* Vide Address of W. R. Grove, Esq., Q.C., M.A., F.R.S., President of the Meeting of the British Association, at Nottingham, 1866.Google Scholar

† I am aware that the existence of a distinct vital force has been and is ignored by some distinguished physicists. Grant, say they, a living organism, and then the agency of the physical forces is all-sufficient for the display of the vital phenomena, heat playing an all-important part in their production. But, waiving this, I would here briefly remark, that the correlations of the vital, nervous, and mental forces present to the psychological inquirer and thoughtful practitioner a subject fraught with deep interest and importance, seeing that vital power supplies nervous energy, and the nervous force mental activity. The transformation of these three forces—the vital into the nervous, and the nervous into the mental, and their converse—thus interchanging and interchangeable, with their attendant consequences, the expenditure of the one supplying new energy and vigour to the other, opens out an interesting field for observation and inquiry, and clearly points out how impossible is the attempt to isolate mental facts from all those of the nervous and vital system with which they are so closely interwoven. At the same time, while we note the perpetually-recurring metamorphosis of nerve-force into mind-force, and of mind-force into nerve-force, we know it to be a physiological fact that the vesicular matter of the cerebrum is the material substratum through which the metamorphosis is effected; and, indeed, have we not actual proof of increased disintegration of the nervous tissue in the redundant amount of the alkaline phosphates in the urine when the centre of intellectual action has been overtaxed?Google Scholar

* Vide ‘How to Work with the Microscope,’ 4th edition. Churchill, p. 338.Google Scholar

† Vide ‘Introduction to the Physiological Anatomy and Physiology of Man,’ by Lionel Beale, M.D. Longmans and Co., 1866.Google Scholar

* ‘Physiological Anatomy of Man.’Google Scholar

† Ibid.Google Scholar

* For a strikingly illustrative instance of this kind, I would refer to a case, which I published, with a commentary on its psychological bearing, in 1855, in the ‘British Medical Association Journal.’ The case was one of suspension of the mental faculties, of the power of speech, and of the special senses, with the exception of sight and touch, continuing for many months; and it has been characterised by Dr. Carpenter, in his ‘Human Physiology,’ as the most valuable example as yet put upon record in illustrating the nature of a purely sensorial and instinctive, as distinguished from an intelligent existence, and the gradual nature of the transition from the one to the other.”Google Scholar

* Spencer's ‘Principles of Psychology,’ p. 607, 1855.Google Scholar

* In a paper read before the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, June 25th, 1850, and published in the ‘Lancet,’ October 22nd and November 2nd, of the same year, “On a Case of Hemiplegia with Cerebral Softening, in which loss of Speech was a prominent symptom,” I took occasion to observe that “the psychological phenomena of disease present a wide and an interesting field for observation and inquiry; and that it is greatly to be regretted the subject has not more generally engaged the attention of those distinguished men to whom we are so much indebted for their valuable researches on the pathology of the brain.” I rejoice in the belief that there now exists less cause for the expression of such regret, as cerebral physiology, by the pathologist, is no longer unheeded or neglected. I have great pleasure in referring to the valuable contributions of Dr. Samuel Wilks, “On the Pathology of Nervous Disease,” in the last published part of ‘Guy's Hospital Reports,’ and to the researches of Dr. Hughlings Jackson, Dr. Ogle, Dr. Broadbent, Dr. Richardson, and others. Dr. Wilks says truly, “the discovery of the connection between particular symptoms and definite nervous lesions, is of the utmost importance in a clinical sense, and of the extremest interest from a physiological point of view.” And, again, “the medical man, whilst treating the diseases of the brain, has very often at the same time to deal with the various operations of the mind, which are intimately associated with it. Indeed, should he really investigate with full interest the various examples of brain disease which come before him, he can scarcely avoid being psychologist as well as physician; and I venture to affirm that already, by regarding mental operations in their physiological and medical aspect, the true explanation has been given to many of the obscure phenomena of the mind. Pure metaphysics appear to be becoming a subject of the past, and it is now seen that those who engage themselves in the study of psychology are fain to employ the true inductive method, and to derive these conclusions from observation and experience in the same way as in every other branch of positive science. Thus it is that the more advanced opinions of the later metaphysicians have tended in the same direction as those of the psychologists, and the psychologists are now compelled to study mental operations as observed in their fellow-men, and no longer wrap themselves up in their own self-consciousness, and evolve every conclusion from the inner self. It would be absurd for the metaphysician to adopt his own method, and arrive at different results from the anatomist and the physician who are studying the physiology of the brain in health and disease. The psychologist can no longer ignore the fact that the brain is the material organ of the mind, and that he must study its nature and its operations, under the most varied circumstances, before he can establish a true mental philosophy.” (‘Guy's Hospital Reports,’ 3rd series, vol. xii, p. 158. Churchill and Sons, 1866.)Google Scholar

In closing this note, I would here reiterate what I have myself elsewhere said: “The attempt to trace the connection between structural diseases of particular portions of the substance of the brain, and deranged, impaired, or obliterated manifestation of the mind, however it may be beset with almost insuperable difficulties, is, nevertheless, one of vast interest and great importance; and, to this end, I cannot suppress my conviction that it is an incumbent duty upon the medical practitioner to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the principles and facts of phrenology, and with the respective sites or localities of the different organs in the cerebral convolutions; and to let no opportunity slip of bringing phrenological doctrines to the test of experience; for, if I am not greatly mistaken, it is to post-mortem examinations of the brain, and to pathological investigations, more than to any other source, that we are to look, not for the discovery of normal functions, but for evidence in support or refutation of the dogmata of phrenology.” (Vide ‘Medical Psychology,’ p. 62. Churchill and Sons, 1863.) To all who are interested in such inquiries and in cerebral physiology, I cannot too strongly recommend Dr. Turner's Lecture on the Topography of the Brain. (‘The Convolutions of the Human Cerebrum Topographically Considered,’ by W. Turner, M. B. Lond, F.R.S.E. London, R. Hardwick.)Google Scholar