
the efferent or
is
motor nerve that works the mnscles of the

eyelids, is cut.
" Or
and seventh nerves
lastly,
with both the
fifth
no winking
will
intact,
occur because the nerve center itself has been
deadened by some narcotic poison.
From
that simple beginning of a real nerv-
ous system, one can proceed, step by step,
with animals
still
utterly brainless, but which
have more developed and complicated nervous systems
and yet in them no other mode
of working than
by afferent,
centric
ent elements can be discovered.

finds in these
tems
is
and
eif er-
What one
more organized nervous
sys-
a greater number of these centers,
each with
its
afferent
and efferent nerves,
but with one important addition, namely, that

the separate nerve centers in them are con-
nected by short nerve
fibers,
which are for
the purpose of enabling the centers to
139
work

togetlier,
something as the jars of a Leyden
battery are connected by short chains.
still
further development shows a regu-
lar chain of such nerve centers

distinctly ascending series,
forming a
whose functions
never change or abolish the original afferent
and efferent mode of working, but instead
show a more and more perfect harmony of
By
action between the several parts.
harmony
of action
new
results in
this
movement,
or in the direction of movement, are secured,
which would be impracticable were the separate centers to
work independently.
After a certain number of nerve centers
have become associated, according

scale of the animal's development,
to
the
we
find
that the mutual co-operation of the centers
begins to be plainly more frequent in certain

directions than in others; that
is,
that
it
seems easier for the centers to act together

to execute
some movements than
other movements.
this is so, it
to execute
When we examine why
proves to be because of the more

140

frequent repetition of certain afferent stimuli
than of the other afferent stimuli.
Repeat
one afferent excitation a hundred times and

another only once, and the movements conse-
quent on the
first
much more
are clearly
readily caused than those following on the
unusual excitation.
Therefore we have come
now
to the second
and most important principle of
all,
in the
organization of a nervous system, and which
we have
alluded to in the previous chapter,
namely, Habit.
The whole nervous system
indeed in any animal,
man
included,
is first
However complex,
organized by habit.
for
example, be the movements executed by muscles in
the
order to produce a given
movements of the
contracting
strongly,
effect,
e. g.,
eyeballs,
some muscles
others
most gently,
others again relaxing just enough to allow

their opponents to contract just so
no
more,
all
these
perfectly
much and
associated
movements are nevertheless explicable only

as the slowly acquired habits of the centers
141

which supply those muscles with their motor
Hence the important
nerves.
did
these
habits?
centers
come
The answer
is,
question,
acquire
to
how
these
from a thousand
thousand times repeated afferent impressions along the optic, or sense of sight nerve,
in habituating the efferent or
motor nerves
of the eye muscles to act together.

Physiologists, therefore,
when they speak
of nerve centers being organized to perform
such and such functions, mean, not that the
nerve centers have been created so from the

beginning, but that habit has so organized
them.
But the important principle

here
is
that
it is
to bear in
mind
the afferent segment of the
nervous system, or that which
is
acted upon
by stimuli from the outside world, which
is
the ultimate source of this great fashioner of

the nervous system. Habit, and not the nerve
center
itself,
nor the efferent segment.
This
principle well nigh overshadows all others in

its
bearing upon the question of the origin

142

and development of a nervons meclianism.
We will gain no insight
into the deeper prob-
lems of nervous organization
if
we
relax onr
hold on the continuous presence and operation of afferent excitation all the
the swaying
arms of a Hydra Fusca up
successive trains of thought in a
We
we
thus speak of
it
to the
human brain.
now, because further on
have to refer repeatedly
will
way from
of the Afferent in discussing
to the place
some
subjects,
second to none in importance, about our
own
mental operations.
Here, however, we start
with the fact that
it
is
the Afferent only
which connects with the Environment. Upon

the Afferent the nerve center wholly depends,
not only for the primary source of

ity,
its activ-
but for the organization of that activity
so that
it
can ever become uniform.
The
re-
action of a nerve center to an afferent stimulus has been likened to

set free
an explosion of energy
by the lighted fuse of the Afferent.
But that explosion would be an explosion and

nothing more, but for that one great fact
143

about the afferent nerve
it
itself,
namely, that
always causes the explosion to be in one
Over and over again
direction only.
exactly the
same thing as
at
first,
does
it
and thus
trains the nerve center to react only in one

fashion.
All this
is
due to the great law that an
afferent nerve never varies in
As Professor Sherrington
afferent nerve,^
^^
sole
ated at
its
stitutes
impulses
points,
it
expresses
does.
it,
nervous organ,
avenue which impulses gener-
receptive point can use.
It con-
path exclusive
private
generated
at
its
own
to
therefore,
same way
receive it."
The nerve
become accustomed
the
receptive
and other receptive points than
own cannot
the
extending from the recep-
tive surface to the central
forms the
what
its
centers,
to react in the
to afferent stimuli, because these
stimuli are never
mixed or confused with
others.
^
Presidential Address, Section of Physiology, Brit. Assoc.
Science, 1904.
144

It is quite otherwise with either a single
efferent nerve, or with
any organized ner-
vous path for efferent impulses, for these
may
be used in response to a great variety
Thus the
of afferent stimuli.
is
act of coughing
executed by a whole group of motor nerves
But
this
may be
used
acting together in a regular way.
same
efferent path for coughing
by a number of very different afferent stimuli starting
bronchi,
from the nose, pharynx, larynx,
pleura,
organs, so that not
some search
to find
of the cough
is.
ear, or a
worm
brain
stomach,
It
uncommonly
or
other
requires
it
what the particular cause
may be
a bean in a child's
in the intestine.
An
afferent
stimulus, on the other hand, never breaks its

rule of using none but its
tion,
and hence
it is
own path
the source of sources of
this great factor, Habit, in
nervous evolution.
Another peculiarity of afferent

to
of excita-
which we shall have
excitation,
to allude again in the
very highest connection, namely, in the succession of ideas in
human
145
thinking, is that

an afferent stimulus, though always
single, once it excites
nerve
an efferent act in a
may have
center,
that
spread from center to center, as
many
so
successive
Thus a sneeze
is
itself
efferent
excitation
it
were, like
explosions.
always due to the excitation
of a minute twig in the sensory or afferent
nerve of the
to
nostril,
which then transmits
it
an efferent center in the medulla oblon-
gata at the top of the spinal cord. This efferent center then sends this excitation to fiftyfive pairs of efferent centers to
to call their one
into one
cause them
hundred and ten muscles
combined and well-regulated sneeze
performance.^
on nervous disorders seem to regard an attack of epilepsy as due to a spontaneous discharge

of nervous energy in some cortical brain centers, the motor
area being especially involved when the attack is accompaAs no other examples of spontaneous
nied by convulsions.
efferent actions can be cited, but on the contrary, such always follow upon a preceding afferent stimulus, I would ascribe the true beginning of an epileptic paroxysm, whatever
This view of
its form, to an abnormal afferent excitation.
the nature of this serious nervous disease has an important
bearing upon its treatment, as I explain in an article on the
Pathology and Treatment of Epilepsy in the N. Y. Med.
Journal, Nov. 8 and 15, 1902.
^
number
of writers
146

we have
All that
said heretofore finds a
complete illustration in the structure and

functions of the spinal cord in
brates.
The spinal
all
verte-
cord, which is the origi-
nal nervous system in every vertebrate, as

is
it
the first to appear in its embryonic devel-
opment, consists of a great number of nerve

centers, one above the other, all receiving
and giving
their afferent
off their efferent
nerves on each side, and as constantly joined

together by tracts of communicating fibers,
until finally the
body
trol.
is
found
whole muscular system of the
under
to be
As remarked
its
exclusive con-
primary law
before, no
or function in the nervous system
is
ever
superseded by any later developments; and

so, however
great be the additions afterwards
of brain centers or functions, yet the spinal
nerve centers retain

rogatives, quite as
their original pre-
all
much
in
the rest of the animal world.
man
If,
as in
any of
as remarked
above, you wish to show the cunning of your

right
hand
in
any work of
147
skill,
or the fluency;

of your speech with your tongue, your de-
signing and talking brain has to ask the

spinal nerve centers for the muscles of the
hand and for those of the tongue
work for
those muscles to do the
Meanwhile
this
wonderfully
it.
organizing
power of afferent habit works out

creating special functions or
to direct
results in
modes
of work-
ing in the spinal cord which actually startle
us with their close resemblance to what
we
are accustomed to regard as manifestations
Thus
of design or purpose.
if
a vigorous
frog be suddenly decapitated with a sharp

knife,
it
and
his headless
body be put on a
plate,
jump up and assume on the

a perfectly natural, if not somewhat
will forthwith
plate
impertinent attitude.
of acetic acid
as soon as
it
If
now
a small drop
applied on the frog's side,
is
begins to irritate the skin, the
headless frog gravely and deliberately raises

his hind leg
off the
brings
and brings up
acid.
down
If
the
more
arm
his foot to scratch
acid be applied, he
to help scratch the
148
same

spot; and if the irritation continues, he be-
gins to lose balance
other leg also
had become
by trying
up the
until at last, as if the itching
intolerable, he
natural dive for the
An amusing
occurred to me
to bring
makes a most
floor.
illustration of this kind once
my college days,
while
fish-
ing in a western stream with a classmate.
My
in
companion's luck had been poor, when at a

deep, promising pool he became greatly excited
by a powerful
bite,
with a pull which
bent his pole nearly double, only to find at

last that
turtle
he was drawing up a great
mud
which had swallowed the hook beyond

In vain
mistake.
my
friend tried to per-
suade the turtle when he landed him to put

his
head out from under his
get the hook free.
other hook,
my
till
he could
Finally, as he
had no
friend
shell
hung the
turtle over
a branch and sawed his head off with his

jack-knife.
Down
at last
tle's
headless body,
ment
it
when
dropped the
to
tur-
our astonish-
straightway walked some two yards

149

right into the water and dove off into the
deep pool, jnst as

extra head nnder
if
the creatnre kept an
its shell to
put on in an
emergency
In animals below the vertebrates, the nervous system being composed of fewer series of
centers,
and
all
stimuli, they
acting alike to their afferent
proceed with such uniform and
rigid habits of action that, like other ex-
amples of unmitigated consistency,
it
occa-
sionally leads to inconvenient results. Wliile
sojourning in Syria I was told that the whole
country round Mt. Lebanon was dismayed

one year by the news that a vast army of
marching locusts was coming from the

ern desert.
The governor of the
east-
district
ordered a regiment of soldiers to aid the people to construct a great
bushes to be set on
up
to
it,
of Beyrout.
its
to save the
came
gardens
These locusts always hopped
straight ahead,
went up
as the locusts
fire
hoping thus
rampart of heath
and on coming
stone walls, over
150
it
to a
house
and down
it,

as
if it
were a
ceivable
level place,
and
in such incon-
numbers that an American resident
described the noise of the great host passing
over the roof as like to that of a tremendous
At every green
hailstorm.
each took a
bite,
way
leaf on the
and then went on for the
next one to take his
bite, until in
an incredi-
bly short time not a green thing could be

seen.
Vên
they
reached
the
prepared
heaps of heath and these were set on
fire,
marched on without pausing,
until
the locusts
in a brief time they put the bonfires com-
pletely out.
As
the sea
was not far
off every-
body hoped that they would take

bathing.
injurious
And
surf
to
so they did.
Just as certain
crowds
among us can
political
always be depended upon to march up to the

polls
and vote the straight
ticket,
vanguard reached the waves,
when
like all
good
true locusts, in they hopped, followed by

the rest,
till
the
all
the billows seemed to roll only
grasshoppers; nor did the scene end until

the last of the rear guard, faithful to the
151

great law of Afferent, Centric and Efferent,
had skipped over the heaps of

rades to
make
his
jump
his last
dead com-
into the bine
waters of the Mediterranean.
In strncture the spinal cord has

located within, and like
all
its
centers
ganglionic matter
they are of a gray color.
There
arrangement, however, of
its cells
is
a special
according
as they subserve an afferent or efferent function,
the afferent
cells,
more or
of a
less
rounded shape, being grouped more toward

the posterior segment of the cord where the
afferent
nerves enter, and the
efferent functions, usually larger

stellate shape,
terior
and of a
being grouped toward the an-
segment whence the motor nerves
emerge.
it
with
cells
At
the top of the spinal cord, as
enters the skull,
developed the
is
supreme center of the

Medulla Oblongata
entire
that
fit
final
the
system
and most
re-
sponsible ruler of the whole wonderful and

beautifully
regulated
spinal
mechanism,
that center in which a small injury would
152

threaten
as
life
more than
may cause
it
it
would
in the brain,
instant death, for the medulla
holds the reins of the pulse and of the breath

in its hands, while at the
same time
it
acts
as the intermediary between the various re-
gions of the brain above and those of the

spinal cord beneath.
But the
ble
chief feature about this remarka-
nervous apparatus, the spinal cord,
that however intricate

that
by
it
its
is
adjustments be, so
the most complicated and combined
movements are executed, enough as we have

seen to wear
all
the aspects of designed or
purposive muscular
last
its
This
is
operations
because
its
acts, yet
are
from
to
purely automatic.
workings are
all
organized
by the steady, unvarying operation

ent stimulus.
first
of affer-
Without that there would be
no centric change, and without centric change

there would be no efferent impulse.
nally nothing could be
afferent stimuli,
Origi-
more haphazard than
and thus
at first the centric
change would be correspondingly so; but

153

when
the same aiêrent stimulus recurs over
and over again, the

fixed
by
centric change
this repetition,
pulse follows
working,
function
suit,
or, in
is
till
and the efferent ima special
mode
of
other words, a special nerve
established.
therefore, could not be a
mechanism than
The
becomes
is
watch or a
clock,
more automatic
a spinal nerve center.
desirability of distinctly recognizing
the part taken by afferent habit in the organization of nervous functions leads me, at the
risk of being tedious, to cite another illustra-
The nervous mechanism
tion of the kind.
a primary example of
the act of breathing
is
such organization.
The
the
of
afferent stimulus in
form of the sensation of the want of
air,
coming up by the afferent vagus nerve, leads

to
the
successive efferent muscular move-
ments of inspiration, and then of expiration,

with
all
dulum.
the regularity of the swing of a pen-
Now let
the habit of checking the re-
turn swing of the pendulum during expiration be contracted, especially in childhood,
154

the habit-forming age,
ing, as in
there
is
by prolonged cough-
whooping cough or
danger of
this
in measles,
bad habit
lasting for years, or for
life,
in breathing
in the
the wretched disease, asthma.
and
form of
It should be
noted that the act of coughing always occurs

in expiration, thus interrupting the regular
rhythm of expiration quickly following

spiration.
in-
In asthma, the air enters easily
in inspiration, but is checked in expiration,
so that this latter, instead of being equal to

inspiration, as in health,
may
in
asthma be
^ve times as long. Once the normal habits of

breathing become deranged, the respiratory
center
may be
at the
mercy of a great variety
of afferent stimuli, which are never perceived

in health.
' ^
Thus one form of asthma
cat asthma,
'
'
is
called
because the mere entrance of
a cat into the room will start the patient

wheezing, though wholly ignorant that the
animal
is
near.
The son
of a medical ac-
quaintance of mine knew immediately by his
breathing that some buckwheat was in the

155

house, tliongh
top
floor,
and
lie
it
was
in his
own room on
the
was found that the cook had
surreptitiously brought the forbidden article

into the kitchen
to
make cakes
and was mixing
for herself.
it
with water
I have
had more
than one patient who could sleep well in
New
York, but who would be sure to be awakened
by an attack of asthma
in
if
they spent a night
Brooklyn across the East River.
Other
asthmatics have their attacks induced by the
most
trivial
derangements of digestion, and
but few of them can safely eat a hearty meal

at night.
Such whimsicalities of
this
com-
plaint might be multiplied indefinitely, only

to illustrate that there is always risk in in-
terfering with old normal nervous habits.
The constant coughing
of chronic bronchitis
will frequently induce its
adults
form of asthma
which, however, generally subsides
in
if
the bronchitis be cured.
But
it is
special
in the medulla that
illustrations
we meet with
of a third great law
of nervous development.
156
To return
for a

moment
That
to onr first principle of discipline.
principle,
anything
in
whether applied in armies or
else,
implies
some source or
sources of authoritative restraint, generally
a regular hierarchy of commanders, one ranking the other.
Nowhere
any instance
in
this great principle of discipline so
is
impres-
sively demonstrated as in the army, so to

call
them, of active centers in the nervous sys-
tems of the higher animals.
A constantly re-
curring word in books on nervous physiology

is
''
Inhibition," as descriptive of the work-
ings of certain nerves or nerve centers.
One example
refers
By
to.
will illustrate
what
this
word
stimulating with an electric
down from
you make the latter
current one nerve which comes

the medulla to the heart,
beat
more powerfully and
rapidly.
By stimu-
lating another nerve which also descends
from
the medulla to the heart, that organ at once
begins to beat
nerve
still
slowly
more slowly; stimulate
that
further and the heart beats very
still
more again and

157
it
comes
to a full

stop.
Now cut that same nerve and the heart
bounds
oi to
the most rapid, tumultuous
As an eminent
beating.
physiologist char-
This nerve bridles the heart,
acterizes it:
when it is severed the heart behaves like

a horse who throws its rider and straightway
takes to racing. For this nerve is the infor
hibitory or governing nerve of the heart, that
nerve which makes the heart a strong heart
by governing
it.
If
you suddenly
tell
man
a dreadful piece of news, and his pulse

scarcely quickens or quivers,
man
or has he a
sees a street
and
is
is
he a weak
weak heart! Another man
boy preparing
at once his pulse runs
to snowball him,
up
to 120.
the difference between these two
The
What
men?
difference lies in the cardiac branches
of their vagi nerves.
Now
this great
system,
we
as
investigate the functions of
law of inhibition in the nervous
we
find that as higher centers are de-
veloped in the series, their influence

not only in
new powers
158
is
shown
or functions super-

added
to the older ones, but that they con-
stantly inhibit, or, in other words, control
Thus
the action of the lower centers.
in the
frog a mass of centers called the optic lobes

are developed just above the medulla.
Now
as long as these lobes are connected with the

spinal cord,
you may stimulate the afferent
spinal nerves of the frog,
no
reflex
movement
and but
will result.
ever, the connecting tract,
little
or
Cut, how-
and thus free the
cord from the control of these higher centers,
and the
then
slightest tickling of the skin will
make
the frog kick actively.
After we pass the medulla oblongata, we

find ourselves proceeding along large tracts
of nerve fibers which soon present us with
a series of considerable swellings along their

course,
and which are found
to
be altogether
new or differently constructed masses
of gray
matter, or ganglia as they are called.
These
new ganglia prove
to be chiefly portentous
developments of the afferent system, causing in fact the afferent segment to take the
159

lead in nervous
life,
for they are no less than
the centers of the special senses of sight,
smell and hearing, larger or smaller accord-
ing to the needs of the animal for each sense

respectively.
Now when we
we mean
nse the term special senses,
a form of sensation.
But what
sensation itself!
Nobody knows. All
tions of sensation
amount
sation
is
is,
when
defini-
to saying that sen-
sensation, for to call
consciousness
is
it
an act of the
translated into Anglo-
Saxon, to announce that the thing which

feels,
This
feels.
makes
Something called Con-
its first
appearance in ver-
tebrates after the whole
mechanism of the
sciousness
spinal cord
and medulla has been completed,
and the lower vertebrates seem

little else
to
need but
for their world than these special
sense ganglia, which are proportionately de-
veloped in them according to their
However even
in
life habits.
them two other swellings
appear,
which are
small in
many
relatively
wonderfully
of these animals considering
160

their great import, as tliey are no less than
the beginnings of the cerebral hemispheres,
or what
we
call the
brain in ourselves.
The accompanying
their evolution.
figures tell the story of
In Figure 1 we have the
Ol
Fig. 1
^The Brain of a
Lamprey.
sensory ganglia and the brain of a lamprey,

a small
fish
his form.
often mistaken for an eel
Those rounded masses
from
01, repre-
sent his olfactory lobes, for his habits re-
quire
him
to be
good at smelling.
161
Then the

two large swellings below are his optic
while those two
insignificant
lobes,
spheres be-
tween, marked C, are his cerebral lobes or
Ou
Fig. 2
Brain
of a Carp.
brains, or all that he has to cogitate with.
Fig. 2 shows the sensory and intellectual ap-
paratus of a carp.
He
does not smell at
all,
so he has no olfactory lobes, but his optic
lobes are large
compared with
mental equipment.
his brain or
Fig. 3 represents the ap-
paratus of that old friend of the physiolo162

gist,
for
the poor frog, in which his

thinking,
though larger than that of
fishes, is scarcely
Fig. 3
M,
mechanism
larger than his optic lobes.
Brain
of
a Frog.
in each of these figures represents the
medulla.
In some
fishes,
such as the carp, when the
ganglia which correspond to the cerebral
hemispheres
are
experimentally
they do not seem to mind

then there
is little, if
it
at
all,
removed,
for even
anything, to distinguish
163

They
them from perfectly normal animals.
maintain their natural attitude, and use their
and
tails
fins
swimming with the same
in
They not only
vigor and precision as before.
see but are able to find their food.
If
worms
are thrown into the water where they are
swimming, they immediately pounce upon

them.
If a piece of string similar in size to
worm
is
thrown
in,
they are able to detect
the difference, and they drop

seized
it.
They
even, to
tinguish colors, for
it
some
after having
extent, dis-
when some red and some
white wafers are thrown into the water, the

fish
almost invariably select the red in pref-
erence to the white.

