A THESIS 
ON THE 
DUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN 
OB 
YE URO-PSYCHO LOGY. 
BY 
S. S. LAWS, A. M., M. D., 
New York. 
[Republished from “Archives of Electrolog y and Neurology: New York, 
November, 1875.”] 
NEWYORK; 
Angell, Printer, 101 E. 31st St. 
1875. A THESIS 
ON THE 
DUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN 
OR 
NEDRO-PSYCHOLOGY, 
BY 
S. S. LAWS, A. M,, M. D,,* 
New York. 
* 11 An Inaugural Thesis on the Dual Constitution of Man or Neuro- 
Psychology. Presented to the Faculty of the Bellevue Hospital Medical 
College for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine, by Samuel Spahr Laws 
of New York City. January 31st, 1874. •’ _A_ THESIS 
ON 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
I- 
The caption of this Thesis points to the common ground 
where Physiology and Psychology have been accustomed to 
meet, only to ignore each other’s presence, or to cross swords 
in fierce conflict, rather than to shake hands in manly recogni- 
tion of each other, as friends and co-workers, to a certain 
extent, in the same important field of investigation. The 
Physical and Metaphysical Sciences, of which Physiology 
and Psychology are special branches, must ultimately meet 
on friendly terms somewhere. Neither can hope to drive 
the other to the wall, for each rests on a solid and enduring- 
foundation. The evidence of the reality and the coexistence 
of both matter and mind, cannot be invalidated, resjiecting 
either, without overturning the foundations on which all 
knowledge rests. It is, therefore, quixotic for either to run 
a tilt at the other, with the view of overturning it and estab- 
lishing its own pretended title to exclusive existence. 
But if matter and mind exist at all, they are brought face 
to face in the constitution of man, and, without question, that 
part of man’s body which is in proximate relation to mind is 
the nervous system. It can only be intimated here that the 
term Neuro-psychology may yet be vindicated as entitled to rec- 
ognition in the vocabulary of science. There is more than one 
beautiful binary star in the firmament. NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
On discussing the phenomena of man’s nervous system, the 
thoughts consciously or unconsciously, must necessarily 
move within the orbit of some one of three or four general 
theories of nature. 1. The first is that of the Nihilist, who 
acknowledges the substantial reality of neither matter nor 
mind, and in whose vision of the universe, body and soul 
alike vanish, as the illusions of a dream, indeed as not 
having the reality of a dream, nor even of the dream of a 
dream. 2. The second is the system of the Idealist, who ac- 
cepts mind, but explains away, or-repudiates the reality of the 
attributes of matter as phantasms of the senses. He holds to 
only one substance, and may be termed a Monist or Scientific 
Unitarian. 3. The third is the system of the Materialist, who 
pursues a precisely similar course respecting mind, by at- 
tempting to explain all its phenomena as the phenomena of 
matter. He is also a Monist or Scientific Unitarian, but 
his one substance is matter. 4. The fourth recog- 
nises both mind and matter as substantial realities, each 
having, as to the other, its own distinctive and incom- 
municable properties, and resting on a footing of evidence 
equal with the other. This fourth view commends itself to the 
common sense of the world, and the history of opinion shows, 
that it has stood, like Gibraltar, unshaken by all the storms 
that have dashed against it. It has been aptly termed Natural 
Dualism or Natural Ileal ism, as it looks at nature just as she 
presents herself, in the double aspect of mind and matter. The 
thirst for unity is so insatiable, as to have become an abundant 
source of error ; and one of the most prodigious and unreason- 
able of these errors, is that of violating the Law of Parcimony, 
by allowing, in its application, either mind or matter to push 
aside the other, and to obtrude itself into the place of both. 
By this law, such and so many causes are to be admitted 
as are necessary to explain the facts. 
If a single cause or force will not do it, then more than one 
must be accepted as valid. It is on this principle that physi- 
cians recognise the coexistence of several distinct maladies in 
the same patient, as in the case of typho-malarial fever, bron- 
chitis associated wdth asthma and emphysema, or phthisis with NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY, 
circumscribed pneumonia and pleuritis. The concepts or 
“ bundles of attributes,” which to the mind’s eye define separ- 
ate diseases, will not allow us to jumble them into an indis- 
criminate heap, when found coexisting in the same patient, but 
require us, in theory and practice, to discriminate between the 
phenomena presented, however intimately associated, or affec- 
ted by that association they may be, and to refer them to their 
separate and distinct morbid conditions. It should not, there- 
fore, seem very strange, that the exercise of the same profes- 
sional discrimination, in regard to the mixed phenomena of the 
nervous system, should likewise recognise the necessity of dis- 
tinguishing amongst these phenomena and of referring them 
to distinct and separate, but coexistent and active producing 
causes. And in the proper place, it will be noted that the 
doctrine of a complex or dual nature of the patient is quite as 
important professionally, as that of a complexity of diseases. 
The object of primary interest, in all scientific investigation, 
is a concise view of the facts. Theories arise from attempts to 
explain the facts; for, as my Lord Yerulam has pithily ob- 
served, “ Facts without theory, are blind.” The explanation 
of a phenomenon consists in the reference of it to the true law 
of its occurrence. The identification of mind with nerve force, 
is a fundamental postulate with those physiologists who at- 
tempt to explain such phenomena as those of muscular con- 
traction, sensation, perception, consciousness, memory, will, 
imagination, judgment, loving and sorrowing, hoping and fear- 
ing, happiness and misery, by referring them all equally and 
alike to the activities of mere matter, as the immediate and 
sole source of their production. All the facts connected with 
our voluntary, social, moral, religious, rational and aesthetic 
nature are grouped into a single category, and first and last 
they are explained as the products of nervous activity, the 
phases and transmutations of nervous energy ; just as the 
secretions are produced by the various glands. Mental ac- 
tion is cerebral ideation. Thought, imagination, feeling and 
willing are forms and phases of cerebration. 
It is perfectly obvious, that this sweeping theory, if 
sustained by the facts of our nervous system, settles finally 6 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
man’s position in nature, and his destiny forever. If these 
facts can by way of explanation, be thus grouped, as the 
phenomena of one substance, then Monism or scientific unitar i~ 
anism, must by the law of parcimony, be accepted as the es- 
tablished system of nature of which we form a part. As phy- 
siology is one of the sisterhood of liberal and progressive 
sciences, and stands on the broad, fundamental principles of 
universal knowledge, therefore, so far as it is founded upon 
this Unitarian principle of interpretation, all its interest in the 
future involves this question. Will this theory of identifica- 
tion stand the test of coming ages ? Does it adequately re- 
spond even to the accumulated evidence confronting it in the 
present ? Do we find in nerve-force the true and final and 
only law of the occurrence of this vast multitude of diversified 
facts'’? 
In what shall be said in answer to this question, it is not 
intended to go into the general argument, against materialism 
or idealism as a partial and inadequate theory of man, but 
to limit the attention strictly to that specific point of view, under 
which the caption of this thesis presents the subject. 
The general discussion of the coexistence and equal sub- 
stantiality of both mind and matter, is indeed very inviting, as 
the intellectual associations into which one feels himself 
brought by the mere contemplation of it are exhilarating in the 
extreme. For, not a few of the most brilliant, highly culti- 
vated and thoroughly stored intellects that have shed lustre 
upon the history of our race, have entered into this conflict of 
ages, and unsparingly lavished upon it the princely treasures 
of their genius and acquirements. Yet strangely enough, the 
precise point of view, under which the subject is here pre- 
sented, has been either wholly overlooked and ignored or only 
considered incidentally, or entered into chiefly by those pre- 
occupied with a Unitarian view. It may almost be said, that 
there has really been a hearing only on one side : on this side, 
by the mere physiologist; on that, by the mere psychologist. 
But who, it may be asked, has toiled in patient preparation for 
his work, and attempted to look with steadied and equal gaze, 
as a Neuro-psychologist, upon the problem, whether man be of NEUROPSYCHOLOGY. 
7 
a Unitarian or dual constitution, discussing liis subject in the 
day-light of valid evidence and not drawing on his imagination 
for facts ? Let us hope that such investigators will be less rare 
in the future. 
Neurology and Psychology, are botli difficult subjects, and 
the number and discord of the laborers in each separate field, 
is quite embarrassing, but it is believed that the careful study 
of both physiology and psychology, will help to simplify both 
and to ultimately bring an abundant reward, in the conciliation 
of the two and in the consequent scientific solution of some of 
the most puzzling and momentous problems of life. 
