of water poured over him. He again persisted he would write, again dressed, and again broke his promise; eight pails were then ordered to be brought, and when he saw them ranged before him, and had become convinced that I was likely to carry out my threat, he gave up further resistance, and devoted the rest of the day to writing his life in all its details."

In the case of another patient, the same treatment is successfully adopted, to force working in the garden. I only adduce these instances from Mr. Leuret's really valuable work, not as fair specimens of his general treatment, but, as affording an illustration to the peculiar views entertained by him, as to the purpose for which the douche may be justifiably employed. Mr. Leuret, I must say, seems well aware of the dangers attending such practice; inculcates great caution, and mentions it as specially important, that the physician should himself superintend the administration of such a bath.

The Human Mind, in its relations with the Brain and Nervous System. By DANIEL NOBLE, M.D. Churchill, 1858.

Altho' the laws which govern the mind of man have been the study of the greatest thinkers of our race, from the remotest ages, the result which that study has afforded has been unsatisfactory in the highest degree. Well has Goethe put into the mouth of Mephistopheles this satire on metaphysical investigation:

Ich sag'es dir ein Kerl, der speculirt,

:

Ist wie ein Thier, auf dürrer Heide

Von einem bösen Geist im Kreis herum geführt,

Und rings umher liegt schöne, grüne Weide."

On the other hand, our own day has seen the rise of a study allied to metaphysics, and which promises to remove in time these unsatisfactory results of so much thoughtful labour, by directing it away from vague speculation towards that foundation of sound philosophy, which is to be found in the investigation of the laws regulating the relations between mind and matter, and in the study of the connection of the human mind, in all its several manifestations, with that body in which it dwells, and through which it acts.

The work at the head of this article is a well-written contribution to this science of physiological psychology, as distinguished from pure metaphysics.

For while metaphysics deals simply with the laws of mind, as deduced from analysis of the operations of our own mind, or of the motives which lead to action in others, physiological psychology treats these laws simply in their relation to the brain and nervous system.

Dr. Noble justly appreciates this distinction. The second chapter of the work before us, Psychology and Physiology, places in clear contrast the respective fields of observation of the metaphysician and the physiologist; and Dr. Noble, while directing his own investigations towards the latter, has evidently felt it his duty to make himself familiar with the previous researches of our great Scotch metaphysicians, Brown, Reid, Hamilton, and Stewart.

"Psychological (i.e. metaphysical) systems," he observes, "are for the most part made up of classifications, which their authors institute of the several psychical states; and such systems, moreover, concern themselves with the particular laws which seem to regulate their various modes of manifestation. The pure psychologist (the metaphysician) simply investigates the facts of consciousness, whilst the physiological psychologist labours to discover the organic conditions under which the different mental phenomena have place. Philosophers of the former class have usually indicated certain prominent and striking characteristics of the mind's action, and have laboured to prove their origin in certain fundamental dispositions, tendencies, and capabilities; these have been then so arranged and otherwise dealt with, as to make up the particular systems of abstract teaching."

On the other hand, the field of observation occupied by the physiological psychologist, and which it is the object of Dr. Noble to mark out, is thus defined by him :

"The physiological psychologist, in attempting to trace the connexion which the brain and nervous system maintain with the mind and its various manifestations, avails himself largely of the fact so general in physiological anatomy, that size or amount of nervous tissue constitutes an element of functional energy-a fact strikingly exemplified by the circumstance that a very small human brain, indicated by a head of decidedly inferior dimensions, is always accompained with mental imbecility. This relation, indeed, between size of structure and vigour of function has supplied the guiding thread to most investigators, who have striven, by the aid of anatomy and physiology, to elucidate or advance either the psychology of man or that of the animal kingdom at large. In

particular, the correspondence between mental power and encephalic characteristics has in this way been sought for."

Dr. Noble refers in the following terms to the extinct. science of Phrenology, one of the precursors, as he now views it, of physiological psychology:

"As a system, phrenology would not appear to have received that confirmation from extended investigation anticipated in its earlier history by many able physiologists. If, indeed, innate personal endowment of intellect and moral disposition were something readily ascertainable; if the influence of inherent aptitudes and tendencies were determinable, from external actions, with anything like moderate exactness; if, at the same time, the size of separate portions of the encephalon could be verified to a corresponding extent; and if multiplied observations led actually to uniform results, it must be admitted that Gall's physiology of the brain would have been established as a fact, however inconclusive or vicious should be the reasonings and deductions of individual phrenologists. Coincidences in many cases are undoubtedly noticeable between form of the head and peculiarity of mind; but a sufficiently wide observation and collection of instances never fail to exhibit discrepancies that completely overthrow the pretensions of systematic phrenology. It must still be admitted, I think, that phrenology, like every other honest extravagance, has some portion of truth underlying it; for, unquestionably, there is much reality in many of Gall's cranioscopic observations. Any one remarking, with an ordinary degree of attention, the form and dimensions of different heads, will very soon perceive that an excessively diminutive one never displays either intelligence or any other force of character; that a small, receding forehead is never the possession of persons eminent for their thinking power, but that usually a capacious front and vigorous intellect go together: that a head very high and broad in the sincipital region, is commonly associated with great natural morality; and that, on the contrary, a low, contracted head is most ordinarily found upon the shoulders of depraved criminals; and, again, that a large occipital and basilar development is generally found in persons of strong animal propensities. More particular correspondences, indeed, may be noted; but the foregoing illustrations will sufficiently exemplify the facts that may be verified without difficulty. But concerning phrenology in detail, as a scientific system, I conceive that the evidence furnished by our more advanced knowledge of the brain and nervous system, alike in man and animals, will not sustain the particular theory of separate organs for distinct mental faculties."