It is
much
the
same with the
frog.
If care
be taken to keep the frogs alive after the re-
moval of
their cerebral lobes until they
quite recovered
from the
have
injury, brainless
frogs will behave just like full-brained frogs
under
like circumstances.
They
will crawl
under stones, or bury themselves in the earth

at the beginning of winter,
164
and after the

period of hibernation
over, they will
is
out and diligently catch the
flies
come
which are
buzzing about in the vessels in which they

are kept.
But Fig.
4,
which shows the brain of a
C-
o^
Fig. 4
Brain
pigeon, illustrates
scale birds
The
of a Pigeon.
how much higher
in the
are than fishes and amphibia.
we have
beginning now to be
original basal ganglia which
been considering, are

completely
overshadowed by the cerebral

165

lobes,
and hence after
show much greater

havior.
their removal, birds
alterations in their be-
Memory and
volition
seem annihi-
lated,
and the birds do not seek their food.
But
if
the optic lobes are uninjured, the bird
will
walk round the room, avoiding obstacles
it
will fly
from one place and
alight securely
on another, always preferring a perch

floor;
and
if
to the
placed on a swinging cord,
it
balances itself perfectly with the to and fro
movements.
it
ruffles its
If placed in a special attitude,
feathers and shows fight, thus
illustrating that pugnacity antedates brains,

or, as physiologists
lower
express
it,
belongs to a
level.
In the ascent from birds
to
mammals, the
development of the cerebral ganglia or lobes
grows from mere bulbous swellings into

great masses which cover more and more the
sensory ganglia, until in the monkey these

are wholly buried under their mass.
In
man
these original centers at the base of the skull
are relatively so insignificant, that
166
we are

accustomed to leave them out of consideration,
and
to
speak of his cerebral hemi-
spheres aa his brain.
As regards
the functions of the brain and
their relations, the first conclusion

to is that
we come
an unmistakable promotion, so
speak, has occurred in the
to
mammalian brain
of the great functions of sensation, conscious-
ness and the power of directing movement,
from the basal ganglia of

and birds up
above.
it is
fishes,
amphibia
to the great cerebral ganglia
Eemove
these
from a mammal, and
then far from acting as
if it still
had the
same degree of consciousness or power of
movement
left
which those lower in the scale
possess.
This does not prove that the cerebral ganglia
have entirely superseded the original
basal ganglia, for facts of disease at the base

of the brain in
man show
that even in him,
these original nerve centers
of their old relations.

like the history of a
still
hold
much
The case instead
is
prosperous firm which
167

began business in a very small way and in
and then when
humble quarters,
branched out
from
its
of the
upper
is
an undreamed of extent
to
lowly start, the highly trained heads
company are found
to large
had
it
to
have moved up
and commodious apartments on the
floors,
while the original routine
work
yet done, as of old, in the stories below.
Simple, routine work

the
basal
needed
to
ganglia,
is
now
for
consciousness
is
quite enough
while
go up higher where the far wider
operations of mind have to be carried on.
Nevertheless
it is
the
same old
will find that its principles
firm, for
we
and modes of
doing business by the heads of the establish-
ment have not changed, though they are now

handling millions where they used only to
deal with a few dollars.
We may not unnaturally think that in

selves, the far
range of our memories, imagi-
nations, feelings
different genesis
different laws
our-
and ideas must have a very

and be according
to
very
from the simple unconscious

168

functions of
tlie first
example of a nervous
system which we have described.
will
Httle
and sequence of our
attention to the source

ideas,
But a
even when taking their widest sweep,
show a quite unmistakable correspond-
ence to the old original methods of nervous
work.
Thus even with that unique mental faculty

of speech, which
length,
we
we have been considering
are met at the outset with our
old familiar terms Afferent
plainly as in
Our speech
at
and Efferent, as
any function of the spinal
consists of
cord.
words which come
to
us through the afferent channels of the ear
and of the
eye,
and of words which go from
us by the efferent Broca convolution. Moreover, in the order of time, the afferent pre-
ceded and created the efferent, for the child

first
heard the words addressed to
its ear,
and then slowly taught Broca 's convolution

to respond; slowly, for it evidently under-
stands words some time before
stammer them on
its
tongue.
169
it
can learn to

But likewise many of the longest and most
minds
intricate workings of our
thinking, can
often be traced to a single
afferent excitation which
the whole process.

will suffice.
chair,
in acts of
was the origin
One familiar
of
illustration
While you are in your reclining
perhaps with your eyes shut, some
friend casually plays on the piano in the adjoining
room an
you were fond of
old well-known tune, which

in
A throng
gone by.
your father's house years

of
memories of long ago,
of faces not seen for years, of
some that
will
never be seen here again, pictures of places
and
crowd upon you
ences, all
tled
and experi-
scenes, with their events
by tears welling up
spring
up
at
finding
what!
moved by
impression
By
in
till
you are
your eyes.
yourself
so
star-
You
deeply
that single afferent
coming through
the
auditory
nerve
In fact any analysis of our ordinary mental
step
processes,
how one
made by
retracing step by
idea has been suggested by a
170
SYSTEM EVOLUTION
NERVOUS
previous idea, and that in turn by another,
us at last to some one
will usually bring
from our
afferent excitation coming to us
That
outside world.
just the old
is
way
in
which the Afferent works, as we showed, on
page
146,
how in
the spinal
We
cutes a sneeze.
cians to
make
mechanism
this discovery, that
our think-
with some sensation
first
then experienced.
Nor does
many
exe-.
need not be metaphysi-
ing so often begins
find that
it
it
take long to
of our trains of thought, as
they are well termed, are somehow habitual

to us, as if
thinking
we have
thus.
friend. Habit,
fallen into the
In other words,
whom we
have seen
way
of
our old
to be such
a multiform organizer of spinal ganglia and

spinal functions,
seems
our brains also!
He
to
have organized
has thousands of pri-
vate afferent wires with which to reach our

consciousness from every part of our bodies,
each one of which can start a sensation, and

that an idea, until
it
seems
difficult to
deny
that our thoughts are but the products of
171

this great afferent creator of
nervous opera-
tions.
Some may infer from these considerations

that we have come to the end, that is, that
we need not go further in explaining the
'^
how ^' of our thinking selves. Many, indeed, have thought so, and have maintained
that
we men and women are mentally
sults of
our environment, that
side world creating us
by
its
is,
the re-
of our out-
afferent excita-
The nervous system
of a polyp is cer-
tainly a pure mechanism, a
most mechanical
tions.
affair,
but the principles of
mechanism
its
continue just the same through every step

in the long series of Evolution,
we
till
at last
find those virtually mechanical principles
accounting for
But
Man!
in our next chapter
selves face to face with
we
will find our-
an entirely new fash-
ioner of nervous matter, one to
protoplasm
is
whom
as clay to the potter.
172
brain
CHAPTER
VIII
THE BKAIN AND PEKSOITALITY

In the preceding chapter we have seen that
the evolution of a nervous system
by a great
sis
may be
which on the
principle,
regarded as a
specific
guided
last analy-
nervous
By means
action to environment.
is
re-
of the un-
deviating inflow along the afferent channels

of stimuli
ment,
from the outer world or environ-
the
affected
till
receptive
nerve
elements
are
they in turn excite an outflow
along the efferent channel; and when the
same aferent stimulus
is
repeated often
enough, the consequent efferent effect be-
comes so uniform as
mode
to constitute a special
of nervous action, or, in other words,
a nervous function.
It is thus that this affer-
ent agency coming from without continu-
ously proceeds, fashioning one system of
173

nervous centers after another, until at last
it
begins to look as
if
constructs what
itself, it
thinking machine like

isms,
out of the
is
all its
human
brain
virtually a pure
previous mechan-
and whose operations, though more
complex, yet illustrate the same automatic

principles which govern the functions of the
This inference seems
medulla oblongata.
legitimate, because in so
ties the
human
plify just the
of its activi-
brain appears fully to exem-
same order of reactions which

at lower levels.
we have met before
Why is
many
It is in
no sense
enough, simply because the brain of
man and
the
is
mind
this not
of
enough!
man do
not correspond.
There
a gap here which no facts of animal evolu-
tion account for.
Man's brain
in physical
and anatomical respects corresponds quite

closely to that of the chimpanzee, and hence,
according to
show but
precedents, his
all
little
mind should
advance in degree, and none
in kind, over the
mind
of this ape.
We
can-
not allow at this point any confusion in
174
THE BRAIN AND PERSONALITY

reasoning to obscure this fundamental fact.
On
the one side
is
Homo, properly placed
zoology
among
body as
in his brain
in
the Primates, because in his
he clearly belongs to that
class of animals.
But
it is
Those
thus as to his mind.
stu-
pendous works, the bridge across the Firth

of Forth and the Simplon tunnel through the
Alps, existed
down
to the smallest detail in
their engineers V minds before they existed on
earth.
It is
by
his
mind that a man
is
en-
abled with a glass prism to calculate to a
mile the distance between two fixed stars,
which not the greatest telescope can show as
By
other than one star.
mind another
his
draws the map of a country as

Silurian period.
cited
to
By
his
it
mind a
was
in the
third
is
ex-
enthusiasm over the^ interesting
deduction of the equations for the infinitesi-
mal motion of a
rigid
body from the
invari-
ance of the expression dx^ + dy^ + d22.
such illustrations, multiplied to

>
Prof. Sylvester;
Works,
175
vol.
i.,
So
infinity, of
p. 34.

hTiman mental activity in science, philosophy,
religion, poetry, art, statesmanship, finance
and the
rest, lead to the single conclusion that
while the gap between the brain of an anthro-
poid ape and the brain of
man is too
insignifi-
cant to connt, their difference as beings corre-
sponds to the distance of the earth from the

nearest fixed star.
Therefore the brain of
man
count for Man.
What
by our premises
to seek for
does?
does not ac-
We
are bound
an answer
to this
question only by searching the brain
itself,
to note
the
whether in
presence
of
it
there are evidences of
something whose agency
affords the sole explanation
brain differs so in
other animal brain.
why
capacities
its
Ego
or the
human
from any
That something, which
would account for everything,

the
the
Human
is,
we
claim,
Personality.
This statement of ours brings us to the

great issue which sharply draws the lines be-
tween the partisans of two opposing doctrines.
On the
one side the contention

176
is
that

there
is
no such thing as personality apart
from the
brain.
The organization of
cere-
bral matter accounts for everything mental
and moral
human
of,
in
The conception
man.
of the
personality as an entity independent
or separate from the material organ of
the
mind they pronounce

^^
as the conception of
mer
times.
ticism
To speak
to
be as unreal
vital spirits
''
of for-
of the soul is pure mys-
and should be rejected as
unscientific.
Our consciousness instead represents only a

passing phase of our cerebral activities, and
the
Ego
in us is nothing
tional result of the
more than the func-
arrangement for the time
being of the molecules or ions of our brain

matter.
On
the other side, personality
to be the
is
affirmed
most certain reality of the universe.
All other phienomena are contingent upon,
and
relative to personal consciousness.
As
to
the Ego, the statements of the other side are

to be rejected because they are purely meta-
physical assumptions which are wholly con-
177

by
tradicted
tlie
physical and material facts
which show that brain matter has
no
itself
properties of mind, and becomes related to
mental processes only in certain
becoming there
artificially,
localities
and not
by
origi-
nally nor congenitally endowed with such

It is not with his
functions.
man
whole brain that
knows, thinks or devises, but he does
so in limited areas of one hemisphere thereof,
which he himself has educated for the purpose.
The question then
follows,
how came
these brain places to be thus chosen and not
others precisely like

ization ?
That
them
in original organ-
this great creative choice pro-
ceeds from no source in the brain itself
is
demonstrated by the following considerations.
we have already shown,

speech centers in the brain are as much
Thus,
as
the
the
creations of the individual himself to store
the words in
withal as
if
them for clothing
his thoughts
he made a wardrobe in which to
store garments for clothing his body.
178
The

speech centers no more generate the words
in the one case than the
wardrobe manufac-
tures the articles which
it
men supply
Hence
contains.
themselves with as
many
differ-
ent languages as they invent different cos-
tumes, though no one ever started in

either of these equipments.
In fact he might
inherit clothes but never words, for
centers in the brain

ally
in
word
must always be person-
made, because no brain of
made a word.
As we stated
with
life
Chapter VI,
ever
itself
this is
proved
beyond mistake by the human faculty of

learning to read, which rules out the error of
some
theorists,
observing
who, confining themselves to
how
little
children
first
learn
speech through the ear, ascribe the faculty

to automatic imitation.
But a reading
cen-
ter in the angular gyrus has nothing to
with the ear, and moreover

only at the age
it
do
can be made
when purposive prolonged
intention takes the place of echo-like imitation.
179

But we are now about
important series of
to
enumerate a most
which
facts,
like those
previously mentioned, came to light by medi-
and which go even further
cal experience,
than the discovery of the speech centers in
demonstrating how the brain

related
We
thought.
to
with an actual occurrence
is
physically
begin as before
this time in sur-
gery.
Sir William
MacEwen,
the eminent Pro-
fessor of Surgery of the University of Glas-
gow, gives the particulars of the case of a
mechanic who received a severe injury

head.^
was
to his
Immediately after the accident he
in a peculiar
mental condition.
cally he could see, but
no impression
presented
make
what he saw conveyed
to his mind.
itself
Physi-
Thus an object
before him which he could
when this object emitted

sounds of the human voice, he at once recognized it to be a man who was one of his
not
out,
but
William MacEwen; Address before the British Medion the Surgery of the Brain and Spinal Cord,
Brit. Med. Jour., 1888, vol. ii., p. 307.
*
Sir
cal Association
180

He was
fellow-workers.
eqnally unable to
By
recognize his wife and children.
eye-
how many fingers he

up when he placed his own hand before
sight he could not tell
held
his face
he became cognizant of the num-
till
ber by the sense of touch.
These symptoms
gave the key to the hidden lesion in his brain
and therefore where
On
operation
it
to trephine his
skull.
was found that a portion of
the inner table of the skull
had been detached
from the outer and had become imbedded
in
The bone
the gray matter of that locality.
was removed from the brain and reimplanted

in
proper position, upon which he recovered
and returned
to his work.
It is evident
from
fragment
this that that
of bone interfered with an important mental
function located in just that brain spot which

it
penetrated, because so soon as
moved from
returned.
It
was not
it
was
re-
that place the mental function
What was
that mental function?
sight, for the
man saw
his wife
and friends as well as before, but he did not

181

hnow what he saw. Hence, seeing and knowing what
is
seen are not the same thing, be-
cause each of these mental processes has

separate seat in the brain.
But as knowing
appears to be so much higher as an

tual
its
intellec-
performance than the simple sensation
of sight, writers have inaccurately termed

this special
form of
abolition of intelligence
mind-blindness, to distinguish
blindness, which follows
word center
it
from word-
upon damage
in the angular gyrus.
to the
But word-
blindness
which renders a person wholly
illiterate,
because he no longer recognizes
printed or written words
when he
sees them,
though he knew them perfectly before,
much an example
of mind-blindness as
is
as
was
this patient's mind-blindness, the only dif-
ference between the two being in the things
which were seen.

are seen but not
In word-blindness words
known
in this so-called mind-
blindness objects are seen but not known. In

both, therefore, the blindness is the
nature, namely, mental blindness.
182
same
in
O
O O
W O
12;
o
O
o S
H^ p^

As
this inability to recognize visual objects
has been frequently observed after localized
damage
to the brain
disease, the local-
where things perceived by sight
ity itself
are then
from
known has become
fied as is
the
word center
as well identiin the angular
gyrus, with the same important deductions
about the
comes
way by which
this
mental function
to be so localized as in the case of the
eye word center.
That
is to
know how we know what
say,
it is
we
we
see
discovering where this act of knowing
and secondly, by establishing the
learn to
by
first
done,
is
fact that
no other place in the whole brain save
this
why
this
knows anything by
sight,
and
also
is so.
In explanation we shall
primary center of sight

is
first state
in the occipital lobe
in the neighborhood of a
wedge-shaped
convolution called the cuneus.

I.)
that the
(See Plate
This convolution, of course,
is
found
equally in both hemispheres, and that

directly related to sight is
183
it
is
proved by the fact
'

tliat it is
only
when
tlie
region of
tliis
convo-
lution is destroyed in both hemispheres that
That function
total blindness is produced.
of sight in the cuneus
but the child

it
is
doubtless congenital,
when born does not know what
That particular power
sees.
acquired, not
is
afterwards
by the cuneus, but by an adja-
cent area of brain
cells, in
front of the cuneus,
which we ourselves for the purpose of convenience will hereafter
How
this locality
call the
comes
precuneus.^
to acquire this im-
portant mind function of knowing what visual objects are,
equally
facts
we
interesting
connected
will discuss after those
and
with
still
the
more varied
recognition
of
sounds.
Thus
in the temporal lobe is found the
original center of hearing, just as the cuneus

in the occipital lobe is the original center of
sight.
But a whole group of centers becomes
developed afterwards around the original

^Some
writers attach this term to a different portion of
the sight object area.
184

auditory
one
each
center,
of
whicli
has
learned what different kinds of sound mean.
One
of the greatest of these
and a divine faculty

anything else
it
awakens
it is
to a
it is,
is
that for music,
because more than
the speech of the soul as
communion with
the great
harmonies of the non-material universe.

true musician
must have a
richly furnished
shrine for the goddess of Music in his tem-
poral lobe, and that he has
is
proved by some
persons, who, after having been very fond of
music, and able to
were listening
ssohn, or one
at once
tell
whether they
to a composition
by Mendel-
by Wagner, suddenly experi-
ence the sad misfortune technically termed
amusia.
tune,
No
longer can they recognize any
however
familiar,
and in vain they
try a violin or piano to bring back to them

their departed joy.
They know no music
thereafter, the reason being that material
damage has happened
to the center in the
temporal lobe which has been separately educated for music, just as another place in the
185
same lobe has been separately educated for

words.
We
have already described what
by word-deafness, as well as how
is
it is
meant
caused.
But besides the center for words and the center for music, the auditory area of the tem-
poral lobe has a place where the meaning of
sounds in general
is
recognized, as the visual
area just mentioned has

nizing objects of sight.
its
place for recog-
Let this auditory
area be separately damaged, and the unfortunate then cannot
tell
the sound of a loco-
motive whistle from that of a church

All
sounds,
including
the
voices
of
bell.
his
friends, are alike indistinguishable noises to
him.
To
this condition the
term mind-deaf-
ness has been given, signifying sound-mean-
ing deafness.
Therefore while the ability to know

great attribute of the
human mind,
is
yet these
facts prove that there are actual physical
bases in the brain on whose integrity as such

this
faculty
can alone be exercised.