IX. 
In proceeding to the consideration in a more specific man- 
ner, of some important leading anatomical and physiological 
points, a concise summary will first be submitted. 
The nervous matter is found in all animals, witli the excep- 
tion of some of the very lowest and oldest in the scale of ani- 
mal life, sucb as the protozoans, g. amoeba, g. monas, &c., in 
which it may exist although as yet undiscovered. Throughout 
the subdivisions of the animal kingdom by Cuvier, 1812, into 
vertebrates, articulates, mollusks and radiates,* “ the nervous 
system and the parts belonging thereto, as found in the perfect 
animal,” enters into the structural type so “ essentially,” that 
it is placed at the very foundation of this great anatomical 
classification. The nervous element, then, is not an incidental 
circumstance, but a great central fact in the construction of 
animals. Keeping this in view, it is pertinent to observe, that 
there is not a precise but a general gradation of the mass and 
distribution of nerve matter, which places man relatively, 
above all other animals—l say relatively, for the brains of sev- 
* This subdivision rests upon a principle of classification, not likely to 
be subverted, it is true, but, in no event, could the importance of the 
distribution of nerve matter, be compromised. Vide Atlantic Monthly, 
Jan,, 1874. Evolut. and Perm, of Type. Agassiz’ last contribution to 
Science. 8 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
eral animals greatly exceed that of man, in absolute weight.* 
But as the interest of the present discussion centres chiefly 
in the nervous system of man, a more extended summary of 
the structure and function of that system will now be given. 
The general average of the entire mass of nerve matter in 
the human body—estimating what is outside of the encephalos 
at one-eighth of the whole—may be set down at from three to 
four pounds avoirdupois, which would be somewhat less than 
the weight of the liver.f It is divided into the gray matter 
whose anatomical element is the cell and into the white matter 
whose anatomical element is the fibre. The principal accu- 
mulations or ganglia of the gray matter, are in the cerebro- 
spinal system and are found in the olfactory bulbs, the cere- 
bral convolutions, the corpora-striata, the optic thalami, the 
cerebellar lobes, the tubercula quadrigemina, that of the pons 
Varolii and of the medulla oblongata; to which must be added, 
the cornua and the commissure of the spinal cord, the enlarge- 
ments on some of the roots of the cranial and on all the pos- 
terior roots of the spinal nerves, together with the ganglia of 
the sympathetic system. 
The distribution of the white nerve matter, is in tracts, com- 
missures and laminations, immediately and variously associated 
with the gray matter or accumulations enumerated. 
From these central bundles or masses of gray nerve mat- 
ter, nine cranial;}: (Willis) and thirty-one vertebral, in all forty 
pairs of nerves of white matter go off, with great symmetry, 
* Gray’s Anatomy, p. 580. Flint’s Nervous System, p. 340. 
Brain of elephant, 8 to 10 lbs. and in specimen of large whale, above 
5 lbs. The largest human brain about 4 lbs. The superiority of man’s 
nervous organism, whatever may be the exact purpose it subserves in 
the economy, is not, therefore, one of mass, but probably, of texture, 
of specific structure, and of diverse distributions and relations. 
f The rapid and large development of these two organs, the brain 
and the liver, in foetal life, is a most striking fact. It may be 
only a superficial explanation, to point out the provision by which they 
are immediately supplied with best blood. 
J Viewing the human skull as composed of 3 expanded vertebrae, 
(occipetal, parietal and frontal,) whose bodies in the adult are fused into 
the os tri-iasilare, we would by analogy expect only 3 pairs of cranial 
nerves instead of 9 or 12. NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
9 
and together with the sympathetic nerves, ramify to the re- 
motest extremities of the body, supplying the skin, the mus- 
cles the bones and all the vessels and organs of the entire 
body, excepting chiefly the enamel of the teeth and the 
tendons, cartilages, hairs and nails—the parts not supplied 
being destitute of contractility and of sensibility. But 
under all circumstances, the white matter, whether in com- 
missural masses, or in its minutest distributions, is made 
up of fibres which never coalesce with each other, anastomose, 
branch or inter-communicate, as do the blood-vessels, the 
lymphatics, the air-passages of the lungs, or the ducts of the 
liver and of the kidneys. Each nerve fibre preserves its indi- 
viduality and continuity throughout its entire course. 
The gray matter, in like manner, is constant in its adherence 
to its anatomical element, the cell, with its nucleus ; and these 
cells of the gray matter, according to the usual statements, give 
origin to the white fibres. The deep origins of the several 
nerves, however, are deemed obscure. No functional subdi- 
vision of the gray matter is settled, although some important 
and interesting points of distinction, have been marked re- 
specting the decussation of fibres and the diverse action of 
various excitations and lesions. But great importance at- 
taches to the functional classification of the fibres into those 
that are sensory, and those that are motor. 
The anatomical constituent of the ganglionic or gray 
matter, as seen above, is the cell, and it is now to be noted, 
that the specific property or function of the nerve-cell, is, 
according to current notions, to generate, (produce, originate,) 
nerve-force. This is the work of the cell. According to the 
current doctrine, the peculiar force or stimulus evolved or 
liberated by the nerve-cell, in some unknown manner, is, when 
liberated, then conducted by the white fibres, and this conduc- 
tion of the nerve-force, is the sole function of the white fibre 
wherever found. The sensory fibres conduct only from the 
periphery inward to the central ganglia or cerebro-spinal 
masses of grey matter, which elaborate the impressions into 
ideas and volitions. These are called the afferent fibres. The 
motor fibres conduct only from the centre outward, and hence 10 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
are called efferent fibres. But whether afferent and sensory, or 
efferent and motor, the capability of conducting nerve-force is 
the sole physiological property or function of the fibre. 
For the past half century, or since Magendie’s experiments, 
1822, physiologists have recognised the anterior roots of the 
spinal nerves, as motor, and the posterior roots, as sensory. The 
fibres of the motor (non-gangliated) roots are distributed to 
muscles; and the fibres of the posterior (gangliated) roots are 
distributed especially to the skin. The same general physiolo- 
gical distribution of motor and sensory functions obtains like- 
wise amongst the cranial nerves but on a more complicated 
scale. In this view, the cranial nerves may be divided into— 
I. The cranial nerves of sensation, and these again into— 
A. The cranial nerves of special sensation. 
1. Smell, the Ist pair. 
2. Sight, the 2d pair. 
3. Hearing, the 2d root (portio mollis) of the 7th pair, 
4. Taste. 
a. The chorda tyrnpani from the Ist root (portio- 
dura) of the 7th pair, (in probable relation to the portio- 
intermedia of Wrisberg) and, joined with the lingual 
branch of the sth pair, distributed to the anterior half 
or two-thirds of the tongue. 
O 
h. The glossal branch of the glosso-pharyngeal or Ist 
root of the Bth pair and distributed to the posterior 
third of the tongue. 
O 
B. The cranial nerves of general sensation. 
1. The large root of the sth pair. 
2. The first two roots of the Bth pair: 
a. The glosso-pharyngeal, (the Ist root.) 
h. The pneumogastric (the 2d root,) in the distri- 
bution of its root-fibres, its fibres to the mucous 
membrane of the larynx and epiglottis being extremely 
sensitive and, as Professor Flint, Jr., expresses it, “ act- 
ing as a prompt sentinel to guard the entrance of the 
air-passages against foreign bodies.” 
3. The 9th pair by derivation. NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
11 
11. The cranial nerves of motion are tlie 3d, the 4tb, the 6th 
and 9th pairs, the small root of the sth pair; and from 
the 7th pair, the portio-dura or facial, (except the chorda 
tympani,) and. from the Bth pair the spinal-accessory 
whose spinal-rootlets give motion to the sterno-cleido 
mastoid and trapezius muscles, whilst its medulla oblon- 
gata rootlets make it the nerve of phonation. 
It can be seen plainly enough from this sketch that the 
cranial, like the spinal nerves, cluster around and. vibrate be- 
tween the opposite’poles of sensation and motion. 
This general view of the nervous system of man will be 
rendered sufficiently complete for our present purpose, by 
a few words respecting the sympathetic system. It is identical 
in anatomical structure with the cerebro-spinal system and 
forms with it one continuous and completed whole. “ The 
sympathetic is made up, just as is the brain and spinal cord, 
of cells and fibres. * * It has been unwarrantably assumed 
that the cells of the sympathetic system were uniformly 
smaller than those of the central nervous system; but it 
is easy to convince one’s self of the error of this assertion, as 
cells of the largest size may readily be isolated from sympa- 
thetic ganglia. The two systems may properly be regarded as 
functionally conjoined organizations.”* 
The sympathetic contains, therefore, both motor and sensi- 
tive fibres, “ The peculiarity of the sympathetic seems to 
consist merely in the mode in which it assembles its radical 
fibres, and again distributes them in the peripheral direction, ”f 
and in the more widely dispersed condition of its gray matter, 
which is collected into smaller but more numerous masses, 
united by means of peripheral fibres. 
