from which the most fortunate are not exempt, making so strong an impression upon the mind, would ever hang like a cloud over happier times, and render life but a gloomy avenue to the grave. This law renders our Memory a blessing, which otherwise would be a curse. It gives our happiness a permanence, and concentrates the light and beauty of the past upon the present moment. Thus, when worn down with toil, we pillow our heads upon the past, and when preparing for manly struggles, spring from the vantage ground of past deeds to higher enterprise.

Under this law, society and conversation become beneficial, being impregnated with every genial influence, and literature becomes the channel of virtue. Hence, the progressive power of whatever is true and good. Mind, refuses to be the vehicle of the false and evil, in proportion as it delights in being the vehicle of mirth and happiness.

Let us observe next, the Region of Love. The excitement of this region arresting the activity of Hatred, takes away the most efficient element of the criminal region, and thereby impairs all the tendencies to crime, which belong to the occipito-basilar organs; at the same time that it diffuses a genial sustaining influence through the moral region. The essential tendency of love is then to promote happiness and virtue. Hence it is a favorite passiona passion which so delights its subjects, they willingly sacrifice to it every earthly object, and even life itself-a passion which gives to some years of life an ecstatic joy never again to be realized in other sources of enjoyment.

"There's nothing half so sweet in life,
As Love's young dream."

The Physiological explanation of this is derived from the fact, that the organ of Love is situated in the midst of the coronal organs, which are the sources of the highest happiness; and not only originates a delightful emotion itself, but calls forth all the capacities of happiness that we possess, while it restrains and suppresses every species of excitement which would check our felicity.

The organs of Patriotism, of Memory, and of Love, are the centers of three groups of organs-the patriotic, the recollective, and the kind or affectionate. In these groups, every organ tends to highten the general effect. In the recollective or intellectual group, every organ contributes its co-operative share, and is necessary to the perfection of Memory-strike out any one of the group and Memory would be in that respect less perfect, because supplied with fewer and less vivid ideas: with smaller Form, it would recollect fewer objects-with smaller Reason, it would receive and recollect fewer principles. Yet, these organs alone do not constitute Memory. Diminish the organ of Memory itself, and neither Form nor Reason would be able to retain and repeat

many of their impressions. They have a recollective tendency; but that tendency culminates to its full development in the organ of Memory, being possessed by the surrounding organs in a less and less degree, in proportion as they are more remote.

Thus do the patriotic functions culminate to the organ of Patriotism, the only point at which the patriotic faculty is fully developed, and without which there could be only an approach to the patriotic character.

Thus do the amiable elements of character culminate to their full development in the organ of Love, around which are arranged all the subordinate elements of that beautiful passion, from which it derives its fullness of display, and among which, as congenial traits, it is usually found. When we move from the locality of Love toward the side-head, we remove from the vicinity of Benevolence, Hope, and Enthusiasm, toward a feeble region of the brain, and thus the sentiment degenerates into mere respect or reverence. When we move anteriorly toward the intellectual and from the energetic faculties, the passion loses its strength and becomes merely sentimental, changing next into mere imagination. If we move interiorly from the feeling of respect for persons, toward the more exalted, Divine or religious sentiment, Love becomes a more elevated and expansive feeling, embracing the whole human family and rousing a deep moral enthusiasm. If we move from the margin of Ideality toward that of Hardihood and Energy, Love becomes a sterner and more practical sentiment-a sentiment of duty, or justice and fidelity. If, from all of these surrounding organs we move to an interme diate position, we find a blending of their functions into a new and interesting element of character called Love, in which mental emotion as in the movements of bodies explained by natural philosophy a resolution of forces will show the various impulsions by which the compound motion is produced.

Thus have we in all our faculties a blending of each with the other, in proportion to the proximity of the organs, by the analysis of which mental philosophy acquires a physical accuracy.

In every portion of the brain, some faculty culminates to a perfect developement, and there we fix its peculiar locality-in the vicinity of which, similar elements of character are found, while in the opposite region of the brain, the antagonistic faculty culminates to its fullest and most distinct development.

ART. III. THE CHEMICAL PRINCIPLES OF NEUROLOGICAL PHYSIOLOGY.-BY DANIEL Vaughan.

In my last article in the Journal of Man (page 594, Vol. 1st), I showed that the efficacy of electric currents for chemical purposes, depended chiefly on the means adopted for reducing the force, or preventing the play of affinity in the ingredients which result from decomposition. The latter object is attained by the use of the porous partitions which obstruct the mixture of the substances transferred to each pole, and prevent the expenditure of electricity in resisting their union. No other satisfactory explanation can be given, with regard to the office which these partitions perform, though they are found to be indispensable to the success of decomposition by weak galvanic currents. Capillary tubes, likewise, impede the mixture of the solutions they contain, and, from this circumstance, water enclosed in small glass syphons has been successfully used as the conducting medium between the vessels in which the poles of the battery were immersed. As the diameter of these tubes diminishes they become more effectual for opposing the diffusion of the liquids they contain, without causing any like impediment to the action of the decomposing agent; and they must accordingly cause the separation of bodies to take place by the influence of less energetic forces. This conclusion strictly accords with the observations of Davy and with the result of recent experiments, which show that in proportion as the size of the glass tubes is reduced, they will be rendered better adapted for facilitating the chemical action of galvanism.