186
An

artist
may be
lost in
admiration while gazing
An
at the Sistine
Madonna.
may make him
the next day, though
musician
it
listening to a
in a
from a wall paper.
may
entranced
be
symphony
few hours, though
able
to
trained
one time
at
of Beethoven, but
still
may be wholly unable to
still
no longer able
to see that great picture,
distinguish
apoplectic clot
able to hear
recognize
it
it,
he
as music.
In both cases a highly developed mental

capacity
is
lost
brain injury.
immediately after a local
How
are
we
to explain this
sudden abolition of superior mental endow-
ments by such physical changes'?
The explanation
is
as conclusive as
it is
important, namely, that these knowing areas

are found in the same brain hemisphere that
contains the speech centers, and in that hem-
isphere only, so that the inference

that they are all created
is
certain
by the same agency.
Thus Professor MacEwen's patient was a

right-handed
man,
and the
splinter
driven into a convolution of his
187
was
left brain,

that
is,
into the speaking
wordless hemisphere.
same
and not
into the
Now, he had
just the
collection of cells in the corresponding
region in front of the right cuneus, and more-
over they were not injured at

cident
all in
the ac-
him
nevertheless they could not help
more
recognize his wife and children any
than those
cells
could read Latin
It is evi-
dent, therefore, that those right hemisphere

cells,
though they could
see,
because they be-
longed to the visual area, yet did not know
what they saw, any more than an infant
knows what
it
sees
Though
the world.
when
it first
comes into
existing in an adult
man
they had never been taught the meaning of

visual objects,
poral lobe
cells
any more than
his right tem-
had ever been taught
to
hear
a word, or his right angular gyrus to read a
word.
Likewise
it
has been found that the
juries, technically
termed
lesions,
in-
which pro-
duce the various forms of mind-deafness
above described, occur only in the

188
left
hemi-

spheres of right-handed persons, or in the
right hemispheres of left-handed persons;
show how these mental
in other words, they
functions strictly follow the
hand most nsed
in childhood, just as the speech centers do.
Hence we learn
to think.
We
to
know
jnst as
we
learn
think in words, and for that
purpose we register our word memories in

their laboriously prepared brain places.
also
we
register the
memories of what we see
and of what we hear

the
in their
prepared places,
preparation in both instances having
originally been
begun by the most active hand
in response to personal intent.
tions into infant psychology

first
Investiga-
show that the
training of the sight object center oc-
curs only a
little
earlier than the time
the cells in the temporal lobe
trained to hear the

fant begins
tion
So
its
first
it is
back in our
are being
words, for the in-
lessons of sight interpreta-
by stretching forth
out what
when
which
lives,
its little
it is
hand
looking
at.
to find
So far
however, did this process

189

we have forgotten all about it but
saying, "a burnt child dreads the fire/'
begin that
the
refers to the inscription
on
its
made by
precuneus that a flame
is
the child
not like some
other attractively shining thing, and that
had better not try again
to seize hold of
it
it.
According to the physiological laws which
we have already mentioned, memories
of all
kinds are doubtless registered in our brain

cells
by the original stimulus of
when an agency
like conscious
each,
and
purpose sys-
tematically repeats the same stimulus to the
same
cells,
they become arranged there in a
library of records, as
we have shown
case in the speech centers.
There
nothing incomprehensible in
this,
thing quite analogous to
it
all
is
is
the
really
for someis
accom-
plished in that remarkable mechanism, the
phonograph, in which layer after layer of

its
delicate
receptive
found covered with
all
wax
may
be
kinds of sentences, or
entire songs with their tunes

vice
leaves
while by a de-
similar to Broca's convolution, there
190

come back again through
its
the words, tunes, tones, and
An
into the machine.
brazen throat
all else
uninstructed
spoken
Moslem
sheikh from Arabia might regard this as an
unholy invention of Satan, which of

produces
it
all
that
nor Satan but a
it
utters,
itself
whereas neither
human person is
the source
of every one of its uncanny performances.
From
these considerations there can be no
doubt that the exercise of every separate
mental faculty
is
conditioned by acquired
cerebral changes similar to those

is
interpreted
all
eye and the ear.
by which
information coming by the
The brain thus comes
to
have places where memories are stored for

the understanding of each special sensation.
But
it
also follows on anatomical grounds
that the
ceives,
human being when he
thinks, per-
knows, remembers, conceives, reasons,
purposes and speaks has these powers physically located in only one of the
spheres of his brain.
hemisphere
is
in
As long as
the educated
sound condition
191
two hemi-
it
matters

little,
as far as the
happens
Thus the man mentioned
who had
63,
lost
acteristics.
in
in all
Hence
his story
and others
prove that human
human
to fashion
it.
enough, just as one violin
sphere
out a
in its
But for that purpose
one hemisphere of the brain matter
its
like
until the personality within takes it
hand
for
re-
mental and moral char-
brain matter does not become
in
p.
his speaking
and therefore he
his in medical literature
powers
hemisphere.
Chapter IV,
him had
left intact,
mained himself
concerned, what
one of his hemispheres by
disease, happily for
hemisphere
is
uneducated
the
to
mind
is
quite
is
quite
enough
player, while to the untaught hemiis left
only what
it
had
word or an idea or a
at birth, with-
single acquired
accomplishment.
This statement, which implies that one of
the two
human
brain hemispheres
mally unintelligent and thoughtless,

acceptable to some reasoners because
pels the admission that the thinker
192
is
is
it
nor-
un-
com-
and his

brain are two separate things, the brain, like
the hand, being only the instrument of the
Therefore they search for indica-
thinker.
tions that the silent hemisphere sometimes
does come to the help of
its
partner when the latter
is
speaking power by disease

being that
it
does so by
its
highly endowed
disabled in
the
its
inference
inherent capacity
But no unmistakable cases of
for speech.
the kind have yet been published, and, as
we
have remarked before in Chapter VI, those

which seem to be
explained.
Thus
can easily be otherwise
so,
in
childhood both hemi-
spheres are equally teachable, and speech lost
by damage
to one
can soon be made up by the
education of the speech convolutions in the

other.
But the age when new languages may
be learned varies in different individuals, so

that
the
to
it is
not impossible for
fifties.
If,
therefore,
it
to be
an adult
done in
is
found
have recovered from aphasia after a time,
this does not
prove that he had two speech
centers all the while, for speech
193
is
never

an original endowment nor a spontaneous
power, but must always be the result of the
That
special training of brain cells.
marvelous training
only one hemisphere
is
practically limited to
is
shown by the positive
and not hypothetical evidence

of cases of individuals,
many
causing
either
hundreds
in
of
distinguished for mental gifts,

stroke
this
them men
who
sensory
after a
or
motor
aphasia, never regained their lost powers,
however long they lived afterwards with an

uninjured hemisphere in their heads.
Nor
is
the problem changed or lessened
by
referring to the speaking and knowing hemi-
sphere as somehow the
'^
driving
sphere, for the question then

it
^'
is
''
hemi-
what makes
drive " so wondrously to the utmost
human thought, while its fellow is

unable to know a life companion by sight
ranges of
left
or to distinguish strains of music from mere

noises.
Meanwhile before the advent of
this per-
sonal agency which deals so remarkably with
194

portions of
to
human
brain matter as to impart
them transcendent properties which they
did not have before, nor ever could have spontaneously, the only organizer of nervous
sue which
we have met was
tis-
the Afferent,
bringing stimuli from the environment or

outside world.
But the more we study the
processes which result in these mind-linked
changes in
Man
with the same attention
which has been bestowed upon the operations

of the Afferent, the plainer
it
becomes that
come not from with-
their formative stimuli
out but from within, and are essentially unlike the
workings of the Afferent.
Nothing
savoring of purpose or design enters into the
play of the Afferent as
it
flows into the nerve
centers with its sensations,
any more than
the currents of air causing the threads of
an ôlian harp
to vibrate
meaning comparable
Verdi.
have any musical
to the
*^
airs
''
of a
Instead of that the centers organized
by the Afferent for work perform that work

with no more design than does a watch pur195

posely go when
wound
it is
pure and simple,
inseparable from the
is
Afferent in every one of
the
world
But
is
congenital,
ready-made,
needing mind to work
More-
its relations.
over this afferent mechanism

entering
Automatism,
up.
without
it.
speak of a personality which thinks,
to
purposes and wills as automatic,
We
tradiction in terms.
a self-con-
is
need not appeal to
metaphysics for our argument, because we
now meet
with another strong line of evi-
dence that the personality can dispense with

the
most
stimuli
means
of
afferent
which Nature furnishes,
and yet
make good
is
important
their loss because the personality
independent
and self-determining, and
hence can triumph over the most serious deprivations possible
of its
afferent mechan-
isms for communication with the world in
which
it lives.
members
This has been shown in some
of our race
who have
suffered from
certain great misfortunes in early
however, constitute in a
196
life,
way most
which,
instruc-

To appre-
tive physiological experiments.
we
ciate the force of these demonstrations
must
first
take into account
how much in
each
case was lost of life's equipment for mental
Thus
development.
to estimate
mind
how much
receives
To do
we must go back
human
education the
from the
nel of the eye.
child gets
requires some effort
it
single afferent chan-
this at all adequately,
to the first
news which the
from the outer world by
sight.
series of impressions, first of color, then of
form, then of distance, and lastly of

nite objects, are
made upon
defi-
the brain vis-
ual area, until by repetition a vast store

of picture memories are there laid
life,
as so
therefore,
prived
of,
many
is
if
the
it
up for
How
object lessons.
mind of a young
much,
child de-
becomes blind before
great afferent teacher could give
it
this
a single
lesson
But for the education and

thought and feeling the
ent
human
direction
of
being, differ-
from the lower animals, gains more by

197

the afferent channel of the
The only exception
of the Eye.
seems
Ear than by
to be in the case of birds.
sealed
1113
law
to this
Mr. Sclater
the ears of newly hatched chicks,
and not one of them could be induced

to the
that
come
to
mother hen who was excitedly clucking
to them.
The
chicks were then placed
where
they could not see her, and their ears were

unstopped, when as quickly as they heard
her they ran round to where she was and
But for the
were soon under her wings.
human
infant the loss of hearing
ble calamity.
Besides being at
appeal to others,
child to cry.
own
cry,
it
its feelings,
Hence, when
first its
only
a relief to the
cannot hear
its
because loving looks and touch
tones and words.
human
it
a terri-
becomes the more disturbed by
only imperfectly
to a
it is itself
is
ear,
make up
We
for kindly voice,
must not forget that
however young, words soon
have some meaning, more than parents
may
then suppose, until a few months afterwards
they are surprised that their children

198
know

much.
so
If
words once begin
reach
to
through the ear, the mind springs forward

to its limitless inheritance of thought,
It is the ear, not the
especially of feelings.
eye,
and
which moves the heart.
We
see with in-
difference a fish in its dying writhings, but
we cannot listen to
emotion. The seeing
intellect
cries of pain without
of the eye supplies the
with more ideas than do sounds (not
words) which come through the ear.

the intellect informing eye
But
makes more mis-
takes than all the afferent channels put to-
gether in the information which

Its
news has always
rected
to be revised
by the other senses before
accepted.
Thus
it
reports that a
a foot high when he

ear
is
is
always accurate.
a friend's voice when
it
a mile
brings.
it
and
it
man
off.
cor-
can be
is
only
But the
I have recognized
came over four hun-
dred miles on a telephone wire as plainly as

if
he had been in the next room.
ear,
therefore, of a child,
and
Close the
it
remains
more a mere animal than when any other

199

avenue with the outer world
cause
If
it is
dumb.
we should
liken our apparatus for
training to a boat which
sea of
be-
is closed,
life,
is to
mind
take us over the
the great afferent mechanisms of
the eye and of the ear might then be regarded

as corresponding to the hull and to the frame
respectively.
Can
the personality, therefore,
survive the complete wreck of both, and go on
with nothing but the keel to cling to for the

rest of the voyage*?
The answer would
cer-
tainly be no, if the personality depended, not
only for
origin,
its
development, but also for
upon
its
afferent mechanisms.
its
own
If,
on
the other hand, the Afferent has nothing to
do with the personality except to inform
it,
the loss of the Afferent will have no other

effect
it
on the personality than that of leaving
in ignorance.
The personality would then
be simply like one condemned to solitary confinement.
That being
so, if
only some mes-
sages could reach him by any route, how-
ever unusual or roundabout, the personality
200
THE BRAIN AND PERSONALITY'

would be found as complete and individual
as ever.
The conclusiveness
of this demonstration
needs a trained physiologist to appreciate

fully,
because he well knows
how much
it
each
special sense contributes to the mental equip-
ment
much
human being, and, therefore, how

lost when not one, but two, of the
of a
is
chiefest
life
of
instructors
simultaneously
lost.
the
It is this
mind are
which makes
the autobiography of the celebrated Helen
Keller of such intense interest, regarded
purely from a physiological point of view.^
So important and decisive
in their bearing
upon the subject of our discussion are the

facts illustrated
in
justified
length.
by her
story, that
we
dwelling upon them at
It is not
friends
1
many
men and women among her personal

and correspondents, that we do so,
The Story
day, Page
some
on account of her becoming
such an accomplished woman, with so
eminent
feel
&
of
My
Life,
by Helen
Co.
201
Keller.
1903.
Double-

but because to a physiologist she
such an
is
instructive " case."
Physicians get into the
way
patients
*^
looking
of
cases
" of
Helen Keller
gist not
to
at
this
as
so
many
or that disease, and so
fixes the attention of
a physiolo-
from sympathy, for he has nothing
do with sympathy, but because she
a first-class scientific demonstration.

ing, therefore,
which we
will quote
published autobiography
anecdote, but for what
it
is
Noth-
from her
for the sake of
is
implies about brain
matter.
(I
do not mean, of course, that physicians
have their capacity for sympathy lessened by

their pursuits.
was Professor
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes

of
Anatomy
at the
Harvard
Medical School, and a trained physiologist

as well.
135): ^Î
Helen Keller thus writes
remember well
(Life, p.
saw Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.

invited Miss Sullivan and
one Sunday afternoon.

spring, just after I
me
It
He had
to call
was early
had learned
202
time I
the first
on him
in the
to speak.
We

were shown at once
to his library,
where we
found him seated in a big arm-chair by an
open
fire
And
he
thinking,
hearth,
'
which glowed and crackled on the

of
other days.
murmur
of the River
said,
listening to the
Charles,' I suggested.
^
the Charles has
me.
'
in the
Yes,' he replied,
'
many dear
associations for
There was an odor of print and leather
room which
told
me
that
books, and I stretched out

tively to find them.
my
My fingers
it
was
hand
full of
instinc-
lighted
upon
a beautiful volume of Tennyson's poems, and
when Miss Sullivan

began
told
me what
it
was, I
to recite
'
Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones,
But I stopped suddenly.

hand.
had made
my
Sea!
I felt tears on
my
beloved poet weep,
and I was greatly disturbed.")
When
had an
nineteen months old, Helen Keller
attack,
presumably of cerebro-spinal
meningitis, which left her totally
203
and perma-

nently blind and deaf, and hence
dumb
also.
her seventh year, therefore, she was
Till
wholly dependent upon her senses of smell,
and tonch for
taste
Hence,
also,
she
all
her information.
communicate her
could
wants or feelings
to others only
actions which she
had learned
in her
mind with
On
pain.
subject to
due
to associate
states of pleasure or of
this account she

fits
by bodily
was perpetually
of great excitement or anger,
to her inner feelings
having such imper-
fect outlets for expression, while
she was
equally deprived of direction from others.
The best
means
of us, though equipped with every
of communication
by speech,
tone, ges-
ture and glance, with like return of the
from our
same
fellows, are yet apt to be impatient
at the slowness of others in understanding

us.
We
can imagine, therefore, what
to this child to
it
have scarcely any way
plain her wants except
by throwing
was
to ex-
things,
or herself, on the ground.

If the Afferent
is
the origin of mental en-
204

dowments, her father's pet dog and cat with
full possession of sight
mention
voice,
and hearing, not
to
were in better condition for
On March
development than she was.
6,
1887, Helen's teacher, Miss Sullivan, arrived,
and her
first
endeavor was to begin teaching
by tracing on the palm of

her hand the letters spelling the words
^^
doll " and ^^ cake.'' Repetitions of these
the child language
word tracings continued
make them
until
for herself, and
Helen could
by March 31 she
could trace on her hand eighteen nouns and

three verbs, without knowing, however,
they meant.
On
April
5,
what
hardly a month
from the beginning of her education, the

Miss Sullivan had her
awakening came.
hold a
mug
in her
hand
the cold water filled the
at a
pump, and as
mug and
ran on her
hand, the teacher traced anew the letters

w-a-t-e-r
on the palm of her free hand. Miss
She dropped the
Sullivan writes:
''
and stood as one
transfixed.
came
into
her
face.
205
new
mug
light
She spelled water

The great step was gained
several times.''
when
this blind,
deaf and
dumb
girl
suddenly
understood that the symbol traced in her
palm meant
From
water.
moment her
that
free, like a prisoner
dungeon
She had got a word!

personality was set
allowed to leave a dark
go wherever he
to
knew
the first time she
lists,
for
now
that everything
for
had a
name, which she could learn on her palm.