This summary of the structure and functions of the nervous 
system, is perhaps sufficient to indicate the general basis, upon 
which repose the inferences, indicated above, of such tremen- 
dous import touching the constitution of man. 
* Dr. Sigmund Mayer. Strieker’s Manual of Histology, pp. 767, 768, 
t Baly’s Muller's Elements of Physiology, Second Edition, p. 715. 12 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
111. 
Criticism and Counter Theory. 
Ist. The first point to which I ask attention, is that there 
is in the view of physiologists above stated, an exaggerated 
function assigned to the nerve-cel!. It is assumed, through- 
out, as a settled fact of nature, that the nerve-cell, originally, is 
the source and fountain-head of ail the characteristic phenome- 
na immediately associated with the nervous system, It is the 
work of the nerve-cell, to liberate or evolve, by the action of 
its inherent and distinctive properties, and as its own peculiar 
product, not only volitions, which stimulate muscular action 
and contractions, but ideas, as well, and thinking and feeling 
and imagination; and in short, all the phenomena that are 
commonly spoken of as those of mind. Scientifically and phy- 
siologically considered, mental phenomena, properly speaking 
are, therefore, simply nervous phenomena and are truly ex- 
plained by referring them to the single force of nerve matter. 
The favorite illustration, is that of the Galvanic battery 
and its conductors, which device is supposed to illustrate, this 
subject with singular aptness. The action and relation of nerve 
matter, nerve-cells and nerve-fibres, are thereby supposed to 
be pictured, as it were, before the eye. The general fact is 
very simple: the cells of a battery generate a force, and the 
wires conduct it. The wires do not produce, but only trans- 
mit the electricity, which originates from the peculiar reactions 
in the cells of the battery. This illustration will aid us in get- 
ting at the truth in this case. In the first place, it has been 
shown by demonstration, that the electricity conducted by the 
wires, actually originates from the re-action of the cells of the 
battery ; but, it has never been shown, that the stimulus or 
force conducted by the nerve-fibres, originates in the nerve- 
cells. It has not been shown, that any of the nerve influence 
originates from the nerve-cell and yet it is assumed and re- 
petitiously and dogmatically asserted that it all originates NEUROPSYCHOLOGY. 
from that source. It is not known that any of the nerve force 
originates from the nerve-cell, and therefore this assumption 
that it all thus originates cannot be set down, and reasoned 
from, as a fixed fact and the most confident inferences be drawn 
from it. Ido not deny, that any or any kind, of nervous in- 
fluence, is attributable to the cell, as it will be seen further 
on, but, I protest against putting an hypothesis in the place of 
a fact But, again, the actions of a battery are unique and uni- 
form, resolving themselves into reactions, attractions and re- 
pulsions, in one settled succession or round. Whoever heard 
of a battery, with all its cells, in the best possible working 
order, its conductors and communicating appliances in perfect 
condition—l say, whoever heard of a battery, under the most 
favorable circumstances, sending a message of intelligence 
without an operator ? The kind of force that originates from 
the ceils and is conducted bv the metallic fibres, as the result 
of the arrangement and combination of elements, can 
do much, but it cannot, of itself, and independent of a separ- 
ate and ab-extra influence, do that sort of thing. The agency of 
a separate and superior force must be brought into appropriate 
and intimate relations to the subordinate force of electricity, 
and be capable of acting through its instruments and instru- 
mentality before the phenomena of intelligence, of mind, will 
associate and blend with what would otherwise be the dull 
round of unrelieved physical action. It is known, that this 
strikingly analogous state of facts presented, is owing to the 
action of two agencies or forces—that its only explanation, is 
in the recognition of a dual source of influence. 
May it not be just as reasonable, then, to explain the mixed 
and heterogenious phenomena of man’s nervous system by a 
reference of them, to two forces as to one—yes, more reasonable 
to conclude for dualism, than for unitarianism, as the true 
theory of man’s nature. Reasoning from the known, to the un- 
known, is the natural order and not the reverse. Even con- 
ceding, then, that the nerve-cell originates all the nerve-force 
proper, as the battery-cell originates all the electric force pro- 
per, still, the illustration, if of any value, suggests the conclu- 
sion, that the effects are wholly referable to that force only as 14 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
controlled and determined by a superior force in all mani- 
festations of mind or intelligence.* 
2d. Again, the monistic or Unitarian theory, as stated above, 
presupposes that the fibres originate from the nerve-cells; that 
the ganglia, are made up of these cells, as their constituent ele- 
ment ; and that the fibres lead forth from the cells direct, or as 
a continuation of their poles, as the conductors lead off, from 
the cells or poles of a battery; or as the Croton water-pipes 
lead off from the Croton reservoirs and convey the water to 
various prearranged points of distribution. And as these 
pipes distribute only reservoir-water, so, the nerve-fibres convey 
only cell-force. But it disturbs the repose of mind that this view 
might reasonably be expected to give, to learn that the prima- 
ry question, as to the relation of the nerve-fibre to the nerve- 
cell, is not settled ; and not only so, but that the view present- 
ed, seems to be overturned, or, at least vitally modified, by the 
most recent observations. The fundamental structure of the 
nervous system, would appear to be the axis cylinder, which is 
a bundle or faciculus of primitive fibrillae; and the cell itself is 
fibrillar,f being in fact, only an enlargement of the axis cylinder, 
caused by a finely granular substance being interspersed, or 
embedded, between the primitive filaments ; and often contain- 
ing a yellowish or yellowish-brown pigment. (I have here 
followed the views of Max Schultze, as found in chapter 3d 
of Strieker’s Manual.) “In the present state of our knowledge, 
however well we may be acquainted with the peripheric 
termination of a great number of nerve-fibres, it cannot he said 
that the mode of central origin of any single fibril, has hitherto been 
proved? f “No perfectly satisfactory conclusion, can be said to 
have been as yet attained on this point; and it is even conceiv- 
able, according to my observations, (M. Schultze) that there is 
* It is not forgotten, that analogy is not direct proof ; but it serves 
to clear away rubbish, to open the mind to the exact issue and to raise a 
presumption, as all truth is consistent with itself. Thinking is probably 
more needed, at present, than new experiments and observations. 
t The so-called poles are also fibrillar. 
I This passage is quoted with approval in Gray’s Anat., last edition, 
p. 66, foot note. 15 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
no actual termination of the fibrils in the brain or spinal cord; in 
other words, that all fibrils originate at the periphery, and 
thus only traverse the ganglion cells. 
“ The cells of the cerebrum, as I have already observed, (in 
other parts), possess an exquisite fibrillar structure and rather 
appear as a point of junction and intersection for nerve-fibrils 
that are already developed, than as a point of origin for those 
which have not hitherto been in existence.”* 
According to these views, and they are the last words of the 
highest authority on the subject, whilst the nerve-fibres may 
sustain an important relation to cell-substance, so called, it is 
made quite certain, that, in large part, they do not have cell 
origin; and also that it is still an open question, whether any 
of the nerve-fibres originate from nerve-cells. And if the 
case stands thus, then the cell must be subordinate to the fibre 
and not the fibre to the cell. Under this aspect of the case and 
head of our discussion, it may be stated, then, that the assump- 
iion, that all the stimulus or nerve-force conducted bjr the fibres, 
originates in the cells of the gray matter, is not proved. No 
one can pretend that it is proved. It is a mere hypothesis, to 
explain a supposed state of facts that probably does not exist. 
3d. This modified view of the anatomical relation of the fibre 
to the interfibrillar cell substance, as just set forth, may 
warrant the suggestion, which I here venture to submit, that 
nutrition', is the proper and peculiar function allotted to the 
cella The demand for nutrition by the nervous system, is 
probably greater than that of any other part of the body. 
As bearing upon this idea of nutrition as functioned by the 
cell, these facts, amongst others, should be considered : viz.— 
1. The character of the cell substance. 2. The relation of the 
gray matter to the blood circulation. 3. The amount of work 
done, which depends on nerve energy and causes nerve waste. 
