"The fundamental energy of the law of design is the realisation of the teleiotic ideas in time and space. In living and conscient organisms these teleiotic ideas, as derivations of the fundamental idea, are both biotic and intellectual. They have, therefore, a twofold operation-First, as vital forces acting on the material substratum, so as to shape and arrange its ideagenic and kinetic substrata, the changes in which will be coincident at some future time with states of consciousness, but which do not necessarily enter into the consciousness at the time of formation and arrangement (latent consciousness); secondly, on the consciousness-or mental forces proper exciting its various states, known as feelings, desires, intuitions, beliefs, faculties" (p. 60).

In Hammond, on 'Diseases of the Nervous System,' the following non-sequitur occurs:

"It is probable that there are at least two kinds of nerve-cells in the grey matter of the cord, which, though alike in anatomical characteristics, differ essentially in their functions. One set is motor and one sensory. In those cases of spinal paralysis involving motion, and in which there is atrophy of the nerve-cells, the motor cells are diseased; in those in which sensation is affected, and in which atrophy of nerve-cells is discovered, the sensory cells are the ones affected. Now, progressive muscular atrophy, pure and uncomplicated, is unattended by derangement of sensation, and unaccompanied by paralysis, except such loss of power as is directly due to the diminution of the volume of the affected muscles. The presumption is, therefore, that neither the motor nor the sensory cells have disappeared or become atrophied, and yet, on post-mortem examination, we find that nerve-cells of some kind have been diseased. The presumption is, and it is reasonable, that there are cells which are specially connected with the nutrition of muscles-trophic cells" (p. 675).

In Professor Bennett's recent volume on Physiology' we read

"For the reception of smell, taste, touch, vision, and hearing, nerves with peculiar endowments are provided, and to them are added a spinal structure or organ adapted for the purpose. It is possible, as previously noticed, that there may be tubules possessing endowments for conveying influences from other impressions than those just referred to, but these are not yet known" (p. 327).

These are extracts from text-books by eminent and trustworthy teachers, but we humbly submit that the propositions enunciated are unintelligible and illogical; or, where intelligible, undemonstrable, and that of " ideagenic and kinetic substrata," "trophic nerves," and of "special sensory tubule," we know nothing except hypothetically or inferentially. Professor Bennett, with his usual caution and clearness, guards against rash notions as to the nature of the impressions conveyed along these tubules by writing

66

Sensation may be defined to be the consciousness of an impression; and that it may take place, it is necessary, 1st, that a stimulus should be applied to a sensitive nerve which produces an impression; 2nd, that, in consequence of this impression a something should be generated we designate an impression, which influence is conducted along the nerve to the hemispherical ganglion; 3rd, on arriving there it calls into action that faculty of the mind called consciousness or perception, and sensation is the result" (p. 288).

66

Much of what has been here complained of is to be attributed to microscopical inquiries sub judice, and to the transference of actual discoveries by the microscope to regions with which they have no connection, and into which it is highly improbable that physical science will ever be competent to penetrate. But supposing all that has been so grandiloquently written as to the tiny maelstroms" seen by Huxley in the representative protoplasm of the nettle-sting were proved to exist but which has been discredited, if not disproved, by Stricker, who describes the protoplasm " as a homogeneous substance in which any granules that may appear must be considered of foreign importation, and in which there are no evidences of circulation, or supposing again that granules or atoms of nerve-tissue, which we conceive to mean the smallest possible size of the materials of which brain is composed which the human mind can realise or the microscope reveal, were seen moving in vortices or oscillations in the fluid taken from the ventricles from the substance of the cerebral mass, or in any extraneous liquid, and it were proved that these movements did not originate in currents established by temperature or impulse from surrounding objects, which it has not been, or even supposing further that alterations of form or position of the contents of the brain-cell or tubule have been observed and that they were not the result of endosmose or exosmose in the walls; or of the various physical influences inseparable from new and altered circumstances and from removal beyond the influence of vital forces; the gulf between such conclusions and the recognition of molecular changes in the grey matter is enormous and impassible. Yet, Dr. Tuke seems throughout his work to accept such conclusions as applicable to the solution of the problems surrounding the act of mentalisation, or, as the school to which he belongs would affirm, the elimination of ideas and emotion or, as Professor Bennet had it :

"The brain thinks as a muscle contracts, or emits thought as a piano emits sound.2 True, it is not the will or sensation which is the principal agent of movement, but the material changes in the vesicular neurine or grey matter" (p. 69).

1

As regards protoplasm in relation to Professor Huxley's essay on the "Psychical Basis of Life," by James Hutchinson Sterling. Edinburgh, 1862. P. 22. 2 Bennet's Text-Book of Physiology.' Part I, p. 180.

103-LII.