* ^
The next morning Helen got up
ant fairy.
She has
object, a'sking the
ing her teacher for the

ness.
It is
of everything,
first
paws.
was
rapid.
'
'
to
kiss-
time in her glad-
touching to read that she tried to
teach her dog by tracing the

its
a radi-
from object
flitted
name
like
From
this
word water on
beginning her progress
In two years and a half she was
studying arithmetic, geography, zoology and

botany, and reading general literature. Mean-
time she was asking questions about everything; and for
its
physiological interest in
showing how a shut-in mind, so

hers, will
work when once

206
to speak, like
in possession of

the Logos
we make
faculty,
extract,
this
p. 370:
^*
Early in May, 1890 (fourth year of her
training), she wrote on her tablet the follow-
ing
list
of questions: Î wish to write about
Who made
things I do not understand.

earth,
What
and the seas and everything!
Wliere was I before I
makes the sun hot?
came
to
Mother?
from seeds which are
know
that plants
grow
in the ground, but I
sure people do not
grow
saw a
Little birds
child plant.
and chickens
who have no memory
sight constantly speak of seeing,
(All
of eye-
meaning
thereby correctly enough mental sight,

perceiving.)
an
egg'l
so large
What was
Why
the egg before
does not the earth
and heavy?
Father Nature does.'
Tell
me
am
I never
that way.
come out of eggs: I have seen them.

blind persons
the
it
i.e.,
was
fall; it is
something that
''
There was no stopping her now.
She must
know the origin of things. What human being

does not ask this question?
207
Does
this univer-

sal
human
come from any function of
trait
the automatic Afferent,
or from the free
Personality?
When her teacher in reply

that ^^men
came
(p.
371) told her
to believe that all forces
were
manifestations of one power, and to that
power they gave the name God, she soon

asked,
God?'
Where
is
Did you ever see
God?
I told her that
God was everywhere,
and that she must not think of
Him
as a per-
son, but as the life, the mind, the soul of
everything.
Helen.
This pantheistic talk did not suit
She
does not have
interrupted
life.
and they cannot
me: Êverything
The rocks have not
life,
''
think.'
In March, 1890, three years after she began

with her
first
word, she commenced to take
lessons in articulate speech.
On
account of
their complete illustration of physiological

fact,
we
will quote a
few passages
in
which
she relates her experience in learning

to
make Broca's convolution do
(Life, p. 60.)
^'I shall
this
how
work.
never forget the sur-
208

when
prise and deliglit I felt
True, tliey were
sentence, Ît is warm.'
first
broken and stammering
were human speech.
new
strength,
syllables,
My
came out
my
I uttered
but they
soul, conscious of
of bondage.
No
deaf child who has earnestly tried to speak

the words which he has never heard,
come out of the prison of
silence,
first
^to
can forget
came over him
the thrill of surprise which
when he uttered his
word.
Only such an
one can appreciate the eagerness with which
my toys,
I talked to
at
my
Mildred [her
call
me, or
or the delight I felt
my dogs
obeyed
ran to
little sister]
my voice.
when
But
must not be supposed that I could really
assistance constantly in
sound
clearly,
my
my
attention
nounced words.
know what
all
this
efforts to articu-
and
sounds in a thousand ways.

calls
talk
I needed Miss Sullivan's
in this short time.
late each
it
to
combine
all
Even now she
every day to mispro-
All teachers of the deaf
means, and only they can at
appreciate the peculiar
209
difficulties
with

which I had
er 's lips, I
gers.
was wholly dependent
had
my teachon my fin-
In reading
to contend.
to use the sense of touch in
catching the vibrations of the throat, the
movements of
the mouth,
and the expression
of the face, and often this sense
was
at fault.
In such cases I was forced to repeat the words

or sentences, sometimes for hours, until I felt
the proper ring in
was
my own
voice.
cast
work
Discourage-
practice, practice, practice.
ment and weariness
My
me down frequently,
moment the thought that I should

soon be at home and show my loved ones what
I had accomplished spurred me on. ^My lit-
but the next
tle
sister will
understand
thought stronger than
'
Words
to Dr.
now,' was a
all obstacles.
to repeat ecstatically, Î
'
me
I used
am not dumb nowM"
are the mind 's wings,
'
'
as she wrote
Holmes.
Helen Keller 's story of her
life
begins with
a child in her seventh year, with each of the
avenues of incoming and of outgoing speech

closed to her.
After two months language

210

begins with one word lodged in her consciousness by a most circuitous brain path.
The book ends with a young woman, a graduate with honors of Eadcliffe College, versed
in the sciences taught there, along with ex-
tensive reading in Latin, Greek, French, Ger-
man and
English
of poetry
and of
purest English
mean
fond
classics, passionately
history, a writer of the
style,
and a thinker of no
order, as is sufficiently illustrated
remark of hers
(p.
greatest gift of the
295)
mind
''Toleration
effort of the brain that
it
it
by a
is
requires the
the
same
takes to balance
one's self on a bicycle.''
But, as
we have already remarked,
the phy-
siological interest of her story is quite apart
from the
that
is.
interest of her biography, great as
To a
physiologist
it is
an example of
a living brain, with the cells of the great visual area entirely and forever atrophied or
wasted away, because that
is
what happens
to those textural cerebral elements in cases
of her kind.
No word
for reading could ever
211

be registered in her angular gyrus, nor in any
neighboring visual
And
cells.
extinction of hearing cells
just the
was present
temporal lobes, so that not one was

to catch the
same
in her
left there
sound of a word any more than
that of any other sound.
Broca's convolu-
tion for uttering speech, therefore, could not
have had a single

to
from
it
^^
telephone" wire coming
either of these two great afferent
centers.
After a while Broca's convolution
began
be rung up by thousands of reiter-
to
ated messages coming from a wholly unusual
quarter in the brain, namely, the center of the

^^
sense of touch.
tice,
'
'
by the hour
Practice, practice, prac-
at a time
indomitable personal will
the work of an
finally
makes that
convolution submit to this perpetual stimulation
from the
ready
to
tactile
area,
till
it
becomes
do what Helen purposes, whether to
speak, to read aloud or to write.
Now
it
happens that the sense of touch
the most diffused of
all
is
the senses at the sur-
face of the body, so that
212
it is
not localized in

one organ,
account
eye or the ear.
like the
that
the least specialized of any of
it is
much
the senses, so
so that its anatomical seat
in the brain center is
By
demonstrated.
even yet not fully
itself,
sense could not afford the
information.
On
therefore,
mind much
this
definite
But personality with a purpose
can specialize anything nervous.
The United
States Treasury paid a high salary to a
man
on account of the one fact that while he could

count gold pieces by the hundred thousand
with great rapidity, he would instantly toss

out either a defective or a fraudulent coin,
because for such detection his touch was

infallible.
In normal individuals Broca's convolution

is in
constant communication with the affer-
ent speech centers, those of the ear and eye

respectively
by numerous nerve
fibers pass-
ing between them with just that function.
This
is
proved by the occurrence of many
in-
stances of word-deafness or word-blindness,
during
life,
in
which after death the injury

213

was found not
in the
gray matter of the con-
volutions, but in the track of the white fibers
leading from them.
on that
It is difficult
ac-
count to decide in some patients with aphasia
whether the damage has occurred in the gray

cortex or in the subjacent conducting white
matter, for the effects would be
same
in
either
case.
much
the
Normally, however,
there can be but very few
if
any nerve
fibers
connecting Broca 's convolution with the area

of the sense of touch.
How
are
we
to sup-
pose, therefore, that in Helen Keller's case
the afferent speech which she learned through
the sense of touch
made such abundant
con-
nections with the speech-uttering center, that
she could talk to others in
all
acteristic of the function of
the
ways char-
Broca 's center
in ordinary persons!
We
have
to
mention now in explanation
certain facts about nerve fibers which
have not alluded
to before.
nerve
we
fiber is
really a prolongation or part of the nerve

cell
from which
it
originates,
214
and
is
itself
THE BRAIN AND PERSONALITT

as
much gray matter
Now
belongs.
as
tlie cell
to
which
it
one of the most important
gray matter
is
and that they grow
in
facts about these fibrils of
that they can grow,
the direction of the stimulus which courses
through them.
Thus,
if
a nerve be cut so that
the two severed ends remain at
from each
that
few weeks
it is
found
fibers sprout out of the
stump
other, in a
new nerve
end nearest the source of
gap
is
bridged.
some distance
its
origin until the
This property
is
taken ad-
vantage of in surgery to restore the sensibility
been
while
and mobility of a part when that has

lost
by severance of
it is
its
nerves.
Hence
true that such regeneration does
not occur apparently in the conducting fibers

of the brain itself, yet there
bility in the
no improba-
is
surmise that repeated currents
of stimuli will in time project, as

tracts of fibers
it
were,
new
from one cerebral convolution
to another, for that
would be only
in keeping
with facts already ascertained of the devel-
opment of great and important

215
tracts of ner-

vous fibers as a child grows.
human
Thus, in the
infant at birth, the great pyramidal
tract, as it is called,
which connects the motor
area of the cerebral cortex with the spinal

cord,
and by which
are executed,
is
all
voluntary movements
far less developed than
As
will be four years later.

tice learns to
use
its
the child
hands and
it
by prac-
new
feet,
nerve fibers by the thousand grow from the

cortex, to go
motor center of the
make
connections with the
motor centers
Such, moreover, must be
of the spinal cord.

the case in the
down and
organizing of the speech
centers in the speaking hemisphere of the

brain.
If either the reading angular con-
volution, on the one hand, or the
word hear-
ing temporal convolution on the other, had
no
fibers
developed
with their
convolution,
connecting
for
corresponding
speech
well
with each
as
as
them
uttering
other,
the person might read or hear words, but
could not speak at
monstrated
by
all,
a fact clearly de-
post-mortem
216
findings,
in

which the brain injury has been limited
to
the conducting fibers of Broca's convolution

only, the speech centers themselves being in-
But
tact.
fibers to
this capacity for sending forth
new
make connections diminishes rapidly
with age hence, when an apoplectic clot ruins

;
the speech centers after sixty years of age,

the loss of speech
is
almost invariably per-
manent, because the corresponding speech

convolutions in the other hemisphere not only
are unable separately to learn their words,
but the power to generate

fibers
new connecting
between the convolutions, which
equally necessary for perfect speech,
is
is
no
up
to
longer available.
Another important conclusion
by these
own
facts,
led
is
namely, that we can make our
brains, so far as special mental functions
or aptitudes are concerned,

wills strong
enough
if
only
to take the trouble.
practice, practice, practice, as in

ler's case, the
we have
By
Miss Kel-
Will stimulus will not only
organize brain centers to perform
217
new
func-

tions,
new
but will project
connecting, or, as
they are technically called, association
which
make nerve
will
fibers,
work together
centers
as they conld not without being thus associated.
Each such
self-created brain center
requires great labor to
make
it,
because noth-
ing but the prolonged exertion of the personal will can fashion anything of the kind.
person,
capacities
for
them
therefore,
acquires
new brain
by acquiring new anatomical bases

in the
form both of brain
cells,
which he has trained, and of actively working brain fibers, which he has himself virtually created.
But nothing could show better than these

facts the complete antithesis
sonality
and automatism.
between per-
One might as
well insist that because an automobile carriage
goes along smoothly and mechanic-
ally, that the driver,
who makes
the vehicle
turn any number of street corners, must

also be
an automaton, as
to say that a per-
son who educates his brain

218
is
himself the

automatic product of the brain which he educates.
This series of facts which
reviewing demonstrates
how
we have been
the
different
places in one hemisphere come to subserve

their mental functions
tion carried
same
by a process of educa-
on throughout by one and the
teacher, for the process itself never
varies.
Moreover
it is
plain that these highly
educated areas in the cortex are not
self-
taughtj because they would not exist only in
one hemisphere when the capacity for such

education was certainly originally equal in
both.
But what
does he come 1
is
that teacher,
It is not
any part of the brain
and whence
easy to suppose that
itself
can act as such a
general teacher, because no cortical area ever

interchanges
If the ear
not help
its
grows
it
capacities with
any
other.
dull of hearing the eye can-
hear better, nor can the cuneus,
while indispensable for the education of the
word seeing angular gyrus which is a part of

the visual area, furnish a damaged music
219

center in the temporal lobe with a single note.
Bnt
so persistent has been the hunt for
some
cerebral place which created the personality

that, since the rest of the cortex
shown
to subserve
functions,
it
has been
merely sensory and motor
has been suggested that the
limited portion called the prefrontal lobe (see
Plate I)
As
is
the special
mind
this region differs
seat in the brain.
from the
rest of the
frontal lobe in having no relation to motor,
and equally none

it
to sensory functions, so that
shows no signs of anything in particular
when experimented upon,

mised that
it is
related in
it
its
has been sur-
function to pure
thinking, or to the
mind
claimed that
more developed
human than
it
in
is
itself.
any other brain.
It is also
in the
The
chief
reliance for the support of this theory, however, has rested
in
man
effects
of accidents, or of tumors, or such like
damage
tions.
upon reports of the
to this locality,
upon the mental func-
It is alleged that those
who have
suf-
fered from lesions of this sort often change
220

in disposition, with a special enfeeblement of
power of attention and of thought con-
the
centration,
along with consequent
apathy
or mental dullness amounting sometimes to
dementia.
But
just such mental
company damage
the brain,
and
all
symptoms often
ac-
to other parts than this of
are equally susceptible of
interpretation on the supposition of conse-
quent derangements of the cerebral circula-
But
tion.
to
demonstrate that injury to the
prefrontal region directly causes these mental
symptoms, they should uniformly accom-
pany such physical changes.

from being the case as
This
is
so far
to lead Professor
Schafer to remark:^ ^^So much has been
made
of certain clinical cases in which an ex-
tensive lesion of the frontal lobes
was
lowed by diminution of the intellectual

ties,
and by a change for the worse
facul-
in the gen-
eral disposition of the individual, that
important to ascertain what the

1
Textbook
of Physiology, vol.
221
ii.,
fol-
it is
clinical evi-
pp. 772-77a

dence on this point really amounts
to.
Welt
has collected fifty-nine cases of lesions confined to the frontal region in
man;
forty-seven, or about 80 per cent.,
of these
showed no
changes in intellectual capacity or character
and only twelve of the

per
cent,
them.
total
number, or 20
had such changes recorded against
It is clear, therefore, that the doc-
trine of special localization of the intellectual

faculties in this portion of the frontal lobes
rests on no sufficient basis.''
On p.
63
is
given the particulars of the
who had one hemisphere, and

frontal part, destroyed
mind
affecting his
him,
it
was
at
by
all.
his wordless
particularly its
disease, without
Fortunately for
and not
dowed hemisphere which was

wise a great difference
is
man
his
word
en-
involved. Like-
found in the
ac-
companying mental derangements of frontal

lesions,
whether they occur in the wordless
hemisphere, when often there are no mental
symptoms
at
all,
the purposes
or in the educated half.
of our argument,
222
For
we might

readily admit that the frontal convolutions
can be taught important mental functions,

just as areas in the occipital
and
in the tem-
poral convolutions are thus taught.

it
But
until
can be shown that the frontal convolutions
think at
whether they have been taught
all,
or not, that
is,
that the frontal lobes of both
hemispheres work the thinker,

lations about
them are
all
these specu-
It is not im-
vain.
probable that the prefrontal convolutions of

the educated hemisphere do play an important part in mental operations, but that does
not show that they are a whit less instru-
ments than the angular gyrus
is
in its reading
function, or Broca^s convolution in its func-
Of the four
tion.
is
strings of a violin, string
struck oftener than string
music, but string

strings play;
much
to
make
does not make the other

less is it itself the
mu-
sician.
From some examples
in
my own experience
I would infer that one of the functions of the

prefrontal convolutions in the speech hemi-
223

sphere
is
the recognition of personal identity.
gentleman once consulted
me
about some nervous symptoms.
in
my
office
For reasons
unnecessary to detail here I began to suspect

that he might be suffering
from the
effects of
a brain tumor, but the most careful examination failed to show that any one of his
special senses, on being separately tested,
was
affected in the least, nor could I find
motor derangements.
articulated,
^ ^
or somewhere else ?
of it?"
His speech was well
and he expressed himself
Suddenly he said
any
Where am
clearly.
Am I here
11
Am I in the body or out
These remarks confirmed
me
in
my
suspicions that the probable seat of the lesion
was
in the left frontal lobe.
afterwards
my
at the autopsy,
Some months
surmise was proved correct
when a tumor was found
in
that very place.
We may
remark here that the
facts about
the marvelous processes of education of the
speech endowed hemisphere naturally suggest the question, whether the elaboration of
224

many
so
interpreting or association areas,
with their consequent maze of association

fibers,
wonld not in time increase the actual
amount of gray matter and

localities
where special work has been spent
upon them by the

This
those
its fibers in
may be
individual.
difficult to
demonstrate by our
present imperfect methods of physical inspection of nervous matter.
Though
tionally the difference is wide
func-
enough be-
tween a purely sensory and a purely motor

nerve, so far
which, and
we
are unable to see which
we have
to irritate or to cut
ter of the speech centers tells us
their very special
any other
reveals
them
So no inspection of the gray mat-
to find out.
of
is
what
any more of
powers than the inspection
locality in a given cortical area

it
does or
how
it
does
it.
About
the only physical sign of the kind yet demonstrated
is
the presence in the motor area of
the cortex of relatively large and stellate-
shaped
cells
which resemble in these particu-
lar respects the cells at the origin of the
225

motor nerves of the spinal
cord.
But
all
analogy with other living textures would lead

us to infer that the more a part was exer-
more
cised, the
it
would grow in
its special
components, and hence that the cortical layers

of a man, sharing fully in
tivities
of
modern
in
would be
quantitatively, than the
thoughtless brains of a
way
the mental ac-
civilized life,
more developed, even

only
all
Papuan
savage.
The
which such increased brain
growth could occur in the cranial cavity
would be by increased folding of the gray

cortex, with multiplication of its associating
fibers.
A few investigations of the kind have
been made of the brains of
men
distinguished
for varied mental acquisitions during
life,
and when compared with the brains of savages or of
men of low or abnormal intellectual
grade, they seem to show, though with some

exceptions, that in the speech centers especially, the
present
brains of highly cultivated
much
men
greater complexity in the con-
volutions, with greater depth of the fissures.
226

But though further iuvestigations may demonstrate
constant post-mortem
fairly
evi-
dences in the form of increased cortical convolutions of a long life of exceptional mental
activity, this
would not prove
at all that their
became eminent because they were
subjects
born with such convoluted brains. While

doubtless true that
all
it is
individuals of our race
are not born with equally good brains, yet

the
fact
remains that the special mental
capacities for which certain
eminent were
all
men have become
acquired and were not con-
genital.
Hence the utmost which can be
conceded
is
quiring
that the greater aptitude for ac-
may be
congenital, but nothing
because however apt a
man may
more
be in learn-
ing languages or in mastering mathematics,
he did not know a word, nor could he count
two when he was born, and

sible to
years
if it
had been pos-
examine his brain when he was four
old, there
single one
would not have been found a
of the complicated brain folds
which he had when he was

227
sixty,
because he

made
these latter himself by persistent
all
In other words, a great person-
exercise.
ality
may
make a great
possibly
brain, bnt
no brain can make a great personality.
To sum
np.
subject deals primarily
Our
Hence
with material facts.
it is
no sense
in
a speculative subject, because anatomical details
are neither speculative nor theoretical,
and we have been concerned with the anatomimental
cal seats of
the physical
We began with
faculties.
anatomy
of the faculty of speech,
which demonstrates that the reception, the

understanding and the expression of words
depend as absolutely upon a special brain
mechanism as the movements
of the hands of
a watch depend upon the spring inside.
But
much more than that^ the particular anatomical seats of human intelligence are just as
palpably demonstrable as the seats of human
language.
These so-called
^ ^
mind
'
'
areas of
brain matter are found grouped around the

congenital sense areas, and
that the
it
is
human being knows what

228
by them
to think
THE BRAIN AND PEHSONALITY

about the information which his senses bring.
Cut out any one of those areas, and forthwith

its
kind of intelligence
The most
is
gone.
materialistic theory of the rela-
tion of thought to brain substance could not
ask for more solid facts to support

tention, if only
it
its
con-
could be demonstrated that
these brain localities, with their matchless
endowments, were as native

its
sensory centers are.
to the brain as
But no human being
ever brought with him a single one of these
wondrous places
herited them.
in his brain, nor ever in-
Yet their existence must some-
how be accounted
physical
life
tal faculty
No
question about
equals this question for surpass-
ing significance.
congenital,
for.
it
Not being
native, that
is,
follows that these seats of men-
must
all
be
artificially acquired.
It is equally plain that the process
by which
they are acquired must be the same for them

all,
however different their functions
cause as an anatomical fact they are

in only one of the
two hemispheres.
229
be, be-
all
found

This feature, therefore, puts an entirely
new
aspect on the whole matter.
No
longer
can we suppose that the pair of symmetrical

brain hemispheres in our skulls hold just the
same
relations to the functions of thought
that the two eyes do to the function of sight,
or the two ears to that of hearing; because

if in
a young person one eye be covered, the
other eye does not have to wait for months
before
nor
if
it
can learn to see as
its
fellow did,
one ear be stopped for experiment in
a person after
fifty,
does
its
companion ear
then prove to be totally deaf.
Hence, while
both members of the eye and ear organs are

at all times just alike in their work,
it
is
surely significant that with the two brain
hemispheres
ferent
it is
entirely different
indeed that
no
contrast
so
could
dif-
be
greater than that existing between them in

their capacity for mental work.
Physicians frequently meet with striking

illustrations of this one-sided habitat of the
mind.
A man
who was one

230
of the strongest

thinkers and one of the greatest masters of
English style that I have ever known, had

his
mind
totally
apoplectic
months
wrecked one morning by an
But though he
clot.
afterwards
with
lived
brain
right
his
for
hemisphere apparently as sound as ever, yet

he could not recognize the dearly loved
mem-
bers of his family either by sight or by their
His intelligence was simply suddenly
voices.
annihilated by the injury in his left hemisphere.
The
fact that his right hemisphere
remained uninjured availed nothing, because

this exceptional
musician had never played
with that right violin, and

seventy years
old
it
now
that
it
was
was no longer mu-
sical.
Therefore
because
it
is
it is
Power not
the masterful personal Will,
which makes the brain human.