1, The interfibrillar, granular substance is probably a residue 
of the embryonic protoplasm, which possibly remains in great- 
er abundance in the immediate vicinity of the nucleus, and 
there retains a power, allied to that which it possessed when 
* Strieker's Manual, p. 141 ;p. 139. The italics are mine. 16 
NEUROPSYCHOLOGY. 
in the embryonic state.* 2. The blood supply, to this gray 
matter, is estimated at five times what it is to the white nerve 
matter.f The ganglia or nodes, or cross roads of the fibres, 
are thus the depots of supply and the places where, 
preeminently, nourishment and stimulus might be, perhaps are 
imbibed from the blood. 3. As to the work done, all muscu- 
lar activity depends on nervous activity, and hence muscular 
waste and nerve waste would be expected to proceed with 
equal step. Take for instance, as an illustration, a single mus- 
cular organ, the heart. 
It is a powerful hollow muscle: according to an estimate 
given in Flint’s as “ based on more reasonable 
data than any other,” the heart, in every complete revolution 
or beat, exerts a force of about 75 lbs. At an average of 70 
beats a minute, for an adult, this gives us over 6,000 lbs. or 
2 1-2 tons a minute, and 150 tons an hour of initial force. 
Respiration, is, also, a strictly muscular action. An adult 
makes about 16 respirations in a minute; and it has also been 
estimated, that each respiration marks an expenditure of force, 
equal to the raising of 500 lbs. one inch; and this gives us the 
exertion of an amount of force in one hour, that will, in that 
time, raise 24 tons one inch. If to this, we should add the 
ceaseless action of the rest of the involuntary muscles, 
and, also, that of the voluntary muscular contractions, 
verily, the result would show, that, could this force all 
take shape in external mechanical effect, such a worker 
as is the body of each man, could, in an open field, with 
plenty of accessible materials and fair weather, soon build the 
Pyramids. But, in. all sobriety, the muscular energy exerted 
by the body, as a strictly physical organism, must be immense; 
and this astonishing expenditure of force, involves a corres- 
ponding waste or destruction and renewal of muscular and 
nerve tissue. The source of nutrition is the blood. The nerve 
fibre drinks in its .nourishment from it, along its paths of dis- 
* Strieker’s Manual, p. 141. 
t From data given in Koelliker’s Microscopical Anatomy, (Huxley’s.) 
\ Physiology of Man, Blood, &c., by Austin Flint, Jr., M.D., p. 188. NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
17 
tribution, but especially, perhaps, as elaborated for it, by means 
of the interfibrillar and nucleated cell substance of the ganglia, 
and so, the real source of the stimulation of involuntary muscu- 
lar contractility may be the blood itself, through the nervous 
system as an intermediary. And hence, the cell, instead of act- 
ing the exaggerated and hyper-physiological part assigned to it, 
of ideation, and elaborating thought and all mental activity, 
may find its hands full of the more natural physiological 
work of ministering to the nutrition of the busy fibres, as 
they ceaselessly functionate muscular contractility and sub- 
serve psychological as well as physiological demands. 
The battery wastes, as it works, in producing electricity and 
it has no power of self-renewal, or it might, like the body, act 
unceasingly. The blood supplies the nerve-tissue its material 
of renewal, and hence its ceaseless action in the stimulation of 
the muscular activity of the organic or vegetative system. But, 
now, see where we stand, for the blood itself is dependent on vol- 
untary action for the procurement and supply of its food.* We 
are thus brought round again by this voluntary procurement 
of food, as a necessary condition of existence, into the pres- 
ence of mind, in voluntary activity, as a hyper-physiological 
force, or element, which in some form and gradation, is seen at 
work in all animals. “ Besides the material substance of which 
the body is constructed, there is also an immaterial principle, 
which, though it eludes detection, is none the less real and to 
which we are constantly obliged to recur in considering the 
phenomena of life.”f—The psychic element in man has a sub- 
stratum of endowments of conscious sensation and will, in com- 
mon with animals, but his specific and distinctive endowments 
of personality and moral agency, of rational consciousness and 
abtract reasoning remove him from them not merely in degree, 
but in kind, by an impassable barrier, by a chasm unbridged 
* “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.”—Lev. 17: 11-14. Gen. 
9:4. It is a remarkable circumstance that these old writings of Moses 
present an appreciation of the vital function of the blood quite up to 
modern investigation. 
+ Principles of Zoology by Agassiz & Gould, §l3B, §139. 18 
NEUEO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
by structural alliance. Evolution is, of course, compatible 
with difference only in degree. 
4th. As pointing to the dual constitution of man, I wish 
also to call attention to the intermediary character of the ner- 
vous system in two other important aspects: 
Ist. In relation to voluntary motion. 
2d. In relation to sensation. 
I use the word intermediary in this sense, viz. : that, on the 
physiological side, in some important respects, the nervous or- 
ganism is not final, but only a link in the chain of natural 
forces; and on the side of mind, that, in the movement from 
without inward, the nervous organism is only an intermediary 
between the external world and sensation ; and in the move- 
ment from within, outward, the nervous system stands be- 
tween the willing mind and voluntary muscular contraction,* 
Let it be remarked that, in a word, the nervous system does 
not functionate for its own sake, but that like other vital vis- 
cera, it has a ministry committed to it. The forces of nature 
are veiled by phenomena, and if we would have a direct intel- 
lectual vision of them, we must with caution and reverence 
lift that veil in a spirit of “ indifferency ”f—not indifferency as 
to what the truth itself may be, but with a willingness to ac- 
cept it, come whence it may, and whatever may be its bearings 
on preconceived opinions or interests. The watch is not un- 
derstood rationally by him who only knows enough of it, to 
wind it, and to read the indications of time from its face. The 
movement consisting of a graduated train of wheels, cogs, pin- 
ions, fugee, stop, springs and escapement, mean little to the 
mere mechanic. All that is food for thought lies concealed 
from the superficial gaze ; but there is in it all the beauty of a 
picture, to him who intelligently interprets the workings of the 
instrument; each part, in its place and relations, may be as 
suggestive as the snow-flake or the dew-drop. There is hid 
* The mind, by its actual presence and by dynamic or catalytic or 
other influence may condition the involuntary activities—but of that I 
do not now speak. 
f In the sense of John Locke, M. D., (1G33-1704,) in the introduction 
of his great essay on the “ Human Under standing.” NEURO PSYCHOLOGY. 
19 
away behind the sensible phenomena in each case, a power 
that determined the movements, or constructed the crystal, 
or gave the drop of water its form. 
That very law which moulds a tear, 
And bids it trickle from its source, 
That law preserves the earth a sphere, 
And guides the planets in their course.—Bogers. 
Whatever may be the class of the facts which we may pro- 
pose to interpret, if they do not group themselves consistently 
under the action of a single force, we are bound to explain them 
by a reference of them to different forces, only bearing in mind 
that by the law of parcimony, we are restrained from assuming 
forces, other than what may be necessary to explain the exis- 
tence of the facts. 
1. But to proceed with the intermediary character of the 
nervous system in relation to voluntary motion. Muscular 
contractility, as we have seen, is an inherent property alike 
of striated and unstriated muscles. The involuntary mus- 
cles constitute an automatic system, only indirectly and 
incidentally under the control of the will. To this auto- 
matic system is entrusted the vital functions, so that they 
are sustained in sleep, as when awake. As already pointed 
out, the hulk of the work done in the economy, is done by it, 
and voluntary movements, as compared therewith, are only 
occasional and incidental and transitory, but, excepting the 
action of the heart, more sudden and violent. Weariness comes 
from voluntary movements only and when excessive and too 
much prolonged. The automatic system never tires, as it calls 
into play neither volition nor thought, nor directly any act 
of mind or intelligence. In the healthy body, there is no 
knowledge of these movements as they progress, for they are 
quite as much beyond the grasp of consciousness as is the 
law of gravitation, although we are immersed in its action 
continually. 
The automatic phenomena are simply muscular contractions 
dependent on nerve-influence, and the voluntary phenomena 
are also muscular contractions dependent on nerve-influence. 