9

Assuredly this is a leap in the dark; but we cannot believe that Dr. Tuke has cleared the gulf to which allusion has been made. Of the will, the sensation, and the movement, we have or may have a clear knowledge; but of any operation of the vesicular neurine we have no knowledge whatever. It is probable that an organ which grows is nourished, is broken down, and sometimes repaired, through which the circulation goes on, sometimes under the ordinary, sometimes under special arrangements, in which endosmose and exosmose take place, in which there is a constant flux and reflux of health, disease, temperature, electricity, chemical relations, &c. &c. should present molecular as well as more appreciable alterations in all parts of its structure. In fact, we may fairly infer the existence of such changes without any departure from sound reasoning; but we do leave a sound and stable standpoint when we argue upon such inferences as established facts, when we declare all mental conditions as produced by changes which are merely inferred, and connect the explanations of various vital phenomena with their existence. It would be quite as legitimate to advance the postulate that, given the existence of such changes, they must be not merely the concomitants, but the consequences of different acts or stages of consciousness, whether these consist in ideas, emotions, or will. Nay, were it desirable to construct a rival hypothesis, ample materials might be found in the influence of study, excitement, the preliminary stages of insanity, in inducing actual and perceptible alterations in the brain. But we shall leave this edifice to some more ingenious architect, and conclude by remarking that dependance upon mere inferences in so grave an inquiry reminds us of the profane prayer of the wretched Thistlewood immediately before his death:-" Oh, Supreme Being, if there be a Supreme Being, have mercy upon my soul, if I have a soul!" We are inclined to admit, as adumbrations of impending revelations, the molecular basis of animal solids, movements in chyle and pigment-granules, when removed from the body; the chemical and electrical actions in dead or even living nerve-fibre and the deductions of Du Bois Raymond, "that nerves must be composed of peripolar molecules; of molecules, that is to say, with the negative electricity gathered around the poles, which point to the ends of the fibre, and with the positive electricity arranged as an equatorial belt between the polar regions;" but such an admission is the full extent which experience justifies. It would be unreasonable to object that physiologists should elect to remain dwellers in a terra incognita, or even of the debatable land which connects the demonstrable from the undemonstrated, or that they should place the mechanism and modes of nervous action among open

questions, or even that they should cling to creeds which have. the sanction of long experience and little more in their favour; but it seems a deceptive and dangerous policy, though now very prevalent, to reason inferentially from certain analogies, and then to hold the inferences as discoveries, as established facts, as dogmata to be accepted. This is not merely apostacy from the inductive method, but the creation of a vague and misty speculation, which, unworthy of the name of hypothesis, deserves that of the Romance of Physiology. It would not be profitable to criticise the chapter on psycho-therapeutics, nor to comment upon the semi-credence of the author in the efficacy of Mesmerism and Braidism as remedial agents. Due care has, perhaps, been taken in the following paragraph :-" If cures of disease are performed by a magnetic influence passing from A to B, they are not (as has already been intimated) illustrations of the influence of A's mind upon A's body, the phenomena with which alone we are now concerned" (p. 408). To guard against the more exaggerated development, of these doctrines, but even allowing that subjective phenomena did issue from any possible relation of A to B, and cheerfully conceding the incalculable benefits which may flow from high intellectual endowments and moral qualities, and the faith and reliance reposed in these in the amelioration of human suffering, and in the inspiration of the strength of hope, we would be reluctant to prescribe or prefer any such means when precise and trustworthy, though not specific, physical remedies are accessible, or to admit into the pharmacopoeia, as Dr. Glen appears to do, ternary or quaternary compounds of courage, confidence, hope, &c. ; while we contend that coincidence or spontaneous absorption would be more legitimate alternative theories in the following cases :-A. "Opacities in the cornea of the eye have been frequently made to disappear. I am acquainted with a woman whom this disorder, produced by smallpox, had deprived of the use of one eye, and who recovered it while being magnetised for another disease" (Delenge, p. 407); and while B, in the case of the cure of deafness in the deaf and dumb by hypnotism we would conclude that the patient was not deaf, that his attention had been roused and directed to the development and education of a dull and imperfect, but not a non-existent sense, and that the opinion of the head master as to the complication of deafness was not sufficient evidence upon the point. We are bound to admit the appropriateness of reviewing and reventilating the whole subject in such a work.

We have passed over many questions open to doubt and dispute, and have scarcely adverted to the imperfect authenticity and accuracy of many of the illustrations from which important

deductions are drawn; but we have examined this volume rigidly and carefully, because we regard it as a valuable contribution to medical literature, as the first scientific attempt to systematise and elucidate the vast number of facts or narratives connected with the interdependence of mind and body, accumulated during long periods of observation, or scattered through various and dissimilar treasure-houses, and because the efforts to make clear what has hitherto been obscure and to reduce within the confines of philosophy what has hitherto been mainly left within the domain of crude and vulgar speculation are, in every instance, painstaking, honest, and supported by the testimony of others, even when they are not satisfactory nor successful.

IX.-The Pathology of Bright's Disease.1

Ar a meeting of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, on the 10th December, 1872, during the discussion which followed the reading of the second paper whose title we have given below, it was moved by Dr. Sibson, seconded by Dr. Quain, and carried unanimously-"That it be recommended to the Council of the Society to appoint a Committee to inquire into the condition of the walls of the heart and arteries in relation to the state of the kidneys in chronic Bright's disease."

At the annual meeting on the 1st March the President, Mr. Curling, stated that "the motion for the appointment of a Committee had been under consideration, with a view to carry it into effect, but it had been found impossible to secure the co-operation of Fellows whose decision would carry sufficient weight." It would be a waste of time to speculate on the circumstances which led to the failure of the attempt to obtain the co-operation of a sufficient number of influential Fellows to form the proposed Committee. It is probable that those who were nominated to serve on the Committee were of opinion that by the terms of the resolution they would be required, not merely to examine and report upon the specimens which had been exhibited by Sir William Gull, Dr. Sutton,

11. On the Pathology of the Morbid State commonly called chronic Bright's Disease, with Contracted Kidney (" Arterio-Capillary Fibrosis"). By Sir W. GULL, Bart., M.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., and HENRY G. SUTTON, M.B., F.R.C.P. Med.Chir. Transactions,' vol. lv, pp. 273–326.

2. On the Pathology of Chronic Bright's Disease with Contracted Kidney; with especial reference to the Theory of "Arterio-Capillary Fibrosis." GEORGE JOHNSON, M.D., F.R.S. Proceedings of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society,' vol. vii, No. III, pp. 101 to 105.

By