brain
of the brain,
By
human
we mean one which has been slowly
fashioned into an instrument by which the

personality can recognize and
physical,
know
all
things
from the composition of a pebble

231

to
tlie
elements of a fixed star.
alone which can
It is the will
make material
for
seats
mind, and when made they are the most personal things in a man's body.
In fact they
are the only examples of the kind in his physical
make
frame, because, though he cannot
one hair of his head white or black, he can
and does make speech centers inside of his

head, to say nothing of other centers of most
So long as his brain matter

has not become " set," as potters would exvaried faculty.
press
it,
by the lapse of years, he deals with
his cortical
ercise
gray matter by the purposive ex-
of memorizing habit,
And wondrously
deals with wet clay.
he fashion
it,
until
as the potter
it
no more resembles the
same gray matter on the other

head in mental
side of his
capacities, than unfashioned
clay resembles a Portland vase.

this clay itself
does
make
Considering that
How
this peerless
it
is
vase?
not brain which
makes man, but man who makes one

brain hemispheres
human
232
could
in
of his
mental faculties

we might even say
ality
that if a
human
person-
would enter a young chimpanzee 's brain
where
it
would
find all the required cerebral
convolutions, that ape could then
a true inventor or philosopher.
233
grow
into
CHAPTEE IX
PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
We
have
definitely concluded that the facts
both of brain anatomy and of brain physiology indicate that this organ of the personality
is
never other than
while the personality itself

as separate
from it as the
is
its
instrument,
as different
and
violinist is separate
from, and not the product of his violin.
As already demonstrated, one of the properties of the personal human will is that of
being a specific brain stimulus, more potent
than
all
the afferent stimuli together in pro-
ducing changes in brain matter, by which the

brain acquires, and by
it
alone, entirely
powers or functions not possible

animal brain.
fice
in
new
any other
This great truth would suf-
of itself to prove that the Will
is
new
thing, for the only other fashioner of nerve
234
tissue is the Afferent,
and we have shown
that in their fashioning processes the Affer-
ent and the Will are generically distinct, and
have no relationship
to each other.
we may say that

the Afferent can do nothing new any more
than a watch can. Whatever a watch does
Indeed, as a final contrast,
is
the result of pre-arrangement in its mech-
Likewise a nervous center
anism.
is
so
slowly organized by the mechanically acting
Afferent
evidently
tion of heredity for

it
will
other.
many
generations
do only one thing during
But a Will
voluntary
when
requiring the co-opera-
act, is
repeated.
life
that
and no
act, ordinarily called
not often just the same thing
The variety
of voluntary
acts is practically unlimited, on account of a
profound principle underlying Will by virtue

of its
own
Having
nature, namely, perfect freedom.
recognized
what
portentous
change comes over the whole situation by the

entrance of this highest attribute of personality,
nothing could exceed the importance
235

of showing what, according to physiology, is
the rightful place and rank of the Will in a
human
being.
This question of rank
an
is
actual and not a theoretical one in the consideration of any subject in nervous physi-
As we have remarked
ology.
before,
it
is
only in a nervous system that the element of
rank has any place.
But there
portant, because no principle
is
it is all
im-
more funda-
mental than that of control of the working

of
the lower nerve centers
all
by the centers
which are higher than they in the scale and

in the time of their development.
what
is
power
Therefore
and always should be the governing
in our living selves is a proper subject
of physiology as well as of philosophy.
Approaching
this subject, therefore,
the side of physiology,
ferring to what
Inhibition.
to
is
we must begin by
re-
said on pp. 157-9 about
It is well for the
ordinary reader
appreciate the importance which
tached to inhibition, as
by physiologists
from
its
technical
is
term
atis,
in their interpretation of
236
Without inhibition no
nervous functions.
or-
ganization of a nervous system would be possible;
that
and therefore we may explain again
by
this
term
meant that the operations
is
of nervous centers, instead of being allowed

to
go on independently, are constantly conaltogether
or
checked,
restrained,
trolled,
suspended from moment to moment, according to time needs, by the direct intervention,
that
is,
'
inhibition
'
'
of other nerve centers,
or even sometimes by nerves specially en-
dowed with
We
this restraining
power.
there cited in illustration
how
the me-
dulla oblongata sends a bundle of nerve fibers

to the heart, called the heart accelerators,
which make
plies
beat faster, while
it
it
also sup-
an important strand of nerves which
bridle the heart

deliberately.
and make
it
beat slowly and
But the reader may consult a
modern text-book
of physiology to find an-
other striking illustration of nervous regulation of the heart, under the
pressor Nerve.
Ever
since
237
title,
the De-
Ludwig and Cyon

first
discovered the function of this small
nerve
in
greatly interested in
its
its first dis-
can quickly lower the pres-
it
sure of the blood in the arteries
body from 30
to 50
all
entire
is
over the
To understand
per cent.
this it should be stated that in the
oblongata there
been
unique properties,
one being, as demonstrated by

coverers, that
have
physiologists
1866,
medulla
the center governing the
and most extensive system of
special
nerves which ramify on the coats of the arteries,
and whose business
it is
to regulate the
caliber of the arteries so that their diameter
becomes large or small according
to
whether
the part which the arteries supply needs
or less blood.
Thus, the stomach needs nine
times more blood

contents than
when
when
it is
actively digesting its
empty, and the vaso-
motor nerves, as they are

ies dilate the arteries to
contract
be.
is
them
more
to shut
The function
called, of its arter-
bring more blood, or
it off,
as the need
may
of these nerves, therefore,
of prime importance, for without their con-
238
stricting action the vessels of the
abdominal
organs alone might relax enough to contain
most of the blood of the body, as sometimes

happens with quickly
fatal results.
But, on
the other hand, during violent muscular exercise or
under excitement, the blood
may
be
driven to the heart so fast that
its cavities
become dangerously distended.
Then
that the Depressor
the rescue.
we may
is
Nerve instantly comes
to
Ignoring
its
automatic nature,
figuratively represent
the medulla thus:
gency!
it
Heart
overfilling
your vaso-constrictor
center
arteries the
Emer-
and distending so
may
all its
addressing
^VMake haste!
with blood that a valve
order
it
give
way
Tell
instantly
to
nerves to relax their grip on the
body
over, to the degree which
Order the accelerator center
to sus-
pend operations and the vagus center
to give
I direct.
an extra turn
to its brakes
'
!
'
The medulla
obeys, and the over-full heart immediately relieves itself
by a general widening of
arterial channels.
Thus we
239
its
find this single

nerve
afferent
capable
of
mechanism
action of the whole vast
artery constrictors, so that
the
inhibiting
when
of the
this
nerve
has been experimentally stimulated by an

tongue swells from
electric current, the
arteries being dilated,
and likewise the
neys are flushed red with blood.

other nerves,
it
its
kid-
Also, unlike
cannot be fatigued or ex-
hausted by prolonged stimulation, so that in
every respect
it
a sleepless, tireless
is like
posted at the great gate of the
sentinel
heart's outflow.
These are only illustrations of the nervous
mechanism before there
is
added
to
it
a sin-
gle one of the great brain ganglia with their
high and complex functions.

of the spinal centers
disciplinary
special
shape of
specific
we
If in the array
find at every turn
arrangements
in
the
appointments, so to speak,
of nerve centers with their special nerves to

act as checks or controls over the whole sys-
tem,
we
will find still plainer illustrations of
the function of Inhibition or control in the
240
great
army of cerebral
of nerve fibers descend
centers.
Whole
from the
brain, conrs-
tracts
ing along the nervons strands of the cord
each fiber ends
at,
but not
in,
Forthwith that nerve
cell.
spinal nerve cell absolutely,

it is
to act
and do
cells
move
a spinal nerve
fiber rules the
by directing how
this or that according to
commands coming from

motor
till
all
above.
The
spinal
bones of the body by the
muscles attached to them, as we have said,

but every such movement
behest of the brain
But
is
subject to the
fiber.
just as there are fibers passing
the brain above to the cord below, so
from
all cere-
bral collections of gray matter have fibers
coursing between them.
These, as
we have
stated before, are called Association fibers, as
they pass from lobe to lobe, from lobule to

lobule,
and from convolution
to convolution.
That these extremely numerous connections

between the cortical centers with each other
are for the purpose of bringing the different
functions of each into communication and re-
241

by any
lation with the others, is not doubted
According to
one.
vons system,
it
precedent in the ner-
all
follows that this anatomical
law of inhibition
fact indicates that the great
mnst be the necessary law governing the mental
operations
of
the brain
thinking center, acting by
Each
itself.
without be-
itself,
ing controlled by other centers, would in-
This
evitably act foolishly.
the absurdity of dreams.
the reason of
is
In dreams some
nerve centers happen to awaken by themselves,
and thus
start ideas without
trol or correction
which are
stop,
The
till
from other nerve centers
asleep,
awake would
also
true
still
any con-
and which
them:
tell
I think with
^^
you
if
they were
That
is
not
'
!
facts of delirium are also best ex-
plained as a result of the suspension, through

paralysis of their inhibitory nerves, of the
control of higher centers over lower ones,
which then run

fancies or ideas.
by the
riot
with their unchecked
That
this is true is
proven
fact that just such disorders can be
242
imitated by administering agents like opium
and
wMch, as we know by experi-
alcohol,
ments on animals, have
same property
this
of paralyzing nerve inhibition, whether in the
A well-balanced
brain or in the spinal cord.
when some one
brain, therefore, is one which,
center starts an idea, waits
comes from
all
the other nerve centers which
have communicating
fibers
with that center
as to what they also think about
One other
bial
it.
fact also should be
^Âs quick as thought"
here.
the answer
till
is
mentioned
a prover-
phrase which a physiologist would not
care to use, for he has ingeniously devised
means by which
to
measure the rate of trans-
mission of a nerve impulse both up a sensory
nerve and down a motor one, with the result

that
first,
it
averages about 180 feet a second in the
and 160
in the second instance.
Now
some have imagined that nerve currents are
somehow
allied
to
electrical
currents, but
while the nerve current vibration travels not
more than 200
feet,
an
electrical current dur-
243

ing the same time traverses a copper wire at
the rate of 180,000 miles a second.
the two, therefore, there
is
Between
a greater dis-
parity than between the fastest of express

trains
and the slowest crawl of a
snail.
More
than that, when an afferent stimulus reaches

a nerve center a marked delay occurs before
an efferent response emerges from that cen-
As
ter.
*^
Sir Michael Foster expresses
it:
The advent of an afferent impression by
the afferent nerve

ter,
during which
we have very
what
a busy time for the cen-
many
little
ing carried on in
deliberate
is
exact knowledge, are be-
it.''
it
processes, of which
It takes
will
some time
to
The shortest
do.
period of a reflex act has also been measured

in a
few simple
reflex arcs, only to
show that
the delay at the center exceeds in time both

afferent inflow
when
and efferent
outflow.
Hence
several nerve centers have to adjust
themselves to
know what they
are
all to
do
about some afferent excitation, one center
sometimes inhibiting the other during the

244
process,
tlie final
very deliberate
outcome
in his exclamation,
But
to
be a
Without knowing
affair.
man may have good
therefore, a
to think!
may seem
it,
physiology
had stopped
If only I
'^
to return to the subject of the physio-
rank of the Will.
logical
As we have
ex-
plained before, the higher centers do not suppress or abolish the functions of the lower
but
centers,
them
instead.
restrain,
They, in
regulate
and direct
fact, establish their
and
prerogative to govern by governing,
when needful they soon prove

doing
their title
so.
We have
already demonstrated the mighty
work of the
will in dealing with brain
matter
as the potter does with clay, and that

the will alone that has that power.
that
by
same account we are now
in thus
to
it is
But on
show that
making an instrument for the mind
to use, the Will is higher than the
hence that
its
Mind, and
rightful prerogative is to gov-
ern and to direct the mind, just as
245
it is
the

prerogative of the mind to govern and direct
the body.
No
teaching of physiology
important than
sized
this,
by the great
and
its
facts of
truth
human
is
is
empha-
life
themselves both illustrate and confirm
Thus the rule
more
which
it.
universal that the higher
is
in rank is responsible for the behavior of the
Hence
lower.
the
human
it is
that with the advent of
Will there enters a principle into
the living world which
cause nothing like
it is
is
entirely new, be-
recognizable anywhere
This principle pertains, and
else.
ble, to
man
alone,
and not
to
may
is
applica-
any other crea-
ture on earth. So transcendent in
and applications
is
its
bearings
this principle, that
well pause to note
what
it
human
the real nature of the
owing solely to what his
will
is,
we
implies about
will,
on
because,
man
alone
rests the weight of Personal Responsibility.
man
himself cannot possibly be a
living machine,
however much his mind may
Therefore
answer
to that description, for
no machine
can be responsible for anything, because a

246
machine can do only what
for.
it is
constructed
Nor can a mere animal be held
ble for anything, for even
enough
in the scale to
though
responsi-
it
be high
have a mind, and some
animals certainly do have minds, yet they

are virtually so fully the creatures of the
mechanical Afferent that they have no true
power of
choice.
But man can always do or
not do as he chooses,
or, in
other words, wills.
Therefore this very different thing, his
him
makes
earthly living thing.

is
every
other
Therefore something
expected and taken for granted about him,
which
fact
is
from
different
will,
is
not expected of any other being.
man
reigns here below only because he
responsible,
makes him
Human
and
his will alone
it is
which
responsible.
responsibility,
on account of man's
possession of a virtually all-controlling

if
In
he chooses to exercise
many
effort has been made to
come doctrine
of the will.
it, is
will,
such an unwel-
reasoners that every
to
disprove the freedom
We, however, cannot follow

247
this

when
contention
travels off into the far
it
metaphysics^ except just enough to
fields of
enable us to bring the disputant back to our
province of physiology.
Thus
is
it is
contended that the
not free because
motives.
it is itself
human
will
the product of
As Spinoza expressed
men
it,
are
free as to their acts, but not free as to the
which
motives
motiveless will
determine
is
no
these
will at all,
acts.
because a will
can act only as
it
has a motive or motives,
and, therefore,
it
cannot exist apart from
motives.
make
Hence, as
it is
the will, man's will
because
it
the motives which

is
not free, simply
has to submit to the strongest
motive.
The
fatal flaw in this reasoning is that
it
confounds a thing with the conditions of a

thing.
One might
steam, because
out
first
its
power of
cannot do anything with-
being confined within the sides of a
boiler, as to
cause
it
as well deny the
deny the power of the
will be-
operations are always conditioned
248
A steam engine may be a perfect
by motives.
may work very feebly if it has

not enough steam. So a man may have and
may appreciate to the utmost, all the motives
for a given line of conduct, but may weep,
engine, but
it
not because of lack of motives, but from lack

of will
power
to act
upon those motives.
In
our concluding chapter we will allude to a

great physiological reason for this too fre-
quent lament.
But, after
human
any
life is
theories,
human
every
One
Go
the practical experience of
the best test of the truth of
and especially of metaphysical
Men have
theories.
of
all,
never doubted the fact
responsibility,
man
is
nor the reason why
responsible.
illustration of this truth will suffice.
into
any court of law on
in America, in
earth, whether
Europe, in Turkey or in China,
and see there the criminal and the judge.
Can
in
the criminal in effect say anywhere or
any language,
^^
Judge, you should not
punish me, a poor machine, whose efferent

249

my
acts are the necessary result of
Think in
impulses!
my
case
how
afferent
how
old,
hereditary and natural the afferent impulse

was.
was
The reply
stole."
and
starving,
in order to eat I
any judge the world
of
over to such a plea would have to be the same,

for there
human law
is
one
is
human
based.
is
fact
It
upon which
all
assumes that there
a central power in every
man which must
be stronger than impulse, whether single or
multiform, and that

if it is
fore,
men must be punished
not thus stronger.
The
judge, there-
You are
power of choice. How-
to such pleading:
answers
a man, and so have the
'*
ever strong and however numerous or sud-
den the impulses of passion or the cravings

of nature
may
be,
you
still
have within you
the ability to choose not to yield to those impulses,
and on that account alone I
to judge you.
If
am
here
you did not have that power,
I could have no jurisdiction over you.
were a mere animal, a noble

ning ape, or anything
like
250
If
you
lion or a cun-
them, you would
not be brought here before
me whatever you
But because you are a man, and as a
did.
man have
the
power of
choice,
yourself in court, because
hungry you did not
find
when you were
man
but like a
shall be
punished
act like a
hungry animal, and you
you now
because you did act like an animal."
This illustration
is
enough
to
once that the power of choice,
prove at
or, in
other
words, the Will, in man, cannot possibly be
mechanical or the product of afferent impulse, because

else it
it is
plainly above impulse or
would not be expected always
impulse.
Therefore
it
to rule
must be free from the
tyranny of the Afferent, for
if it
were not
thus free, there would be no responsibility;
and
if
there be no responsibility, then there
can be no human law whatever.
To admit
that this principle can ever have an exception in law,

fully
whereby impulse could ever law-
become stronger than the
be forthwith the abrogation of
all
will,
would
law.
Law's
very existence depends upon the responsi251

bility of
men, because they have a
which
will
always ought to be the master and not the

slave, still less the product of afferent im;
pulse.
Such being the presumption of

law about the rank of the
duct,
what do the
all
human
will as regards con-
facts of
human
life in
gen-
eral testify as to the relative station of the
among
mind and
the will!
ties of the
human mind are memory, imagina-
tion,
speech,
judgment;
Chief
knowledge,
the facul-
conception
this last leading to
and
the mind's
No wonder that
endowments should lead many
highest attribute. Reason.

these splendid
to think that there can be nothing higher in
us than the mind.
But
in the order of de-
velopment, physiology emphatically states,
and the whole world proves

the
mind
is
it
to be true, that
not only the subordinate, but well
nigh invariably the merest servant in

the will, and
as the
mind
by
it
man
of
often as despotically ruled
in turn often despotically rules
the body.
252
One proof
of the secondary place held
the mind, the significance of which
not sufficiently appreciated,
mind
the
is
is
easily detached
is
by
often
the fact that
from the per-
sonality, while such is never the case with
the will.
The mind
is
can be made to work

as
its
it
like
any other machine,
prominent body of
men among
us live by letting
owner sees
professional
so detachable that
fit.
out the entire equipment of their mental

faculties for hire.
After a lawyer has ac-
cepted a retainer, he
commands
forthwith to busy itself with
all its
his
mind
resources
of reasoning and of persuasion for the party
who pays him. Even
his emotions,
from the
extremes of pathos to those of indignation,
may be pressed
no man can let
lies
into the service as well.
out his will for hire, and he
when he pretends
to be displaced
But
to.
The
will refuses
from the personality by any-
thing on earth, or sometimes in heaven.
But
it is
this subject
wears a grave aspect when
recognized that, owing to
253
its
original pre-

rogative, the Will always holds a retainer on
the Reason in practical
life.
The Reason may
sometimes timidly propose to

series of
arguments which
it
its
master a
knows
will not
be welcome, only to be ordered to come back
again with a more acceptable line of

sons."
It is this fact
^^
rea-
which explains why
opinions, either political or religious, can and.
do
have well-defined geographical rather
than
mental
Calais
is like
boundaries.
Morocco
Europe
Japan.
of
between the English and
French views; while as
all
Strait
a rivulet compared to the his-
torical separation
braltar,
The
is
to the Strait of Gi-
much
farther
in every belief
But one
tion of this truth
away from
and principle than
especial historical illustra-
we had
in America.
Before
the year 1861 a boundary, called, after two
surveyors, Mason's and Dixon's line, divided

the United States, not only geographically but
politically, intellectually
withstanding
all
and morally.
Not-
the sophistries about other
issues, there lay, as Lincoln said in his im-
254
mortal second Inaugural, as the chief cause
of all the fierce antagonism between the two
geographical sections of the country, a difference of opinion about the institution of
African slavery.
Was
it
because the reason-
ing faculties differed so between these two

sections of the
same English-born race! On
one side of the line most
men and women
reasoned, and so supposed that they believed,

that slavery
was the sum of
other side, most

till
all evil;
men and women
on the
reasoned,
they supposed that they believed, that
slavery was a good, if not a divine, institution.
Nor was the dispute settled by reasoning.