The two groups of facts are quite alike as physical phenomena 
but the circumstances and manner of their occurrence put us on 20 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
very different lines of inquiry. Habits may cause tire action of 
the voluntary muscles called into requisition to become allied to 
the automatic system, as in walking, but the main fact remains, 
that the voluntary activities come within the domain of direct 
knowledge, choice and purpose, and are not simply expressive 
of, but are also prompted or restrained with more or less direct- 
ness and certainty, by feelings, likes or dislikes, tastes, fancies, 
interests, passions, prejudices, pleasure and pain, judgment and 
conscience—a host of circumstances, which create an atmosphere 
for the voluntary phenomena, so called, in which the automatic 
system does not and cannot breathe at all. The two spheres 
of activity, are, in this respect, as unlike as the earth and the 
moon—the one, with its atmosphere and oceans, being instinct 
with the conditions of animated voluntary existence, the other 
from this point of view, being only a dreary waste. The vol- 
untary sphere is that of active personality; the automatic 
sphere is that of physical activity.* To recur again to the il- 
lustration of a battery, A system of electrical appliances, may 
do an allotted round of work automatically and regularly, 
without the active interference of an operator; and in so do- 
ing, it remotely evidences the wisdom and skill of the one who 
pre-established this self-acting combination. We are not here 
concerned with that remote implication, but with the fact, that 
a feature of the very same system of arrangements and con- 
* Such phenomena as Hushing from passion or the emotions of modesty, 
or pallor from fear or rage, or the flow of saliva from the thought or sight 
of food untasted, show an intimate inceptive relation between the mind 
.and the sympathetic system to which these physiological phenomena are 
to he referred. But physiologically these are automate phenomena, as 
we are not conscious of the relaxation nor of the contraction of the ar- 
teries (vasa vasorum) under the control of the sympathetic nerves, 
which congests or empties the capillaries of the face or arouses the gland 
into action in these cases. It is curious to remark that there is also a 
broad domain of the unconscious activity of the mind, the same as of the 
body. It was Leibnitz who first called attention to this law of latency as 
to the mind; lam not aware that its tioo phases—physiological and psy- 
chological—have been articulately correlated. The conscious modifica- 
tions of man’s mind, as compared with its unconscious modifications, 
I have in teaching represented by a small circle inside of a large one, 
the small (conscious) circle having the diameter say of the axle and the 
large (unconscious) one, of the wheel of a carriage. The same symbol 
serves to represent the small amount of conscious as compared with the 
larger amount of unconscious activity of man’s body. NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
nections may be such, that a present individual personality, 
properly endowed, and in proper relations to the system, may 
use it without confusion, in giving present and immediate ex- 
pression to the phenomena of intelligence. All the phenomena, 
both the automatic and the volitional, are in this case electrical 
phenomena, but the circumstances and manner of their occur- 
rence, are such as to constrain the recognition of the action of 
two entirely distinct forces. It would be quite as rational, to 
confound electric force with mind-force in this case, as nerve- 
force with mind-force, in man. In both cases, the intermediary 
■physical force is subordinate to the action of a higher power. The 
muscular act of grasping with the hand is the same, whether it 
be to lay hold of and to cling to your own pocket-book, or to 
that of another. The muscular act of bending the finger is the 
same, whether it be to pull the trigger in the sport of the gal- 
lery, or the chase, or to defend life against an assassin, or to 
take life as an assassin. 
May it not be asked with incisive pertinency, whether he 
who sees not back of, and above, such identical physical acts as 
these, the active presence of a controlling personality, of a 
force, entirely different from and superior to nervous and mus- 
cular force, must not be pre-occupied and infatuated by some 
preverse hallucination ? 
2. But I must hasten to consider the relation of the nervous 
system to sensation. The reality of sensation being assumed, 
the question arises as to its locus. Are the phenomena of sen- 
sation the product of nerve-action, or does the property or 
power of sensation reside in some substance different from nerve- 
matter ? Contractility, resides in muscle, as an inherent prop- 
erty of its tissue. The nerve-influence does not generate it, 
nor impart it, but only wakes it into action, as something 
already existing. This contractility exists distinctly from, and 
independently of the nerve-influence, and may be excited by 
other agents, yet physiologically it is in such intimate and pe- 
culiar relation to the nerve-matter, as in some unknown way, 
to be excited into activity by it. Why, then, may not the 
power of sensation be the property of a substance quite as 
distinct as muscle from the nerve-matter? 22 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY4. 
It is just as easy to recognize the one alternative as the other. 
On the efferent, or outward movement, the power of contracti- 
lity is excited in the muscle, by nerve-influence; on the afferent 
or inward movement, the power of sensation in the mind is ex- 
cited into action by nerve-influence. 
The reason of the case, then, warrants the supposition that 
the sensation is no more produced, nor generated, by the 
nerve force, than is the muscular contractility: the one, is 
located in the muscle ; the other, is located in the mind. This, 
however, lands ns again in natural dualism as the theory of 
man’s constitution. And the reasoning that will throw down 
the tower of mind that stands at one end of this line of com- 
munication, will as certainly overturn the tower of muscle 
that stands at the other. On the one hand, the nerve-change 
is the physiological condition of sensation whose seat is not in 
nerve nor nerve-force, but in mind and mind-force; just as on 
the other, the nerve-change is the condition of muscular exci- 
tation whose seat is not in the nerve but in the muscle. The 
nerve is thus a physiological intermediary or conditionate of 
the muscular and also of the mental act. The connection is as 
intelligible in one case as in the other and the evidence of both 
is equally valid. The reality of the sensation in consciousness as 
conditioned by nerve-change is less doubtful, if there be a dif- 
ference, than the reality of the muscular contraction as con- 
ditioned by nerve-action. Both are known only and alike by 
consciousness under empirical conditions. 
But I must close this part of the discussion abruptly, as it is 
growing beyond the bounds of all expectation, notwithstand- 
ing the disadvantage to what has been said, that may be oc- 
casioned by the omission of a number of specific and pertinent 
considerations of lively interest, that have not even been inti- 
mated. 
The attempt to reduce the complex phenomena associated 
with the workings of our nervous system to scientific unitari- 
anism, appears to me very much vitiated by the fallacy of in- 
complete observation and of hasty generalization. 
Whether man is a compound being, consisting of body and 
mind (or soul) is simply a question of fact, which must be set- 23 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
tied, if at all, by the authority of evidence. That evidence is 
doubtless in existence and would seem to be the most accessi- 
ble evidence in the world, as each one contains it completely 
within himself. But it is found to be extremely shy and 
difficult of approach. 
I am satisfied, on purely scientific grounds, that not only the 
testimony of the senses (objective), but also that strictly on 
the (subjective) side of consciousness must be admitted, be- 
fore the case is made complete; otherwise the case is like 
that of a man believing in what he sees through a microscope 
or a telescope, but, refusing to believe in what he sees with 
the naked eye. But it will be observed, that the movement 
of the foregoing discussion, is entirely within the sphere of 
neurology, that of consciousness or psychology not having 
been entered at all; yet, it is there, in the domain of psycho- 
logy that the argument is supposed to have its main strength. 
sth. But suppose the theory of the coexistence of matter and 
mind, back of the complicate phenomena of man’s nature as 
advocated in what precedes, to be conceded—and if conceded (as 
not contradicting the necessary import of established facts, 
but and only as having, in view of the available evidence, 
a title to serious consideration as claiming to be in accordance 
with fact,) then, before accepting it in full, there arise several 
questions, as to the nature and extent of the necessary relation 
of these coexistent united substances, two or three of which 
may be considered briefly. 
1. The attempts to formulate the extent of this relation, have 
been very varied, from (a) that of Descartes, who seated the 
mind in the pineal gland, to (h) that which holds to the 
omnipresence of the mind throughout the nervous organism—an 
opinion, which, in its phases, has a wonderful history, and 
with which, from the exigencies of the discussion in the future, 
physiologists may have occasion to be better acquainted, than 
they appear to be at present. 
Some of the ablest investigators have pronounced it (h) 
“ more philosophical, and, consequently, more probable than 
any other opinion.” It was not this view of the mind’s omni- 24 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
presence to the nervous system, wliicli was to Aristotle an un- 
digested heap, but, of the mind’s essential and indivisible one- 
ness and indiscriminate and equal relation to the whole body 
that originated the peripatetic aphorism, The soul is all in the 
whole (body) and all in every part* 
But it is interesting to note, that this view of the soul’s in- 
tegrity was enunciated by Aristotle, who was the discoverer of 
the nerves in the animal organism, and the most distinguished 
anatomist and naturalist of antiquity; and who acquired no 
less glory in philosophy, than in the sciences accessory to 
medicine, f 
* “The doctrine, that the faculties and capacities of the soul, are the 
mere modes, in which the simple indivisible principle of thought, acts 
and exists, is the catholic doctrine of psychology. It is a proof of its 
universality, that few modern psychologists have ever thought it neces- 
sary to make an explicit profession of their faith in what they silently as- 
sumed . 