Dr. Noble gives the fullest credit to Dr. Carpenter, as hitherto the most successful investigator into the relations between the manifestations of mind and the brain and nervous system.

The more

"In the year 1846, Dr. Carpenter propounded a physiology of the encephalon, which, however incomplete, is likely to constitute the basis of all future attempts of this description. In an able paper, this distinguished physiologist reviewed the whole state of our knowledge of the brain and nervous system, and, at the same time, indicated the method by which the subject might be most successfully prosecuted; he brought together the scattered facts of this department of science, and gave to them a certain precision and unity, with rare sagacity and skill. In more recent publications, he has still further elaborated his views, and has so marked out and defined our best established knowledge, and indicated the most probable opinions, that important results are exhibited and suggested, when they cannot be distinctly affirmed. closely, indeed, Dr. Carpenter's views are examined, the more clearly does the correlation of psychology and physiology reveal itself. But he himself would not claim for his doctrines all the fulness and perfection which they may be expected to attain. It is but right, however, that physiologists and psychologists (and they are not few,) who avail themselves of his thought as their starting point, should candidly and honourably acknowledge the fact, even when it may not receive a development from them altogether identical with that which it has obtained from himself. Dr. Carpenter's chief propositions are, that the cerebral hemispheres supply the organic conditions of all psychical action which involves ideas; and that the nervous masses situated above and in advance of the medulla oblongata, and underneath the cerebrum proper, constitute the encephalic centres of the various kinds of sensation. And certainly there is noticeable in the consciousness as obvious a distinction between thought and feeling, as in the anatomy between the cerebral hemispheres and the underlying structures."

Dr. Noble rightly commences his enquiry into the human kind in its relations with the brain and nervous system, with the admission of the existence of consciousness as a first principle; as "one of those truths which is neither demonstrable nor to be made clearer by ratiocination; as one which is felt and admitted in obedience to the primary laws of thought."

"The fundamental principle of knowledge and intellectual life," says Cousin, "is Consciousness. Life begins with consciousness, and with consciousness it ends; in consciousness it is that we apprehend ourselves; and it is in and through consciousness that we apprehend the external world. Were it possible to rise above consciousness to place ourselves, so to speak, behind it, to penetrate into the secret workshop where intelligence blocks out and fabricates the various phenomena, there to officiate, as it were, at the birth, and to watch the evolution of consciousness-then might we hope to comprehend its

nature, and the different steps through which it rises to the form in which it is first actually revealed. But as all knowledge commences with consciousness, it is able to remount no higher. Here a Here a prudent analysis will therefore stop, and occupy itself with what is given." The truth of this proposition might also be supported by an appeal to the common judgment of mankind. As elements of our mental constitution-as the essential conditions of our knowledge, the facts of our original consciousness must be accepted as fundamental truths. A great metaphysician-lately numbered with the dead-Sir William Hamilton, in his famous dissertation on the Philosophy of Common Sense, triumphantly, as he says, out of the mouth of one hundred and six witnesses, establishes the consent of philosophers of all ages to the truth of the data or deliverances of consciousness as the basis of all enquiring into the operations of the human mind. "When, for example, consciousness assures (he says by way of illustration) that in perception we are immediately cognizant of an external and extended non-ego; or that in remembrance, through the imagination, of which we are immediately cognizant, we obtain a mediate knowledge of a real past; how shall we repel the doubt in the former case, that what is given as the extended reality itself is not merely a representation of matter by mind; -in the latter, that what is given as a mediate knowledge of the past is not a mere present phantasm containing an illusive reference to an unreal past? We can do this only in one way. The legitimacy of such gratuitous doubt necessarily supposes that the deliverance of consciousness is not to be presumed true. If therefore it can be shewn, on the one hand, that the deliverances of consciousness must philosophically be accepted until their certain or probable falsehood has been positively evinced; and if, on the other hand, it cannot be shewn that any attempt to discredit the veracity of consciousness has ever yet succeeded; it follows, that as philosophy now stands, the testimony of consciousness must be viewed as high above suspicion, and its declarations entitled to demand prompt and unconditional assent."

The several springs of action, or the motive powers of man's conscious nature, may be divided into the appetites or bodily desires, the affections, the mental desires, the moral sentiments, and the reflex sentiments. Through their operation, man is lead to the several acts and habits of thought which go to form his daily life. These several springs of action are distinguished by the nature of their objects. The appetites have