Some would-be reformers or philanthropists
appear
to rely
upon increase of knowl-
edge or of information in the world as the

cure for the world's
evils.
If
men's minds
were but enlightened, then everything would

go well
The physiologist can only point out
that such people, owing to their unfamiliarity with the constitution of this court, are ad-
dressing the wrong
official.
255
Eeason undoubt-

edly does hold a high position at this court
which no one can justly disparage, but at best

it is
only an adviser of
its
In the
sovereign.
future, as this master improves in motives,

this official will doubtless be
an increase of authority.
is
still
promoted with
But as the world
constituted, the influence of
with the power which actually rules
Eeason
is
at all
times uncertain, because the effect depends
on how the ruler
is
Should the Reason venture

it
disposed.
otherwise
to
be importunate,
meets with the summary answer of the
Roman
Sic volo, sic jubeo, stet pro
CsBsar:
ratione voluntas (So I will, so I
For a reason
let
command:
the wish stand)
Therefore gain the ear of the Will

everything
naturally,
because
The world
cally, follows.
is to
first,
and
physiologi-
improve, not
by an increase of knowing people (desirable

as that is), but
by an increase among
its in-
habitants of people with benevolent wills.
One phase
Though
the
of this subject deserves notice.
mind
is
so detachable
256
from the
real self,
liable to
take
men
nevertheless are constantly
confound
will is directed to
all
with the
self.
No
greater and yet so common.
is
when on occasion
on
it
this retained
lawyer of the
men
are deceived into
who can talk
believing that those
so well
Bacon were among the meanest men of

he was the
to this day, but
Rome by
man who
hardened cynics
even the
scandalized
his
their
The Roman's Moral Maxims are
bad times.
eulogize
must
Both Seneca and Lord
themselves be good.
Nero's
Thus
reason and to talk volnbly
righteousness,
admired
mis-
rising in
the
of
Senate to
Nero for ripping open the body of
mother
to see the
Indeed some
womb
that bore him.
men may be observed who,
for
the creditable showing virtuous declamation
makes, proceed to display their own gifts of

eloquence
about
goodness,
would lead out a horse
to
much
show his
as
they
fine points.
Another important aspect of the relation

of the Will to the
Mind
is
that just as with
the creation of speech centers, the will like-
257

wise so alters the brain that in time the brain
thinks
only according to certain habitual
ways.
Some
strong bnt elderly
men
my
of
whose reasoning powers no
acquaintance,
one could pronounce weak, seem no more

able to change their opinions than they could
As a
learn readily Turkish or Chinese.
only in the third or fourth decennials of
it is
life
be
rule,
that men's minds

^^
converted
of opinion.
''
show any capacity
to
on any important matter
The cause for
this is not
from
any enfeeblement of judgment attendant on

the advent of middle age.
Instead, the judg-
ment as a faculty should then be much

stronger than in youth, as indeed
proves to be
if left
free to act.
years pass, the judgment

to act.
likes,
is less
it
generally
But as the
and
less free
and
dis-
in proportion to their intensity
and
Those
will elements, likes
duration, have steadily been fashioning the
mind's physical instrument to work out only

opinions to match, until to have
they need to have literally
258
new
new
opinions
brains.
The
utmost that reason at any time can do
persuade
by
master
its
adducing
man who
motives, but an adult
vinced against his will
is
is
to
other
can be con-
well nigh a physi-
ological impossibility.
Why this
is
so
we now
not be supposed that
see clearly.
men
It
must
ever really hold
opinions which to them appear unreasonable.
Their wills take good care that their reasoning servant should always supply them with
the reasons which they want,
all
and very
well does this servant furnish its master with
most cogent arguments
show the great
to
^^reasonableness'' of his views, especially

his master's interests, that
is,
if
wishes, are
strongly enlisted.
Men's
interests
come
to
them from such
sources as their parentage, birthplace, party
or
sect,
life
and the influences of these factors
sway
their reasoning as naturally
irresistibly, as the
dust of a road.
wind carries with
it
in
and
the
This subservience of reason
to the will is simply physiological,
259
and there-

fore so unconscious that
critical or insincere,
it is
in
no sense hypo-
however some may won-
der at the intellectual feats in reasoning of

those
who have
differed
from them, not
in
mental faculty, but in their native environment.
No
one should wonder at or resent
any reasoning as
man
such, for this subordinate in
has to do as he
is
bidden by his master.
In short, the world has yet to learn, once for

all,
that
men
are not to be justified nor con-
demned by such
superficial things about
as their opinions.
men's opinions
Set the will right
them
first,
and
will follow suit, as soon as
they have opportunities for knowing better;

but with the will remaining perverted, not the
opportunities for knowing of an eternity will
avail.
One of
our race
the best promises for the future of

is
the fact that
men
are always
touched, and the longest affected, by the spectacle

life
among
their fellows of an individual
of consistent goodness, itself due to a
will attribute.
Influence is an exclusively
260
human word,
and, in this world of changes
by death,
to be
it is
by
extent, but
influence
of
measured not alone by
Judged
its
duration.
simple-minded
its
thus, the
but
loving
mother may be perpetuated long after the

eloquence of a score of famous orators has
died
away died away

;
as only mind-produced
words can utterly die away into empty space.

Passing from the general to the individual,
no subject should so commend

serious attention of all educators
itself to the
and
tors, as those physiological facts
plain
acts.
all
how
the
mind
acts,
instruc-
which ex-
and how the
Every teacher and parent ought
to learn
that they can about this subject.
thinking brain
when left
will
The
to itself is the seat of
the play of the Afferent, responding mechanically to
a thousand thousand afferent excita-
tions pouring in
upon
it,
in
less as the birds of the air
from the north,

field in
number as countwhich come down
south, east
and west, on a
Gennesaret to catch away the seed of
the sower.
We
are not responsible for the
261

tliouglits
No man
which enter our minds.
ever was.
Wliat we are responsible for
is
we allow to stay there,

because we have a kingly power within us
which can command this mechanically thinkthe thoughts which
ing brain to do
its
thinking according to
behest just as the brain in turn can

;
command
the spinal cord to stop acting reflexly to
and
afferent excitations,
its
its
to act only accord-
ing to the brain's behests.
The
Will,
by
its
lawful, physiological, inhibitory power, can
say to the thinking brain, these thoughts are
good thoughts and valuable, therefore keep

them; those other thoughts are purposeless
and hence unprofitable, therefore dismiss
them
at once
and a well-disciplined mind
will
obey.
With what
result?
Here we come
to the
highest illustration of that great principle

in nervous development, Discipline, for
the Will, as the ranking
who should now

mand.
We
official
of
all in
it is
man,
step forward to take the com-
cannot overestimate the priceless

262
value of such direction
when completely
ef-
fective, for the life of the individual in this
world.
A mind always broken in to the sway
of the will, and therefore thinking according

to will,
and not according
tion, constitutes
a purposive
to reflex suggeslife.
A man who
habitually thinks according to purpose, will
then speak according to purpose; and
measure strength with such a
will care to
man 1 Such
who
man
or
woman
is
the very em-
bodiment of living power. But the important

practical truth to apply here is that no
so
grows in us by
exercise, or so
atrophies by disuse, as the

child self-restraint,
power
weakens and
will.
Teach a
and you are directly de-
veloping thereby his will power.
Soon he
will himself learn the next lesson in will
development, and win Carlyle's great equip-
ment for
life,
physiology
the brain
to
work
the ability to take trouble.
now adds
But
that the will then alters
by creating new places for the mind
with.
It is the will
man.
263
which creates the

Wlien the age of three score
men can
is
reached,
give the best opinions about
because most of
its illusions
life,
have vanished,
and well can they then comment on many a

fellow traveler's course, though they
not care to refer to their own.

those
whom
may
Not a few of
they have known started out
apparently well equipped, so far as mental

gifts
and opportunities of education and of
social position could enable
them
to
go far
and ascend high. But one by one they lagged

and suffered themselves
by
others,
whom
to
be outstripped
perhaps few suspected at
the start would reach the
first
them, because they appeared so

rior in mental
powers
to the
rank before
much
infe-
men whom
ulti-
mately they wholly distanced. Will direction

explains
it
machine in
all.
What
is
the finest mental
this life without will
In a former age
power!
men worshipped
Homer 's heroes, with
the body.
the partial exception of
Ulysses, were worshipped for their bodily
strength and beauty.
The same
264
is still
true
everywhere among savage
But we
tribes.
are living in an age in which mental gifts are
estimated above
all else.
The great
poet, the
great artist, the great writer, the great orator, are
to the
onr Goliaths, while there
no end
twaddle about genius.
But the
finest
will is little else
the Afferent.
ent.
is
mental machine without the

than a machine worked by
But we are not here
any being
It is a responsibility for
the universe to have what
to be affer-
man has the
in
Will.
That majestic endowment constitutes the
man
high privilege granted to each

ently to test
himself.
enable
It is clothed
him
sessions
how much
the
man
will
appar-
make
of
with powers which will
to obtain the greatest of all pos-
self-possession.
Self-possession
implies the capacity for self-restraint, self-
compulsion and
these, if
he
self -direction
live
and he who has
long enough, can have any
The steady
other possession that he wants.

discipline of the will saves the
obliging
it
mind
not only to lessen the
265
also
by
number
of

its
thoughts, but to improve their quality.
It is a
weak, often a diseased mind which
thinks hurriedly.
man
Let a
be enfeebled by
a fever, or by any other cause of exhaustion,
and he has hard work
to
keep his mental
machine from turning out thoughts which

run
to the
end of the earth.
rapid flow of
ideas, indeed, is the sign often of

ruin, as in the
impending
approach of maniacal insanity,
and rarely does that dreadful calamity occur

except after long antecedent, vicious mental
habits, in
which the mind has been allowed to
roam with progressively

tion
by the
less
and
less inhibi-
will.
less but ever
harmful degree men are
everywhere exposed
to the depredations of
To a
that great thief of life
Desultoriness for
desultoriness of thought leads to desultori-
ness of purpose, of plan, and of action, be-
cause each of these are soon displaced by
some other thought or purpose,

wakes up at
last to find his life
till
the
wasted by his
ever roving, afferently working mind.
266
man
Mental waste from too
is tlie
little will
greatest waste of the world.
tion calls for effort, but without
direction
"Will direc-
mind
the
it
can easily saunter among attractive scenes of

its
own
world
creation.
society,
is
one reason
infested with so
is
because
This
it is
many
dreamers,
so interesting to imagine
an ideal
state,
why our
an ideal
or an ideal church
with personally owned air castles included.

All these are examples of mental processes
which,
when indulged
tal habits,
may end
in
till
they become men-
in true mental diseases.
During the usually gradual onset of that
form of insanity which ends

paralysis, the
mind
teristically occupied
in
of the patient
is
fatal
general
charac-
with exalted day dreams.
I have thus recognized paupers in almshouses

as affected with paresis, not only by the physical signs in their
eliciting
of
from them
eye pupils,
etc.,
but by
confidential statements
what millionaires they were, and what
great things they were going to do.

It is therefore one of the healthiest
267
symp-

toms in a
face facts.
out the
man
to find
Mm
always able to
This the mind will never do with-
command
of the will, because facing
facts has to be a deliberate, often a disagree-
able process, requiring
much thought and no

;
mental machine can think long on any subject unless it
has learned to think by
Deep thought
is
will.
but another term for pro-
longed thought.
Without at
first
proposing anything of the
sort, the physiologist
self
now
begins to find him-
appearing in public in the conventional
From
garb of an old sage.
the time of the
prince who, centuries before Moses was born,
wrote a book which has been found in an
Egyptian tomb, in which he counsels his

grandson how he could
profit, as
he himself
had, by studying the books of the ancients,
Hebrew, Sanscrit, Per-
through a long
line of
sian, Chinese,
Greek and Roman worthies,
mankind has been abundantly lectured about

wisdom.
Some people
find these sages rather
tiresome, because their talk
268
is
so monoto-
nously
one
alike,
lias
known
substance nearly every
its
Therefore the physi-
before.
had better not venture
ologist
to the
while
to
add himself
number, unless he can show cause by
having something new to say.

can claim
is
certain facts
All that he
that his calling has
made
and principles entering
clear
into the
question which his predecessors might have

suspected, but without being as well informed
about the grounds for them as he
Thus as
it
to
For
wisdom.
now
is.
practical purposes
might be defined as a correct appreciation
of the relative importance of things, and act-
The physiologist divides
ing accordingly.
this definition into
two very
distinct halves,
according to his recognition of the wide difference between the

first
half, the
mind and the
it
does
is
it
that any one can try his
body
is
wise
The
appreciation of the relative
importance of things,
the mind; and
will.
by
fits.
done exclusively by
so well
hand
at
and
it.
The greatest
easily
Everyfool of
one's acquaintance has his sage moments,
269

and, moreover, can deliver correct judgments
about what others onglit to do.
But when
comes
falls to the
to acting accordingly,
will alone
the
and
to
keep on steadily doing what
mind recognizes
store of will
power
found who have
it
it
as the wise thing, such a
is
needed that but few are
it.
The ancient sages long bewailed
this failure
of the will to do the behest of the wise
mind
but though they clearly recognized the
fact,
know the physiological reason

which we are yet to allude to in our
they did not

for
it,
final chapter.
As we have stated in Chapter I, none

of them knew what a nervous system was,
nor what the brain was
for.
They did not
know, therefore, any of the following facts
which have so much bearing upon every speculation about man.
First, that the conscious
personality has a material organ to think

with, which exists in two symmetrical halves.
It is only
one half of this organ, however,
which can be used for speech, or for recog270
nizing or knowing anything which
either
is
seen or heard or touched, in the sense of the
tonch which
is
All acquired hu-
educated.
man endowments,
therefore, are acquired
by
a modification of the material comprising the

speaking half of the brain.
This speaking
half of the brain did not originally have a

single one of these great functions, not a
single place in
it
for them,
any more than
fellow hemisphere has to the end of
They are
stamped, as
all
it
its
life.
were, each in
its
respective place in the speaking hemisphere,
by a
single creative agency.
men
the old wise

this,
how
Had any
one of
or philosophers been told
eagerly would he have asked
or what that creative agency was

well imagine that
the purposive
when
told that
it
We
who
can
was alone
human will which first endowed
that hemisphere with the great faculty of
speech,
and then with
all
the rest of these
great powers, he would have exclaimed: ''If

so, the
Will
is
the greatest fact in
man
The physiologist has something new

271
! '
to
say

even on the oldest subjects of the moralist.
Who,
example, can speak
like himself, for
with such emphasis on the great subject of
Habit f
make
us.
Long ago sages
said that our habits
But they said
so after their obser-
vation of external
The
life.
physiologist,
using the same words, means that our habits
make our brains

talk
inside of us, so that
we
think,
and act accordingly, and always accord-
ingly, until the Will steps in
fashioning of the
human
But has the Will here

Habit?
in its
work on the
brain in hand.
entirely displaced
The Will
Alas! no.
brain.
and takes the
As
is
it
very partial
began by
dis-
carding one of the two brains altogether, so
by analogous neglect
it
also leaves every
man
with a great part of his mental apparatus

only a purposeless, mechanically thinking
thing,
which
Then comes
is
the
mere creature
to the
man an
of its habits.
excellent teacher.
Experience, only, as Carlyle says of him,
^
'
teacher good and true, but he demands such
dreadful high wages!''
272
From
Experience
the
man
learns in time that
tal habits
many
are very injurions, and
of his
men-
hamper him
What can he do abont

it!
It is the physiologist who can now tell
him. Do not expect mnch from a New Year
Day's resolutions. Your will can make a new
man of you, but only after its fashion when
making anything new in the brain ^by reiterlike so
many
fetters.
ating this same resolution stimulus every single
day after
New
at least, just as
guage.
Brain
Year's for the whole year
you learn by
cells
it
and brain
new
lan-
fibers cannot
learn better ways from preachers, only your
own untiring Will can do anything with them.

One other thing the Will can do which is
of welcome import.
been
said.
To
the young, as has
Nature does nothing but give from

;
the old she does nothing but take away.
men
If
did not become used to the progressive
losses of old age

so-called natural
little else
by sheer compulsion, the

term of
than sorrow.
life
With
would be for
old age every-
thing physical about us becomes progress-
273

and enjoyable, as
ively less usable
Age
'
You must
were
But the Will says
decaying by disease.
^
if it
to
spare whatever brain there
be where I remain in force.
Do what you like
with bone, muscle, or anything else about
may likewise
your victims, and you
brains of ordinary people,
more
waste the
they become
till
childish than children, but the brain
where I work
This
logical
is all
power
shall
due
of
always remain young!''
to the
what
is
remarkable physiocalled
^
'
interest
resist either bodily exhaustion or decay.
man expended
the
lar exertion sawing
'
'
to
If
same amount of muscu-
wood which he does
climb-
ing rocks or wading streams after trout, he
would
faint
But
dead away.
interest is the
soul of the Will, and the undying ambition of
many a statesman has kept his brain as

after three score and ten as
fore.
The mind
it
of Gladstone
strong
ever was be-
when he was
over eighty was not like his body at that age,

but remained
still
powers which
it
the
was
same mind
at sixty.
274
in all its
This was not
simply because Gladstone had an exceptional
mind, for
if
that were
his
all,
mind would have
been relatively older at eighty and after than

it
was
at sixty,
which
tinued to the end
never was, but con-
it
more than twenty years
younger than the rest of his frame.
The importance
ciple will excuse
of demonstrating this prin-
our delaying a moment in
accounting for those interesting physiological

objects,
old misers.
throughout
life
by a
miser
is
sustained
special development of
that incapacity for satisfaction which
of the characteristics of that creature,
Even man's body shares

for whereas the ass
is
one
Man.
in this insatiability,
contented with the same
diet at his master's crib all his days,
take
is
it
would
more knowledge than most people have
to state correctly
where each
article
on a
workingman's table comes from, because every region and every climate of the globe
generally contributes something to that dinner.
But a Power working on that
ment, which prevents

275
will ele-
man from knowing

what
is
enough, calls the miser to a lifelong
mortification of the flesh; to an indifference

to the scorn of his fellows at his conduct or
at his raiment
and
to the claims not only of
his kindred, but even of his
have been known so
rich misers
own
own body;
lives, for the
for
to hate their
sake of their master, as to
and
die of starvation;
all
because that mas-
ter's voice ever sounds in the miser's ear
to
him
that hath shall be given and he shall
have more abundantly.

miser's will
is
In other words, the
unceasingly stimulated by one
of the most living and powerful of
motives, the desire to have.
human
Wall Street
is
no place for dotards or simpletons, and that
money market has known more than one octogenarian who was as well able to acquire
from others when he was past eighty as he
was half a century
before.
window through which

long as the brain
fied in a rich
the rest of
is
There
a bodily
the light streams as
yet young, as
miser of
is
is
exempli-
my acquaintance
him betrays
276
that he
is close
while
upon
ninety, the quick, searching glance of his eye
reveals that every faculty of his

fully at the disposal of his will.
hand,
let
man
retire
mind
On
is
the other
from business
in his
prime, to lead thereafter a motiveless
and age
will
yet
life,
change his brain as fast as
changes the color of his hair.
No
it
lesson for
advancing years does physiology emphasize
more strongly than
that a
lose that great motive

interest.
277
man
should never
power of the
will
CHAPTEE X
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SLEEP
No
consideration of the physical relations of
the brain to the
mind would be complete with-
out including the separation of the one from

the other which occurs in sleep.
Eegarded
simply as a phenomenon, sleep has been well
termed the great mystery of
life.
We
should
not allow the term mystery, however, to be-
come, as
is
done by some persons, a signal
for cessation of
its
all
own nature a
ending discussion
a mystery
is
If
ject it is not
it
From
true mystery, instead of
calls for
more
of
it,
because
always something about which
we know a good
mystery.
further discussion.
deal or else
it
would be no
we know nothing about
a sub-
a mystery to us, whatever else
may be. Thus I have heard
a fourth dimen-
sion of space spoken of, but as I
know nothing
of such a dimension, and have not found
278
any
SIGNIFICANCE OF SLEEP
TPIE
one who does,
it
can be no mystery to me.
Wliat constitutes a mystery
which
is
is
the
unknown
certainly connected with the known.
A mystery, therefore, is unfinished knowledge