No accusation can, therefore, be more ungrounded, than that which 
has been directed against philosophers, that they have generally har- 
bored the opinion, that faculties are like organs in the body, distinct 
constituents of mind. 
The Aristotelic principle, that in relation to the body, “ The soul is all 
in the whole, and all in every part,”1 that it is the same indivisible 
mind, that operates in sense, in imagination, in memory, in reason- 
ing, &c., differently indeed, but differently only because operating in 
different relations—this opinion, is the one dominant among psycholo- 
gists, and the one which, though not always formally proclaimed, must, 
if not jmsitively disclaimed, be, in justice, presumptively attributed to 
every philosopher of mind.” 
f Dunglison’s History of Med., p. 139. “The principal discovery made 
by Aristotle, in Anatomy, was that of the nerves. But although he was 
well acquainted with the parts of the human frame designated under 
that name, he appears to have observed them only in animals.—He 
erroneously asserts, that there is no continuity between the brain and or- 
gans of sense, and he therefore derives all the senses from the heart.” 
1 Arist. Hspl WvxyS, i. v. 31. 
ditavf ivvTtdpxEi rd juopia rrp ipvxi'p, n. r. A. 
* * * ev ixaripM rcor popioov 
“In the Greek Philosophers, the term, ipvxy, (soul) comprehends, be- 
sides the sensitive and rational principle in man, the principle of organic 
life, both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms.” The two, however, are not 
to be confounded. In this Thesis, it is after “the sensitive and rational 
principle in man,” and not “ the principle of organic life,” that search is made. 
Vide Sir Wm. Hamilton’s Ltcis. on Metaphysics, pp. 271-273. 25 
NEUROPSYCHOLOGY". 
If, as is the fact, sensations be in the mind and not in the 
body, nor in any part of it, the nervous system only furnishing 
the physical conditions incident to their occurrence, then sen- 
sation may properly be defined, as the mind's cognizance of any 
change in the nervous organism. The change itself is not the 
sensation, but the mind’s cognizance of it.* 
There appear to be three degrees of intensity in these nerve- 
changes. Ist. Those that stand on a level with consciousness 
and come within its grasp, and so are matters of knowledge. 2d. 
Those below that level, as in all the processes of waste and nu- 
trition, and the ordinary operations of the organic or auto- 
matic system. 3d. Those of hypersesthesia. The first arouse 
intelligence and will, the second, leave only a diffused im- 
pression of a sense of health and well-being, when normal. 
But excessive excitation may occasion the intensest agitation 
and suffering. It is in the singleness of consciousness, that all 
these phenomena attain a unity and significance of higher 
moment, than could attach to them as the routine occurrences of 
an animal organism. 
2. The conditions of the union of mind and body and of their 
reciprocal action are doubtless found, on the physical side, in 
the anatomical structure and physiological functions of the 
* “We class sensations along with emotions, and volitions, and thoughts> 
under the common head of states of consciousness. But what conscious- 
ness is, we know not ; and how it is that anything so remarkable as a 
state of consciousness comes about as the result of irritating nervous tis- 
sue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of Djin when Aladdin 
rubbed his lamp in the story, or as any ultimate fact of nature.” 
Huxley’s Physiol. § 238. —“A state of consciousness,”then, is accepted 
as “an ultimate fact of nature.” This concession is very important, as 
we are not called on to explain consciousness, for we do not explain ulti- 
mate facts, but we do explain derivative and dependent facts by a refer- 
ence of them to ultimate facts. We do not explain ultimate facts but 
we do explain by means of them. Consciousness being ant ultimate 
fact of nature, we are no more at liberty to ignore it or to refer its ap- 
propriate phenomena to some other subject, as nerve action, than to 
identify the facts of pure mathematics with the facts of chemistry. 
Consciousness is the eye of the mind or soul, and truth is its medium of 
vision, like natural light to the eye of the body. Consciousness is our 
primary and fundamental organ of immediate as distinguished from 
inferential knowledge. Let us not forget nor ignore, therefore, this vital 
point, viz: That consciousness is an ultimate fact of nature. 26 
KEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
nervous system. It is at this point, that the psychologist ap- 
proaches the anatomist and physiologist, and craves his 
kindly help. 
If it be ascertained and settled that the corpora-striata are as- 
sociated with voluntary motion ; the cerebellum and posterior 
columns of the cord with the co-ordination of motion; the optic 
thalami with sensation ; the tubercula quadrigemina with vision, 
and so on—all right; for facts as facts are sacred, but, no theo- 
ry, however current or pretentious, has the slightest validity, 
except as an interpretation thereof. These functions, whatever 
they may be ascertained to be, are the conditions sought for, 
upon which mental modifications or operations have, as now 
known, some sort of dependence. The powers of mind are not 
to be identified with the functions of the nervous organism, nor 
to be supposed inherent in the substance of which it is com- 
posed. But this organism, is the instrument, whereby or 
through which, as an intermediary, the mind receives impres- 
sions from without and manifests itself from within. The 
varied pipes, octaves and stops of the organ capacitate it to 
convert,atmospheric vibrations, into music. But it is the mu- 
sician that gives the intelligent unity of life to these vibrations. 
How ghastly the contortions of the cadaver, let the excitants 
be applied ever so skillfully—something is lacking, the horse 
has lost its rider. The harp of a thousand strings lies there, 
and not a string is unstrung or broken, yet no music can be 
swept from those cords. In life, each string, each pipe, each 
stop and key performs its part. “If,” says Dalton, “these in- 
struments be imperfect in structure, or be damaged in any 
manner by violence or disease, the manifestations of intelli- 
gence are affected in a corresponding degree,”* Affected it 
is true, but certainly not always strictly “ in a corresponding 
degree,” whether the mind be limited to the brain or be 
O / 
omnipresent throughout the nervous organism. The idea may 
here occur that, on the doctrine of this Thesis, the loss of parts 
of the body would imply a corresponding loss of mind or 
mental capacity. But it is inept. The immaterial part not 
* Dalton’s Physiology, p. 438. NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
being mechanically divisible, the loss of a limb is only the 
loss of a string from the piano or of a stop or pipe from an 
organ and not a loss of musical power on the part of the per- 
former. Of course the genius of the musician cannot reveal 
itself beyond the capacity of his instrument, and if the instru- 
ment be mutilated, although Ms powers remain intact, yet the 
manifestation of them is, so far as that instrument is concerned, 
lessened if not destroyed. The mind can reveal itself in sen- 
sible phenomena only through its bodily organs and in the 
manner and to the extent only of the capabilities of 
the bodily organism. If legs be lost, then leg-revelation 
ceases, but it is only the physical ability to walk that is gone. 
Animals survive mutilation so long as enough of the body is 
left to maintain the vital functions. Consciousness remains 
so long as the nervous conditions of its continued relation re- 
main. The decapitation of a frog or of an alligator* is not at 
* “An alligator, 6| feet long, was shot through the eye by my sister, 
in Lee County, Ga., March, 1865. I arrived home some two or three 
hours afterwards and proceeded with the assistance of a negro man to 
skin the animal, taking the precaution to sever the head from the body 
by several blows of an ax. Some minutes after this, (the head being 
several feet removed from the body,) I made an incision several inches 
long in the back of the animal near the lumbar region. No sooner had 
I done this than the animal gave a flounce with his tail, whereupon I 
withdrew to a respectful distance, to observe his movements. He then 
slowly and deliberately raised himself on his fore-feet, turned the decap- 
itated extremity around to the right (the wounded side,) and shaped 
himself so that had the head been on he could easily have covered the 
wounded part. I concluded.to wait until these signs of life had ceased 
and never repeated the experiment. (Signed,) John A. Wyeth.” 
My friend and preceptor, John A. Wyeth, M. D., (226 sth Avenue, 
New York, Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy in Bellevue Hospital 
Medical College,) has kindly given me this statement of an interesting 
and important fact hitherto unpublished. It is only necessary to remark 
that even if the “ flounce ” of the tail and shudder be referred to shock 
or reflex action, the subsequent deliberate movement, especially in view 
of the somewhat exhausted condition of the animal, has probably a 
deeper significance. A marked sensation of a nervous change and a 
subsequently manifested appreciation, in accordance with experience, of 
an ab-extra cause to be warded off, are I conceive indicative of that 
pronounced phase of consciousness known as perception. So also the 
frog’s appreciating and adjusting its ab-extra poise and relations, in the 
well known cases. It should be distinctly noted that, in the vocabulary 
of psychology, perception is sensation plus causation under the form of 
a non-ego; whereas in the vocabulary of the physiologist, it sometimes 28 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
once destructive of the physiological condition of the continu- 
ance of its consciousness; the decapitation of a man or of the 
higher animals is. This serves to intimate what I conceive 
to be the proper interpretation of the events and experiments 
to which in this connection, ft is now only practicable to allude. 
