Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/542

526 observations on the other, I have endeavored to show you to night: (1) the reason why certain muscles and limbs are called into action by certain feelings and emotions; and (2) how to demonstrate centers of ideation by comparing the physiological experiments with pathognomy.

My work is, however, not complete: for, first of all, I have not attempted to find the elements of those faculties which I located; secondly, we must take into consideration that mind, like brain, is very complicated, and, even had philosophers ever agreed as to its elements, we know from experience that an emotion seldom acts singly.

Like all novelties, my paper will create some opposition, but I do not fear criticism: I only ask for a re-examination of Gall's work, which I believe has been rejected without due consideration.

Dr. Beddoe thought that, although phrenologists had erected an edifice of straw and rubbish on the foundations laid by Gall and Spurzheim, these last had been men of considerable power and acuteness, whose observations ought not to be neglected in any new attempts at the localization of faculty.

Dr. Ferrier remarked that, as the relations between brain and mind were still in many respects very obscure, he cordially welcomed any attempt to throw light on the problem. So far the physiological or objective functions of certain cerebral regions had been determined, but the question was, What are the correlations between the objective and the subjective or psychological aspects of these same regions? As the brain was composed of sensory and motor substrata, and as the brain was the organ of ideation, therefore ideation was the functioning of centers whose objective functions were motor and sensory. That there was a relation between the development of certain regions and certain motor and sensory faculties and capacities was undoubted, and was amply proved by the facts of comparative anatomy and physiology, normal and morbid; but whether any particular center could be taken as the index of any particular intellectual faculty or peculiarity was a totally different matter, for the same center might be called into activity in connection with unnamable mental states. Of which, then, would it be the index? Mr. Hollander's speculations in reference to so-called phrenological doctrines were ingenious; but what we wanted was evidence founded on careful investigation according to strictly scientific methods, serving to indicate a relation between the development of particular centers and special mental faculties, aptitudes, or peculiarities. At present he did not think that there was any such worthy of consideration, beyond the general indications above mentioned.