Whether
rather than complete ignorance.
we can know
the rest or not
differ-
would remain only an unsolved
It then
ence.
makes no
mystery, but in no sense the less a mystery,
when we are convinced from what we know

about
it
that there
The history
is
more
still
to
know.
of science is a record of
many
a long-standing mystery finally solved. Meantime the process which science follows in
dealing with mysteries
is
First, begin
by finding out
the subject.
Do
ble.
this as
Then be sure
always the same.

all
you know on
thoroughly as possi-
that you do not pass to
the consideration of the unknown,
except
along lines definitely connected with that
which
is
certainly known.
this process
In
all essentials
corresponds to that of the as-
tronomer who
is
trying to find out his dis-
tance from a heavenly body.
279
He
cannot

leave this
and therefore he begins with
eartli,
geometry, and with

ures his base
meas-
infinite patience
Not
line.
he
until
sure
is
of that does he begin as carefully to measure

the angles of the lines which leave this earth
from
either end of his base line on their
way
to the object in the sky.
Therefore we begin our investigation of the
mystery of
line its
sleep,
by
selecting for our base
most fundamental
in a question often put
we go
to
when we go
fact, as it
by a
child
to sleep
where do
This
natural question for a child, because

recognizes that
^'
we
''
appears
is
it
a very
easily
are gone then.
Its
understanding has already grasped the central fact about sleep
That being
so,
absence.
we must now
take our time
in considering this first fact, our base line for
subsequent proceedings.
In the
first place,
something must be present, in order that the

other thing be absent from
ent here
is
it
and the pres-
the living body, not only complete
in all its parts, but also in its living attributes
280

Not one of
and
functions.
cells
are changed or gone.
its
component
The blood
circu-
lates the same, the secretions flow the same,
the lungs go on exchanging carbonic acid for
oxygen, and
all
the processes of nutrition
are as active as ever.
But the completeness
of that which
is
pres-
ent only accentuates the disappearance of

that which
tions
may
truth
is
is
"Whatever other ques-
absent.
be raised, the primary and certain
that in natural sleep, the conscious
personality in us takes
its
departure from
the body without leaving a trace behind.
may
It
return gradually and partially as in
dreams, but that
then not sleep.
is
healthy, sound sleep the
body
is
In true,
as devoid as
a bronze or stone statue of either consciousness or mind.
body does not

living
That
it is still
a warm, living
alter the case, because while a
body can be awakened and a statue
cannot, awakening
is
and hence throws no

sleep itself
the opposite of sleep,

light
is.
281
whatever on what

The marvel
of sleep
upon ns owing
is lost
to the unfortunate peculiarity that our ability

to
wonder
is
soon abolished by mere repeti-
Because the recurrence of sleep
tion.
certain and regular as sunset itself,
not occur to us to wonder at

it
all
means.
it,
is
it
as
does
or to ask what
Really to appreciate what a
strange thing sleep
is in
a race of intelligent
beings,
we may have recourse
nation,
and picture another world whose
to
our imagiin-
habitants are mentally just like ourselves, but
whose ordinary conscious
life is
continuous,
and sleep therefore wholly unknown
Now
pen
to them.
should a single one of their fellows hapto fall asleep in
certainly
fill
with terror.
who could
them
To
all
our fashion, he would

with amazement,
if
not
their minds, an individual
virtually go out of existence for
some hours, and then return
just as if noth-
ing had happened, would be about as uncanny
and alarming an object as the apparition of

an unmistakable ghost would be
to us.
But the greatest perturbation of

282
all
which

this sleeper
would occasion would be among
their philosophers, because he

tute a
would
consti-
phenomenon which contradicted
With
whole science of the Eeal.
less
their
diffi-
own philosophers, who always

uneasy when sleep is mentioned, their
culty than our

feel
philosophers had long demonstrated that the
one certainty of certainties among them was

their
own
conscious selves, that
always there.
ence
is
which
But
is
this
As with
us,
Ego which
is
every other exist-
only relative to this
first certainty,
based upon personal consciousness.
new
a specimen of
among them would be

a being who can be alternately
sleeper
vividly conscious at one time,
and utterly non-
conscious at another, and whose Ego, therefore, could
both be and not be by turns
To return now
to
our own earth, and to our
body of philosophers, we may

to the
theme which has long
their
attention,
Science of Being.
namely,
first
allude
chiefly occupied
Ontology,
or the
In their discussions on the
nature of Being two great terms are con283

tinually
employed namely, Subject,

;
to denote
that which thinks, and Object, or that which
The Subject
thought about.
is
and perceives, while the Object
also
is
feels
that which
the occasion of feeling and of perceiv-
is
ing by
the
The longest debate
Subject.
has been on the relations of these two
ele-
ments of our being
One
to
each
other.
school of philosophers maintains that they
are absolutely distinct, the Subject being the

central Ego,
the
external
and the Object being essentially

Non-Ego.
The other school
maintains that the two are really identical,

Object being but a phase of Subject.
Meantime the appeal on both
sides is ex-
clusively to facts of consciousness.
school relies
The
first
upon the immediate perception
by the Subject that the Object, for example,

no part of
a stone,
is
can
The other
be.
illustrations of
it,
never was and never
school, beginning with the
sound and of pain as things
which have no objective, but only subjective,

existence, then goes on to demonstrate that
284

everything exists only as a state of conscious-
Apart from a conscious mind, nothing
ness.
has any real existence in or of
was Bishop Berkeley's celebrated

It
may
B.C.,
kind,
^^
of all subsequent speculations of the
enunciated
Man
was the doctrinal
His teaching contains
ancestor of Berkeley.
germ
doctrine.
be remarked here that Democritus
of Abdera, circa 430
the
This
itself.
his
in
famous
saying:
plunged in a world of
lives
illusion
and of deceptive forms which the vulgar take

for reality.
To
anything.''
tell
The
the truth,
late
we do not know
Professor
Clifford
maintained a theory about mind and

lations to matter, which, to use his
**
Is not
to
merely a speculation, but
which
studied
all
this
its re-
own words,
is
a result
the greater minds which have
question
in
the
right
way
(namely, in Clifford's way) have gradually
been approximating for a long time."

theory
cal
is
that mental
This
phenomena and physi-
phenomena, although apparently diverse,
are really identical.
This view, though not

285

in all its aspects the same, yet approximates
to the doctrine of Hegel, that there can be no
existence possible of matter or of motion, ex-
cept as standing in relation to mind.
All
man
we can say
to this is that
by the time
who, while looking at that interesting
body, the moon, comes through philosophiz-
ing to believe that

self,
it is
because being an object
drunk
it
exists only in
must then be
his consciousness, he
ally
a special phase of him-
intellectu-
It is related of
German
a certain
that his cogitations led
him
into such a sea
of doubts, that he began to doubt his

istence.
At
last his feet
one unquestionable
thinker
own
ex-
touched bottom on
fact, viz.
That he could
not doubt that he doubted!
But, unfortu-
nately for this reassurance,
also
when he lay
his
would go
head upon his pillow at
night, for in his sleep he
he had ever doubted.

consciousness.
it
But
would not know that
Doubting
is
a fact of
so is every other fact
which metaphysicians go by.

286
They
all
con-

sist of
But
mental processes in the waking
state.
in sleep all mental processes, with every-
thing pertaining to them, apparently cease,
and so completely that
all
contrasts and dis-
tinctions belonging to conscious life equally
disappear.
a wise
philosopher and a simpleton,
man and
a fool, and likewise an inno-
cent child and a murderer, a saint and a

criminal, are all alike
when they are
all fast
asleep.
Sleep,
therefore,
is
a something which
abolishes both the Subject
and the Object of
the metaphysician before his very eyes
and
along with them every other thing that he has

talked about, whether principles of thought
or principles of ethics.
This undoubted accompaniment of sleep,

then, raises the question
whether our base
line itself be correct or not.
Does sleep
tes-
tify to the absence of the conscious personality
from the body, or rather
really quite different
to
what
is
from absence, namely,
to extinction of the personality?
287
Instead of

the child 's question,
go
Where do we go when we
to sleep? the other question, also
times asked by a child,
mark. Where does the
We may
out?
may
fire
some-
be nearer the
go when
goes
it
then liken our conscious
to the light of a candle
which
is
life
periodically
extinguished to prevent the candle, which
is
the analogue of the body, from being burned
up too
fast.
Every time
this candle is
lit, it
gives oif its light at the expense of the body,

so that in time the candle itself
and after a few

ends in
is
used up;
fitful flashes in its socket, it
final darkness.
Starting, therefore, with Extinction as our

base,
we
will follow
our lines of inference
therefrom to note whether they will converge

to
some
definite conclusion.
our base line we have the

less true, that sleep is
due
fact,
At one end
which
is
of
doubt-
to a physical bodily
necessity or condition.
Moreover we have
more than one example
of purely physical
conditions inducing the chief element in sleep,
namely, unconsciousness, such as in apoplexy,
288

or from a blow on the head, or from brain
poisoning,
by chloroform; and though
as
these states differ in
many
natural sleep, yet they

link
from
particulars
suffice to
show that the
between consciousness and the brain
is
physical one, or else physical agents would
not sever
The
it.
inference, therefore, seems
probable that as physical conditions of the

brain extinguish consciousness, so physical
conditions there create
But unfortunately
it.
this line of inference
based upon extinction cannot be made to pass

in the neighborhood of demonstrated facts.
To begin
with,
not the whole body, but
it is
only a part of the body, namely, the nervous

system, which
personality,
is
connected with the conscious
and not the whole nervous
tem but only the
brain,
sys-
and in turn not the
whole brain but only the one of the two hemispheres in which speech
when awake
is
located,
which
either subjectively thinks or rec-
ognizes objects.
We
have gone
all
subject before, and need not waste
289
over this
any more

words upon
The brain
it.
makes a word nor forms an

and
neither
itself
All words
idea.
knowledge are put in the brain, and
all
arranged there for use,
many books
like so
on their brain shelves by the brain's
Where he goes
rian.
library
not
up and leaves for the
know but one
thing
one of
where
when he
to,
its
books made
properly
it
locks this
night,
certain
is
libra-
we do
that not
or put itself
itself
is.
But the inferences drawn
at the other
end
of this base line are worse yet for going all

astray.
Extinction
after the shortest

selves have to be
parison to a
simple to
fit
is
extinction; therefore,
nap our whole conscious
made
re-lit
all
candle
The com-
altogether too
is
the case, for our being
nitely
more than a
ties of
being cannot actively
nihilated,
anew!
flame.
The
surest reali-
exist,
then be an-
and then come into active existence
again, like passing flashes of light.
much
ries
is infi-
of our conscious life consists in
and the use of memories

290
How
memo-
Every word

we
hear, read or utter, exists as
symbols in the
and
cells of
memorized
our speech centers,
took a long time to put them there.
it
A night
's
sleep certainly does not
obliterate them, nor
and cannot
wipe out anything
We
the brain has acquired.
else
have gained in
our years settled convictions, strong motives
and
living sentiments, all too deeply seated
come by day and go by
to
night, or ever ap-
proach extinction while we

abiding
elements
in
our conscious
which make us true persons.

all
It is these
live.
being
To admit
that
them can be and not be between
of
waking and sleeping would be the end of

reality.
that
we
If
we
are.
are certain of anything,
The
old saying
sum, 1 think, therefore I
all
it is
cogito, ergo
amis
not to be
disproved by brief lapses into unthinking

sleep.
But
this theory
runs counter also to one of
the most striking facts about personality,
namely, Continuity.
word descriptive of
Change
is
the great
this strange life of ours.
291

As
old age approaches,
memory can bring
back picture after picture of our former

selves, in early childhood, in
youth and in
each year thereafter, with changes upon
changes in everything
Through them
all,
except in one
thing.
whether taking place in us
we were never anybody else. It

who was a child, and it is the same I
or about us,
was
who
is
now.
than what
That I has never been other
it is,
and certainly never yet
Hence the
tinct.
ex-
extinction theory of sleep
leads us to absurdity as
its
conclusion
or, in
other words, to a mental Nowhere.
Let
us, therefore, in
our quest now turn and
ask what physiology has to say on the subject.
all
That
is
eminently proper, because in
matters connected with bodily
life, it is
the province of physiology to occupy itself
with the question.

tails
What
for?
All other de-
about structure or place are considered
by the physiologist as simply contributing

solving his question,
achieved?
Sleep
is
What
is
the purpose
a great factor in
292
to
human

life,
about one-third of
its allotted
being spent in sleep but what

;
Many
swer
persons
may
sleep for?
think that they can an-
this question off-hand,
from the
is
duration
without any help
After a hard day's
physiologist.
work, farmer and mechanic know that their
Another who
fatigued muscles need rest.
has been working his brain for hours finds

that his thoughts are growing dull and sleepy.
With another an
exciting
day ends
in a sense
of weariness in all his nerves, those of the eye
and of the ear
especially.
Therefore
it
is
plain that muscles cannot be worked forever,
nor brain nor nerves be exercised unceasingly and hence that

;
is
what the
rest of sleep
is for.
But such an answer
is
mistake because part of
none the
it is
less
In
true.
fact,
the demonstration of
what the particular
mistake in this answer
is will
way toward
take us a long
recognizing what in truth
is
the
real significance of sleep.

First, as to the muscles.
293
Sleep
is
needed

by muscles not because they are muscles doMuscular work, as such, does not
ing work.
tire muscles,
though they have to work unin-
terruptedly not for hours only, but for years.
Muscular work consists in pulling at something,
For
and then relaxing so as
this
purpose
all
to pull again.
muscles which are at-
tached to bones are composed of lines of
muscle
cells,
which contract in the direction
of their attachments,
muscle produce the
and by shortening the
pull.
All such muscles
under the microscope have just the same appearance, are constructed alike, and always
Now
perform just the same kind of work.

the diaphragm
is
a great muscle, and
constructed and does
its
muscle in arm or leg does

it
work
its
is
both
just as
any
work.
Indeed,
has to perform more muscular work than
any muscle
do.
But
so tired
It is the
it
by
in the limbs ever does or could
would be disastrous
its
same
work
that
it
if
ever
it
got
called for rest.
in the powerful
array of the
other chest and abdominal muscles which
294

carry on our respiration, for the combined
muscular work spent in breathing has been

estimated as equal to raising five hundred
pounds an inch with each deep inspiration.
So great
cles,
is
that
most of our power-making food
consumed
all
work performed by these mus-
the
their
in
is
unceasing exercise, in
which, fortunately, none of them ever need
sleep.
has been erroneously supposed
It
that these muscles get all the rest in breath-
ing which they need, because they rhythmi-
between inspiration and expira-
cally rest
tion.
But
let
any one try
to
move
his
arms
up and down sawing wood, twenty-four times

a minute, which
is
the
pace of ordinary
breathing, while standing, and he will find

that
his
pauses
between
in
that
rhyth-
mical process did not amount to any rest at

all.
The conclusion from these physiological

facts is important, namely, that
it
is
some-
thing else beside their work, and essentially

different
from
it,
which
295
tires
and exhausts

muscles to the degree sometimes of destroying them.
Still
nerve
more
cells
significant are the facts about
and the expenditure of
their
way
to the
energy, which
is
equivalent in
its
expenditure of power by muscles in their
work.
In contrast with the action of muscles
which
is visible
nerve
cells
nerve fibers
and uniform, the action of
and of
is
their
prolongations in
both invisible and extraordi-
narily multiform.
We
can judge what their action
is
only by
cutting the nerve fiber or excising the
cell,
or by stimulating these with various
irri-
tants.
But the
result of such experiments
conveys the impression of power, or of the

transfer of energy in nervous tissue
much
more than any manifestations of the kind in

muscular tissue. Take a powerful muscle and
motor nerve, and the muscle
simply sever
its
hangs
and paralyzed.
work
flaccid
in the muscle
of energy coming
was
down
296
All that strong
elicited
by a current
that nerve.
So the

whole powerful mechanism of the muscles
of respiration would instantly and forever
cease to
work
if
a small nail were driven into
the respiratory center in the medulla oblon-
But the medulla has
gata.
beating heart as well, and

to follow
to regulate the
sends
it
its
nerves
every secondary artery, down to the
them
smallest, to regulate
all
with a grip
These are ex-
which they must ever obey.
amples of only a part of the work which the
power centers
in the medulla are constantly
performing without cessation throughout
life.
moment's sleep by them would mean the
sleep of death.
nerve
fibers,
Hence neither nerve

as
such,
nor
need rest in their
work and as with muscles,

;
thing other than their
cells
it
must be some-
work which can fatigue
them.
No
one can
fail,
therefore, to be deeply im-
pressed by the revelation of what the

cance of sleep
it is
ness,
is,
when
it
only the play upon
signifi-
clearly appears that

it
of the conscious-
and especially the highest function of

297

consciousness, the Will, that fatigues or ex-
hausts with weariness any part of the living

body.
The muscles
of the
thumb and
fore-
finger are small indeed, either in size or in
power, compared with the diaphragm; but

often both the nerves of these muscles and
the muscles themselves are wholly ruined in
writer's palsy
by too continuous work done
by them
command
at the
of the will.
As soon
as the will orders the muscles of the
and
legs to
work under
work becomes
rest
direction, that
Ere long they cry for
labor.
and must have
its
arms
or fatal exhaustion will
it
follow.
Therefore
it is
not natural work, whether
nervous or muscular, but only conscious work
which wears.
In proportion to the continu-
ousness with which the conscious will enters

into
any bodily action
What
is
the resultant fatigue.
does this remarkable fact mean?
Be-
cause instead of missing the presence of this
law of being
itself,
in the operations of the brain
when thoughts are passing through

298
it,

we then meet with some
Allow the brain
illustrations.
and
pleases,
enjoys
all
of its most striking
it is
to think as it
much pleased
to
do
the afferent impressions of the
senses and thinks fast and easily.
from thought
to thought,
It roves
and from fancy
fancy, as lightly as the butterfly passes
Mental butterflying, in
flower to flower.
is
It
so.
to
from
fact,
a good descriptive term of the thinking of
many men and women. But

will calls the
putting
its
mind from
its
bridle on, says,
* ^
and think exclusively as I

sense of effort
gins.
Many
is
the
moment
the
pasturing, and,
Now
go
my way,
direct you," the
immediate and fatigue be-
persons, indeed, not only cannot
think long by
will,
that
is,
think efferently,
but they cannot even think long atf erently by

will, as,
for example, in the passive mental
exercise of listening.
If they listen at
all,
they must have a constant variety of sensation.
This constitutes one of the signs of
mental degeneracy of our day, namely, the

craving for that low, afferent form of men-
299

tality
which
is
ministered to by what
is
prop-
erly termed the sensational.
Owing
to its direct relations to life, physi-
have labored long in their researches
ologists
the genesis of fatiguOo
into
school especially has
The Leipzic
almost subordinated
other themes of physiology to this investigation,
by the most exhaustive experiments with
numerous ingenious devices

to
to ascertain
and
measure how muscles are acted upon by
and how they are exhausted by them.
stimuli,
But
it
should be noted that the only stimuli
with which they can experiment are themselves unnatural
sue
itself.
and foreign
to this living tis-
prick of a pin; a pinch with a
forceps an irritating acid or their most com;
monly used
agent, an electrical current, are
none of them the natural stimuli of either

nerve or muscle.
ter conductor of
In
an
fact, cartilage is
electrical current
a nerve. But the inference

uli
is
a bet-
than
is
that these stim-
can exhaust a muscle, because they are un-
natural to
it.
Natural stimuli are

300
like those

wMcli descend from the medulla to the dia-
phragm muscle, and which never exhaust it.