8. The mode in which the mind may act or be acted upon, 
through the nervous system as an organ, is just as intelligible 
as the mode in which the thought of the organist can take 
shape and be conveyed to our minds, by the manipulations of 
the stops and keys of his instrument. The how, may baffle 
comprehension, but the facts remain in their integrity. 
How food effects nourishment, is an incomprehensible mys- 
tery, but the fact remains and we act on it daily. A 
comprehension of their mode of existence and correlation, is 
not, therefore, necessary to our most undoubted recognition of 
the reality of both body and mind in the constitution of man 
and as interfunctionating each other, in sickness and in health. 
We are competent to know that different parts of the nervous 
organism hold relations to the mind, different both in degree 
and kind ; but the unity of consciousness and the oneness and 
immutability of our personality, which is the foundation of our 
identity, preclude, not from relations to the mind, but from ac- 
tual or possible identification with the mind, all the distinctive 
and constitutive attributes of matter, such as extension, or diffu- 
sion, inpenetrability, division, form, weight and entire destitu- 
tion of consciousness. It may be announced as a canon in psy- 
chology that personality has individual übiquity, and that its acts 
must ever be somewhere, as well as somewhen, but that it only 
contingently respects the specific limitations that arise from the 
three dimensions of space, viz. : length, breadth and thickness, 
which hold matter in their inexorable grasp. It implies an egre- 
has a totally different and novel meaning, viz: The ganglionic nexus be- 
tween afferent and efferent currents in reflex action. For example, a 
muscular contraction, it may be in a dead body, responding to an im- 
pression upon a sensative external or internal surface is said to be per- 
ceived by the nerve centre. As the so-called perception, in such a case, 
has nothing to do with consciousness, it has no psychological import. 
Perception (proper) implies a conscious distinction between self and not 
self—a cognition of the ego and non ego as coexistent and correlated. 
It is the core of psychology. NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
29 
gious misconception of the true nature of mind, about which men 
undertake to reason, when they, avowedly or impliedly, parcel 
it out amongst various parts of the nerve matter, or attempt to 
divide, or to distribute, or to limit it by localizing processes. 
The attributes of mind and of matter are incompatible and 
mutually exclusive of each other and cannot co-exist in the. same 
substance i.e. in the same ultimate principle or condition of 
unity ;* but, when each of these separate groups of attributes 
has found recognition as the properties of distinct and separate, 
substances, then their respective relations may be reasoned 
about intelligently. But if things so different and opposite 
are confounded at the very outset, .stumbling thus on the 
threshold, only confusion, inconsequence and mistakes can 
be the result. To attempt therefore, to localise the mind in the 
brain, or in any other part or parts of the nervous organism, 
is beset with vicious consequences, as it is violative of 
the testimonies of consciousness and of experiment. These 
testimonies will ultimately no doubt be seen to coincide 
* The assertion of this position, is not, as Professor Perrier is 
pleased to call it, “an unshotted broadside, the brunt of which Ma- 
terialism can very well stand;” but it is an impregnable fortress of truth, 
whose adamantine and glittering ramparts, can neither be battered nor 
broken, by the hostile missiles of scientific Unitarians, whether they 
fight under the banner of Idealism or Materialism. If, as is conceded, 
the attributes of both mind and matter seem to exist, the law of Par- 
cimony requires, not that we shall allow either to swallow up the other, 
but that we shall clothe each substance or object with its own quali- 
ties, as the only explanation that does no violence to the integrity of 
the facts of natux-e. The facts are patent and common property, and 
all acknowledge that both matter and mind seem to exist, but the dif- 
ference is in the interpretation. All scientific Unitarians insist, in their 
explanation of the facts, that this seeming is illusory and deceptive, 
either as to the one or the other of these substances; whereas natural 
dualists, adhering to the dictates of common sense, in their explanation, 
hold, that this seeming is not illusory but real and that we actually have 
in nature, just as we seem to have, not the mere appearances of matter 
and mind—not the mere semblances and shadows, but the substantial 
realities. If the seeming be wholly illusory, then neither matter nor 
mind exists; if it be not all illusory, then both matter and mind exist. 
There is no middle ground between nihilism and scientific dualism. 
Tell me not in mournful numbers, 
That life is but an empty dream, 
Tor the soul is dead that slumbers 
And things are not what they seem. 
Longfellow’s Psalm of Life. 30 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
and harmonise with the simplicity, ease and distinctness, 
which are ever characteristic of the truth when found. The 
most natural supposition would appear to be that the mind is 
present wherever it knows itself to be present; and this self- 
knowledge being a matter of consciousness, this is tantamount 
to saying that the mind must he present and act, wherever it is 
conscious of acting. 
6th. Now, every person can test this matter for himself in 
various ways. Press your toe against the floor. You are per- 
fectly conscious of resistance, you know it then and there, at 
the time and place of contact. 
There is not the slightest perception, nor suggestion of cur- 
rents afferent or efferent, nor of any transfer of the sensation or 
idea of resistance ; nor is there any intimation of any lapse of 
time. The more often the experiment is repeated and varied, 
the better, as it always gives the same result. 
But it is conceived to be a difficulty that the division of a 
nerve, or the pressure of a tumor, cuts off all sensation and 
voluntary motion from the distal parts. Sever the posterior 
roots of the lumbar and sacral nerves as did Magendie, and you 
may cut off the big toe or any other part of the leg on the side of 
the division without sensation from the operation. The divis- 
ion of the anterior roots destroys voluntary motion in the parts 
supplied and thus isolated. But this only shows that the nor- 
mal continuity of the nerves is the physiological condition of 
the mind’s presence and cognisance and volitional influence 
in those parts, and I venture the opinion that it shows and 
has been made to show no more. Moreover, the phenomena 
of reflex action cannot properly be identified with, nor made 
the criteria of, conscious sensation and volition. 
All our knowledge, whether of self or not-self, is acquired. 
Innate knowledge and innate ideas have vanished like many 
of the fictions of physics and of physiology. Copernicus dis- 
pelled the illusion of the sun’s revolution around the earth; 
and not till Galen did it, was it shown that blood and not air, 
as the name would imply, circulates in our arteries. The 
attributes of matter do not pertain to consciousness, and what 
knowledge we have of these material attributes is not in- NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY, 
nate but acquired. The magnitude, form and parts of the 
body, are by degrees brought within the range of our knowl- 
edge and all the facts respecting transferred sensation, as in 
amputated limbs and rhinoplasty, have only an empirical 
and contingent support, and the new condition of the body 
ordinarily soon falls within its proper associations in re- 
lation to the rest of the system. The continuity and normal 
physical condition of the nervous system are circumstances 
which cannot be violated with impunity; and established 
empirical associations will necessarily mislead under altered 
conditions until empirically corrected. 
As to the theory of currents, it is by no means de- 
monstrated. Electricity, it is conceded, is not nerve-force, and 
it is a fallacy to substitute its responses for those of nature.* I 
* Flint’s Nervous System, pp. 99—104. See Popular Science Monthly, 
Jan., 1878, p. 360, for a popular account of the experiments of 
others. This vicious substitution has hatched a brood of errors, 
of fallacies, of absurdities, such as that respecting the speed with which 
sensation travels along the nerves, and which fiction is in active pub- 
lic service, as a means of enlightening the masses ! e.g. 
Prof. Richard A. Proctor, in his recent course of lectures on Astrono- 
my, credited to Prof. Mendenhall of the U. S., the honor of affording 
him the means of the following illustration. “ Feeling is conveyed along 
the nerves ten times slower than sound travels. If therefore, an infant were 
born having an arm of the somewhat inconvenient length of 91 millions 
of miles, so as to reach the sun ; and if, while in the cradle in boyhood 
he were to stretch out his arm and touch the sun, that infant might grow 
to the three-score years and ten allotted to man, or even four-score, but 
he would never be conscious of the fact that the tip of his finger was 
burned. He must live 135 years before any effect would be experien- 
ced.” In the same connection, and speaking within his own chosen 
field of labor, the distinguished lecturer urged the fact that “because 
there is no appreciable increase in the length of the year, it is shown 
that the force of gravity acts instantaneously. Gravity, the sun’s 
might, acts, so far as we can judge, instantaneously. It is one of the 
forces of which we are able to give no account whatever, for all our laws 
of matter are opposed to the conception of force acting otherwise than 
by contact.” 
If this be so, behold the superiority of gravity to thought ! Credat 
Judaeus, non ego. Electricity is very subtle, and I note very often 
that it misleads. Experimentations with it, like “words, are the coun- 
ters of wise men, and the money of fools.” Yet, on the popular theory 
of nerve currents, afferent and efferent, to and from the sensory, such 
inferences are not only legimate but inevitable however strange they may 
appear to be. But no theory, however plausible in speculation, can hold 
its ground against the facts of consciousness and the opposing light and 
testimony of nature herself. To iguore the direct testimony of consci- 32 
NEUROPSYCHOLOGY. 
have experimented, to my own satisfaction, with the following 
result. Arrange electric magnets all in the same circuit, 
so that a single closure may bring points or surfaces of 
impact in contact with various parts of the body. Fasten 
the magnets with their armature levers on the limbs 
and parts of the body, so as to make sure that the contacts 
with the skin shall occur; likewise average the points and de- 
grees of contact with due reference to the variations of the sen- 
sibility of the different parts. “ If the closures are simultaneous, 
then the impressions on different parts of the healthy body are 
known simultaneously, f 
The consciousness or knowledge of these impressions does 
not arise at intervals corresponding to the distances of the parts 
affected from the encephalos, but simultaneously. If this attests 
anything, it is the omnipresence of consciousness throughout the 
nervous organism, cognising the changes therein at the time and 
place of their occurrence.—The advantages claimed by me for 
this experimentation are, Ist. Nature is as little disturbed as 
ousness as primary when acting within its proper sphere, and to appeal 
to the testimony of instruments whose action is dependent on consci- 
ousness itself for its accuracy, is to reenact the role of the old lady who 
ransacked the house for her spectacles, through which she was all the 
time looking whilst making the search. That which is measured by 
the recording instruments operated by the subjects of experiments, is 
probably muscular contraction which, being only a mode of motion, is 
of course measurable, in time units; and then contingently, there may 
be an appreciable interval between the sensation and the volition to 
make the record, not to speak of the time consumed by the action of the 
most delicate instruments. In appreciating reflex phenomena, the law of 
continuity which I have laid down must not be ignored. 
* Muller’s Physiology, p. 753. 
f This direct appeal to consciousness (the internal subjective standard,) 
must be accepted as valid, as its testimony is only checked and verified 
approximately by using recording instruments. If its direct testimony is 
not valid neither can its mediate testimony through instruments be reliable. 
This direct testimony is not an inference, deductive or inductive, but an 
immediate act and ultimate datum of consciousness. The two proposi- 
tions, Ilcnow, and Ilcnow that Ilcnow, are, in this point of view, inden- 
tical. Every act of consciousness is self-luminous. This appeal to the 
testimony of consciousness direct, seems, therefore, to reduce the person- 
al equation of error to its minimum terms. We are here dealing not 
only with the facts of body but of mind, and hence we must not beg 
the question on either side by the method of investigation adopted, 
but give all the facts and conditions in question a fair hearing. 33 
NEURO-PSYCHOLOG-Y. 
possible; 2d. The electric action is the nearest possible ap- 
proach to absolute simultaneity of impression ; 3d. There is 
no limit to the number or variation of the points that may be 
brought into comparison ; and 4th. The element of muscular 
contraction, a source of palpable error, is thrown out; and sth, 
finally, even the time of the action of the instruments does not 
intervene to disturb the result, that is to say, there is-no error 
in the substitution of the electric action, through its appareil, for 
the action of the mind itself. If the result reached be not an 
illusion, it annihilates the afferent current, and, by doing that, it 
overwhelms with doubt the efferent one, as physiological phe- 
nomena. 
The fact, that the mind is present in the big toe and is there 
immediately conscious of the impressions made upon it, does 
not imply that the soul’s energies are as fully exerted there, 
as where fuller and higher provisions, as in the cerebro-spinal 
centres, are made for furnishing it the physiological conditions 
of more diversified and exalted operations. That the mind 
thinks in the great toe, does not imply that it does not think 
also and more completely in the head; and vice versa; and 
the intricate arrangements of its parts, would by parity of 
reasoning, point to the brain as the sacred shrine where are 
veiled not exclusively, but pre-eminently the hidings of its 
powers. 
irv. 
I will only add, in conclusion, that the dual theory of man’s 
constitution, has important bearings on the interpretation and 
treatment of morbid phenomena, and that it seems to be 
available as a principle of classification for what are called 
Nervous Diseases. 
Ist. Neuroses. Affections having their seat in some nerve 
lesion or functional disturbance, but mind not appre- 
ciably affected. 
2d. Psychoses. Affections which have their seat in mental 
conditions, but body not appreciably affected. It is no 
more certain that some disturbances occur in the brain, NEURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
cord and nerves without involving mental disturbances, 
than that most distressing mental conditions and aberra- 
tions occur, when bodily health is not impaired. Such 
cases, however, may require the Pastor rather than the 
Doctor, as the prospect of relief must be mainly through 
the mind and not the body. 
3d. Neuropsychoses. Those affections that have their initia- 
tive in nerve-lesion, deranged function or inflammation, 
but invade the mind. 
4th. Psychoneuroses begin in psychic conditions but induce 
nerve-lesion or functional derangement and inflamma- 
tion. Facts do not appear to sustain the Unitarian no- 
tion, that the mind is a mere function of the nervous 
organism, so that insanity and all other nervous diseases 
are only the expression of a morbid bodily condition. 
The forces that are etiological act and react in these 
cases, and they act from within, outward, as well as from 
without, inward. The bodily condition may be the 
symptom or the sequel, or the co-ordinate of the psychic. 
Mere mental depression or distress from domestic 
affliction, or business misfortune, sudden impressions of 
joy or sorrow, &c., may invade the bodily conditions on 
which health depends—yes, even life itself. 
“Case 13,”* “ A woman, aged 47, on admission, &c., gave 
the following account: 
“ Three years ago, after a violent emotion,f she had a feeling of 
numbness and formication in the upper limbs, more in the 
left, and afterwards in the lower limbs ; gradual weakness came 
in all the left side, &c.” Quite an evolution of progressive af- 
fections is given, evidently demanding time. “ The pain went 
on increasing and diarrhea caused death.” The author re- 
marks respecting this case, that it is “ very important, and has 
more value than most of the cases ” related by him, on account 
of the microscopical examination of the altered parts of the spi- 
nal cord. “ The brain and cerebellum, carefully examined, were 
* Brown-Sequard’s Lects. on the Central Nervous System, p. 66. 
t The italics are mine. N EURO-PSYCHOLOGY. 
35 
found healthy.” (Dr. Charles Robin assisted in the autopsy.) 
This case began, or took its initiative from a purely 'psychic 
condition,—“a violent emotion,” and the neurotic symptoms 
were consequent thereon, and over 3 years intervened before 
death. This was an abundance of time, for the occurrence of 
of all the lesions found in the examination. There is no pre- 
sumption that any lesionpreceded the “ emotion.” This, therefore, 
appears to be plainly a psychoneurotic case. The same dis- 
tinguished authority, in his lectures on the diagnosis and treat- 
ment of nervous affections, places “ the moral means of treat- 
ment ” first in order, and observes in that connection: “ I need 
not repeat, that I am now speaking only of those neuroses, in 
which the power of the mind upon the body is so great, that under 
the influence of an emotion, or another moral cause, a sudden 
or almost sudden cure is not very rare." 
The psychic element of our constitution, then, is not a mere 
function, but a functioner—a substantial factor, whose real and 
active presence cannot be ignored, in the diagnosis and treat- 
ment of disease, with any more propriety than could that of 
the nervous system itself. 
I end this Thesis, therefore, as I began it, by invoking friend- 
ly co-operation between Physiology and Psychology, in the 
establishment of a Neuro-psychology, not as an abstract specu- 
lation, but as a practical philosophy, in the interest of medi- 
cine and of man. 
“Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 
Was not spoken of the soul.” 
New York, Jan, 30th, 1874. 
[N. B. As the variations from the original manuscript are immaterial, 
only being such as to bring out the sense in a few passages more clear- 
ly or to guard against misapprehension, they do not require articulate 
notice.]