Nor do any other stimuli from the medulla
cause fatigue, because they
have the char-
all
acter of being spontaneous, or
what
is
termed
automatic.
But a
stimulus,
will
is
stimulus, called a voluntary
necessarily not automatic, and
from automatic
hence distinctly different

stimulus.
Here, therefore,
is
the secret of
the inevitable fatigue which so-called volun-
tary activity sooner or later occasions.
The
inference, therefore, seems certain that the
consciousness,
and
particularly
vivid form, the active will,
is
its
most
essentially for-
eign both to the muscular and to the nervous
systems of the body, including the brain

If the conscious will
itself.
but were natural,

fatigue.
added
body
Hence
to the
its
it
were not foreign,
exercise would not cause
must be something super-
body as an extra burden for the
to carry.
Such being the
case, the conclusion follows
301

from the
that the necessity for sleep arises
fact that the consciousness bears the relation
body of the rider
to the
to his horse.
the rider directs the horse in

is
all his
While
ways, he
neither the horse nor a constant part of the
horse, but so different

his
from him that
added weight which wears the animal
and makes
mount
it
and leave the horse
This horse can get along per-
wholly alone.
and then not
fectly well without this rider,
its
But the separate
fatigue means.
load of the consciousness

light, that
out,
necessary for this rider to dis-
at stated intervals
know what
it is
is
so far
no other provision
is
from being
possible than
complete withdrawal from brain and body
until they are both sufficiently rested.
All
animals, therefore, require sleep in proportion to their possession of consciousness, but
more than
all
man, because
ness attains to
is
its
in
him
conscious-
highest level, and activity
the purposive will.
But what becomes
when
it
of the personality itself
thus withdraws!
302
We
have seen that

it
must
exist in its entirety during sleep
still
One
as well as before sleep.
difficulty,
of
course, is inherent in the problem, namely,
that the personality itself
A living brain
is
always
invisible.
when exposed, though
it
then
be conscious, shows no more evidence of the
mind which
there than does any other
is
bodily thing.
The nearest we ever come
seeing this Indweller
eye
All that
flash.
consciousness in
somewhat
like
opened wide.
its
is
when
relation to the
a window which
Whole
makes the
it
we can say
to
is
that our
mind seems
is
but rarely
trains of thoughts
may
go on within us with the light of this window

scarcely falling
conclusions.
upon them, except
Unconscious
what physiologists
But does
window
call this
cerebration
ing sleep?
is
is
kind of thinking.
this kind of thinking
of consciousness
at the final
go on while the
wholly closed dur-
There are some facts of experi-
ence which seem to point that way.

often go to bed in a state of
People
much perplexity
or indecision about certain matters, and then
303

rise in the
morning mncli as
if
they had taken
some friend's advice while they were
asleep,
which puts things in an entirely new
light.
Others say that they want to sleep over a

question before they will decide
nothing
like sleep for
On
ness.
to
There
is
promoting judicious-
the other hand,
which appear
told
it.
some anecdotes are
show that occasionally
the personality does steal behind the closed
window
of consciousness in sleep, and then
having the mental machine
makes
work even more
it
the waking estate.

ever, are too
few
all
to
itself,
effectively than in
Such occurrences, how-
any general
to establish
principle.
Two
such instances I can personally vouch
While at college I was
for.
told
student that his room-mate,

sat
up with him
by a fellow
named
late one night
Childs,
working at a
Failing to
difficult
problem in mathematics.
solve
Childs rubbed his slate clean, put out
it,
much vexamidnight his chum was
the light, and retired to bed in

tion.
Long
after
304

awakened by a
his nightdress,
light,
when
lie
busy with his
called to Childs to desist
saw CMlds
He
slate.
in
then
from such untimely
work, but not receiving any answer, turned

over to sleep.
The next morning while both
were dressing, Childs complained that his

night's rest
had not refreshed him.
not surprised,'' replied his friend,
*^
when
you got up about three o'clock and went

that problem again
at
Childs answered that
'
'
am
*'
he had done nothing of the kind, when, glancing at the table, he was astonished to find his
slate covered with the
worked
problem
all
correctly
out.
The other instance was that of a British

consul in Syria,
who afterwards
in the diplomatic service.
gent student of Arabic, to

duties of his position,
to
compose a
letter
rose high
He had been a dilifit
himself for the
when one night he

to
tried
a Lebanon Emir.
Arabic etiquette requires that such
letters
should testify to the accomplishments of the

writer in the selection of a multitude of con-
305

ventional compliments corresponding to
rank of the person addressed.

these, the
ilae
When, beside
matter in hand had to be dealt with
very diplomatically, the consul did
little
that
evening but tear up one letter after another
which he had written, as unsatisfactory,

finally
till
he stopped in despair, and went to bed
blessing all Arabic composition in general.
The next morning he found on
his desk a
fresh letter which he must have penned, as
was
in his handwriting,
and so well worded,
that he forthwith dispatched
But
it.
to revert to the subject of fatigue.
cause a thing
is
as
it
it is,
inquire or to reason about
we
it.
Be-
cease either to
But why cannot
we carry on all the activities of our conscious

life, as we do those of our bodily life, without
fatigue ?
Why do
all
voluntary acts, whether
muscle, nerve or brain be used in them, lead

to such exhaustion that sleep
sary?
plies
becomes neces-
Eegarded by itself human fatigue supone of the strongest foundation facts
for a philosophy of pessimism.
306
It is all
very

But
well to speak of the dignity of labor.
labor
is
about
it
No
a curse.
in
modern democratic communities
when manual labor

hide
rhetorical halo cast
its intrinsic
spoken
is
odiousness.
truth, that idleness is for
of,
can really
The other great
man
a worse curse,
does not alter the fact that labor remains the

heavy, weary burden of
work
is
the
human
commonest and the
simplest,
hence can be done also by the ox.

it is
cheap,
pay
its
is
low,
can do no other work

for
man
this
is
animal work
Muscle
life.
and
Therefore
and the man who
But
always poor.
is
so hateful, that
nothing but stern compulsion keeps him at

it,
as with the great majority of our race,
simply to get enough to

is
harder
because the will
yet,
more engaged.
that
costs
it
But brain work

is
then so
much
The only compensation
is
commands higher wages, because
it
more
costly.
eat.
to
But
produce
it,
and hence
is
more often
that no
shirked.
Eeally
active brain workers are few,
307
more
work
so difficult is this
form of labor
is
owing
to the

steadiness of purpose which such labor re-
The self-reproaches which
quires.
spects so
commonly bring come from the
recognition that the best course
not followed because another
But human
easier.
or moral,
if
we
will only
of labor that so
mankind
work
allows
till
it
But has
so often
at the time
it
mental
have every such excellence,

it
with
Therefore
much
of
its
it is
failure
and
While the sun
carries its pathetic burden
night comes with
its sleep,
for a space to forget

this
equivalent
to this curse
human
sorrow can be ascribed.
of
was
excellence, be
pay for
in grievous toil.
shines,
was
never made easy of attainment
is
We may
for us.
life retro-
all its
which
woes.
temporary oblivion any other
physiological purpose than to permit the bur-
den
to
be lifted again?
Once more, we repeat that
it is
no answer
to say that fatigue is the simple result of the
expenditure of our bodily forces, a chemical

result of the chemical processes
consume the candle of

308
life if
which would
kept too con-

we have seen
tinuously burning, for

is
not true.
that this
Heart and lungs with their work-
ing muscles and energizing nerves burn up
more
in their
work than any other bodily
things do, but fatigue never interferes with
nor follows upon their active chemical proc-
Hence
esses.
sleep
may
be termed Nature's
great anesthetic for the pain of labor, and re-
garded as a great blessing, just as chloro-
form
is
a blessing for what otherwise would
be unendurable.
But while we speak of
as our sweet restorer,

the living
storer
till
body
we must not
itself
sleep
forget that
never needs
Something different from
this reit
begins
to stir the brain with its activities.
We
have dealt with
because of
its
this subject of fatigue
physiological import,, for noth-
ing could witness more plainly to the separate and external nature of the consciousness
and of the purposive
will,
than this virtual
protest of the physical frame against
them
both, but particularly against the will.
need not be wondered
at, therefore,
309
It
that to

many
minds both
thouglitful
modern
in ancient
and
times, sleep has appeared as one of
the strongest of evidences that the sonl
from
and sonl can
from each
the sleeping state the body

tirely to itself.
it.
is
not
Both body
of the body, bnt distinct

exist apart
is
other.
In
seen left en-
Compared with
the waking
state the difference is marvelons.
Is that
succeeding amazing diiference which comes

at the instant of waking, a thing of physical
or chemical origin?
the
man
which
is
sense,
in that
Conld the body create
moment?
Common
sense,
snm
of all
the safe and balanced
answers that such a supposition
nonsense.
Magnetism and iron are
is
associ-
ated for mighty working in a dynamo, but
only while the electrical current
is
coursing
through the iron.
Then, in a twinkling, the
iron
is
Does the iron
the
magnetism every time the connection
only iron.
itself
make
recurs ?
Sleep and awakening have always
mankind doubt the
fact of
310
human
made
extinction

In the remotest past, when the
by death.
race was represented by the primitive cave

dwellers,
they
with
buried,
weapons for the chase, food and food

and even for the children their
minority of
which
and
merely
in all times,
It is true that the
to
is
it is
found everywhere
human aspiration.
human heart has much
to
lie
of extinction.
tried to picture a
We
dead,
makes
the sure fact of sleep which
hope so reasonable, by giving the

doctrine
to ascribe
say and to ask, when loved ones
but
utensils,
little toys.
men may now attempt
this conviction,
dead,
their
lie to
every
have already
world whose inhabitants,

like ourselves,
had never
seen any one sleep, and what a
number of
though otherwise
questions such a sight would occasion
them.
But the
sight of one
among
dead would be
them unspeakably awful, because, unlike
to
us,
they had never been prepared beforehand by
any example of a real going away, followed
by a
real
coming back.
Yet for us the only serious difference as

311

regards personality between sleep and death,
that after death there
is
no return.
is
In
both states the absence of the personality

complete, but does the failure to return
the
it
same absence then mean
No
never did so in sleep!
lieves
is
it,
though one
may
extinction
is
make
when
one really be-
say he does.
What
generic cannot be got out of us by logic,
or by anything
and a
else,
belief in a here-
after is as generic as mankind, as the faculty
of speech
itself.
The men who nearly
sixty
centuries ago built those tremendous tombs,
the Pyramids, cared
world than
this.
more about the other
To judge him by what he
ac-
complished in every direction, unaided by foreign teaching or by inheritance from the past,
the old Egyptian of the Fourth Dynasty
no
fool.
Some would say
about the future
life
was
that his solicitude
was because
his priest
frightened him; but then the question im-
mediately arises.
How came the priest to have
such power to scare him?

fact, disbelief in the
As an
historical
unseen world does not

312

prevail
rot.
among
nations until they begin to
In Greece
it
was not
in the age of
Marathon, or of Aristides, that such
infidels
abounded; but in the wretched times when
and sophists
only rhetoricians
When Eome was
all iron,
the
flourished.
Eoman was
devout man; but in the slavish days of a

Tiberius and a Domitian, he became an Epicurean.
The brain does not work
the blood reaching
gangrenous
The lack
it
well with
after coursing through
tissues.
of
any returning traveler
to tell
of the world beyond, caused primitive and
ancient peoples to picture

selves.
it
each for them-
But as the imagination can do noth-
ing but reproduce earthly scenes,
so
the
Egyptian had another Egypt; the Greek,

Elysian
fields;
and the American Indian,
happy hunting grounds.

with the dark grave as
tion of
its
On
the other hand,
portal,
an associa-
gloom often remained inseparable
from thoughts of the abode of the dead.
Homer
depicts the wise Ulysses descending
313

tliere
and finding
it
a cheerless place, where
even the greatest departed heroes
live only as
weak, mournful specters, so that Achilles

tells his
old friend,
^^
would rather be one
of earth's plowmen,
working for another
poor, impoverished man, than to rule all the
shades of the dead! "
But the
light
which modern science has
shed upon the facts of
life
can suggest, too,
when duly pondered,
quite different trains
you
please, of mental pic-
of thought, or,
if
tures of another life than this awaiting us.
The mental and moral equipment

seem
sufficient for
any future
limitless its conditions.
life,
of
man
however
Locality, which held
such an exclusive place in ancient conceptions,
can be wholly subordinated now to
questions about states of being.
conceive of a body no longer
We can now
made
of the most
temporary forms of that matter which

itself
is
passing away, but fashioned to be a
dynamic body, a body of power which need

not shrink, as here, from the heavy burden
314

There should be no night there, for
of will.
when purpose does
sleep will not be needed,
not weary nor

to the
its
mind we know that

:
Enough
Then as
exercise fatigue.
at present the
word
only understood, but not experi-
is
by man, and the opportunities for
enced,
knowledge in a universe would not be too
many
for his desires.
But above
all rises
conception of a perfection of being,

will so
when
the
responds to the highest motives alone,
that there could be no conflict with lower
motives forever
Often we
implies
fail to
when
it
appreciate
all
which death
comes at the end of a long,
wasting disease, marked by progressive enf eeblement of the bodily
ing of the mind.
powers and by cloud-
At such times
appear as a physical process,
tional
man
when a man,
it
may
may simply
like a candle
But
slowly burning itself out.
otherwise
it
it
is
quite
be an excep-
as regards mind, altogether leaves
us in an instant.
How
are
we then stunned
at being thus confronted with the whole
315
mys-

There
tery of our being!
nothing so im-
is
pressive as this; a living embodiment of
personal mental power before us one moment,
and
ever
it
How-
gone from us forever.
in another
may have
been with us before, the
Here and the Hereafter cannot now be

divided in our minds, for the one follows too
quickly upon the other to let us believe that
there
is
no link between them.
One event
of this kind, which
a public occasion in
New
happened on
York, will not be
forgotten to the end of his days by any one
who witnessed
from the Atlantic

tated
Our whole great
it.
to the Pacific,
country,
was then
agi-
by the discussion of the great human
question,
What
is
Money?
coin
may
be
one of the smallest things that man makes, but
however small
it
testifies to
ideas of value
utterly beyond the comprehension
of
any
other animal than man, because in that material thing are represented the existence of
law, fixed institutions

justs
the
relations
and society as
of
316
individuals
it
to
ad-
one

So
another.
entirely
however,
ideal,
money, that on a piece of paper which
may
burnt with a match
would make
it
equivalent in
gives
its
may be
be printed what
more valuable than any other

But whatever money's
one thing on earth.
outward form,
is
it
must always represent
human
Nothing but that
labor.
value to money.
its
Coin or paper pro-
duced without that costly antecedent cannot
much men may insist that

But because money itself has no exist-
be money, however
it is.
ence outside of agreement between men, so
good faith in that agreement
So sure
is this
great country
of faith in
is its sole basis.
law that every
may
social tie in
be endangered by a loss
what purports
money.
to be its
It
requires, therefore, great mental grasp to
perceive clearly through
complex relations of
all
civilized life
mentous meaning attaches
With
the incalculably
to the
what a mo-
word
Credit.
credit gone, everything goes, because
men no
longer
other.
know how
country's
to deal
minister
317
with each
of
finance,

therefore, should be above all others one
can quickly see what imperils

credit,
and
how
just
On January
29th,
Board of Trade and

its
annual dinner.
does
it
its
who
public
so.
1891,
the
New York
of Transportation held
Representing, as
it
did,
the greatest business interests of the land,
and with the whole country

financial question,
it
stirred
by the
invited the then Secre-
tary of the Treasury of the United States to
address
it
on that occasion.
Every one was
eagerly waiting for what he would then say,
because he was a statesman long and widely
known
as a
man
not only of great ability, but
of the highest personal character.
holding
many
After
public positions in his
own
western State of Minnesota, he was elected

to the national
House
of Representatives,
where for ten years he held the responsible

position of
Chairman of the Financial Com-
mittee of the House, that of
Ways and Means.
In that position he actively contended
and
finally
for,
won, an object which had strongly

318

by a
enlisted his Christian sympathies,
directed against the great abuses
ment agents in
He
tribes.
bill
by Govern-
their dealing with the Indian
then served for ten years in the
United States Senate, once losing his seat in

that
body because he would not
convictions on the
others
He
money
among his party ^s
sacrifice his
question, as did
leaders in his State.
then served twice as a Cabinet
Secretary of the Treasury.
officer,
Nor were
as
his
hearers
now disappointed with what he had
to say.
After a masterly review of the whole
subject of
what money
be to make
it
brushed aside
is
and always must
money, he characteristically
all
other issues to insist on the
moral aspects of good faith as the one

principle
underlying
everything
vital
financial.
The words which he then spoke were printed

day after day on the front pages of many of
the
most
prominent
newspapers
in
the
country, and served to determine thousands

of
men how
to vote
These words were
* *
when
the time came.
As poison
319
in the blood

permeates arteries, veins, nerves, brain and
and speedily brings paralysis or death,
heart,
so does a debased or fluctuating currency per-
meate
the arteries of trade, paralyze all
all
kinds of business, and bring disaster to

classes of people.
all
It is as impossible for
commerce to flourish with such an instrument,

as it is for the human body to grow strong
and vigorous with a deadly poison lurking in
the blood."
As he
uttered these last words
blood
''
floor,
and
^his
^^
in the
tongue faltered, he sank to the
in a
moment
of time he
was gone
What was it that happened to "William Windom, the man who had always been a leader
wherever he was an
influential legislator,
active philanthropist,
and an eminent
man, whose great services

most
critical
Human
an
states-
to his country at a
time will never be forgotten?
philosophy
and human science
A higher
hardly know what to say in reply.

voice than either of theirs answers
^
:
'
He
fell
asleep! for after sleep cometh awakening!
320
''
4'*!^

Brain Personality 1906 Thom

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BRAIN AND PERSONALITY

BRAIN AND PERSONALITY

WILLIAM HANNA THOMSON,

PHYSICIAN TO THE ROOSEVELT HOSPirAL; CONSULTING

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

Published, September, 1906

Account op the Physical Basis op

Brain Weight and Mental Faculty

Double or Paih Organ

The Faculty of Speech Continued

Evolution of a Nervous System

The Brain and Personality

The Significance of sleep

Digitized by the Internet Arcinive

2010 with funding from

Open Knowledge Commons and Harvard Medical School

BRAIN AND PERSONALITY

no more interesting subject in

science than the physical conditions under

which we become thinking beings.

concerned with the

which comes from investigation and experi-

in the physical world, yet she cannot

evade being questioned about the relations

mind and matter come

BRAIN AND PERSONALITY

we cannot help asking how much

dependent upon the other.

be admitted that no study of

tions can give the least inkling

any more than a study of the words of

a telegram would reveal

The passage of thought

in the other are

But the wire can be

connects with a mechanism

which generates the words for the wire to

Can any analogous

pected from an examination of the physical

mechanism through which the mind acts?

that something of the kind

be assured by modern discoveries

of definite relations between particular portions

there are certain material seats of

mental functions in the brain

now demonfact that when

these are physically disorganized their spe-

mental functions are forthwith abolished,

other places in the brain remain

however, that these dis-

coveries relate in the first instance to the

working of the brain of

from the brains of animals.

the brains of animals which they could ex-

relations the brain held to thought.

with the brain of

wholly different, because, unlike animals,

to thought, the great faculty of speech,

the specific anatomical seats of speech have

been found in the

remarked, however, that

was reserved for physicians and not for

BRAIN AND PERSONALITY