Since animal and vegetable tissues consist of a collection of much finer cylindrical tubes, they must present more favorable conditions for the agency of feeble currents of electricity, while at the same time, this power seems to be very well adapted to propel fluids through the narrow passages in which they circulate in living bodies. These tubes or cells being much larger in vegetables than in the higher orders of life, they must have less influence in controlling chemical forces; but still they render the galvanic action of the plants capable of overcoming the affinity of carbon for oxygen, (which at low temperatures is much reduced in intensity), while their assimilating force is scarcely adequate to any other chemical action. Water is, indeed, occasionally decomposed, at least in the formation of oils; but such compounds are generally found in those parts where delicacy of the tissue is favorable to the effect I have described, and they seem to be

peculiar to warm climates, which furnish the means for more vigorous galvanic action. This action, as I proved in my last article, was capable of separating oxygen from carbon with more facility than from any other body, at a low temperature; and in this respect seems to be identical with the assimilating principle of plants whose energy is chiefly exerted on compounds of carbon. From the extreme tenuity of the cylindrical tubes of which the nerves are composed, any fluids they contain must yield to the influence of the most feeble currents of terrestrial electricity. To produce nervous sensation by the chemical agency of this power, and to enable the mind by this means to converse with external objects, it is necessary that the nerves should contain a supply of matter capable of decomposition. There is much reason to believe that this matter, which performs so important a part in sensation and thought, is different from any of the elements which are now recognized as the constituents of organic bodies. Many substances found in the animal kingdom, though containing the same proportions of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, possess very different properties; a difference evidently owing to the presence of elements whose subtlety has hitherto eluded all attempts to detect them. The existence of such elements may be also proved from the peculiarities which several other substances exhibit. Most bodies in their nascent state, or when first liberated from combination, possess properties quite different from those they afterward acquire. Nitrogen and Hydrogen, for instance, when evolved from substances undergoing chemical changes, generally unite and form ammonia, while in their ordinary state they are incapable of effecting such a union. This total indifference to the affinity which must subsist between them, could only arise from their being already in combination, and we have every reason to conclude that they are united, not with definite proportions of electricity, as some chemists suppose, but with elements which belong to their own class, and are too subtle to be obtained in a separate form. The passive condition imparted to iron by means of galvanism, and the modifications which phosphoric and arsenic acid exhibit, seem to arise from the presence of agents of this nature; and the changes which take place in their properties seem to be too great to be caused by any arrangment which their particles may

assume.

The agent by which the subtle matter in the nervous fibers is decomposed, seems to be different from the ordinary galvanic fluid. According to the doctrine first advanced by Dr. Buchanan, electricity consists of several distinct fluids, different in their nature and their properties, and chemistry furnishes many facts which seem to confirm his views. Though the same chemical changes which result from galvanism are also produced by frictional electricity, these two agents differ in many respects; and

the amount of the latter expended in decomposing a single grain of water is almost incredible. These facts, so embarrassing to modern theorists, may be explained by supposing the electricity generated by friction consists of the galvanic fluid associated with several others of a like nature, but suited to the performance of different chemical actions. Even galvanic or voltaic electricity appears to consist of two distinct principles. When a saline solution is submitted to its action, the salt is resolved into an acid and base, while at the same time, the water is decomposed in a quantity as large as if the whole force of the current had been wholly exerted on it, and no salt were present. The singular fact that two chemical operations require no more electric power than might be expended in producing either of them, has given rise to the extravagant speculations in regard to the existence of halogen bodies. But it is easily accounted for by supposing that both kinds of action are performed by two different fluids, each of which is incapable of fulfilling the office of the other. The agent whose chemical action is exerted on the subtle matter or fluid in the nerves, appears in like manner to be incapable of acting on the materials which compose the nervous fibers, which are thus exempted from changes which would be fatal to the continuance of the great work they perform.

We have reason to believe that every species of electricity is developed by the play of such powers of affinity as it is capable of controlling. In the galvanic battery the electric currents are generated by the formation of an oxide and a salt; and they are capable of decomposing oxides, salts, and perhaps some other bodies of the same class. On the cessation of the decomposing action in the nerves, the play of affinity in the nervous matter will accordingly develop a current of electricity or nervaura of the same species as that which previously prevented the chemical action. This development must produce a chemical change in the corresponding nerves of another individual where the nervous fibers contain matter capable of yielding to the influence; for we must suppose that the subtle matter in the nerves varies in different parts of the human frame. From this may proceed the impression exerted between individuals and the transmission of influences, especially those of a morbid character, which are instrumental in propagating contagion, and are generated in diseased states of the human system. They may likewise arise from currents of certain imponderable agents, which traverse the places we inhabit, and produce in the nerves, or other parts of the body, those chemical changes from which disease originates.

The structure of the nervous tissue not only renders the matter it contains more susceptible of decomposition, but also imparts to it a greater power of conducting the decomposing agent. Living vegetables, and even moist cotton fibers, conduct electricity much better than water, though their conducting power arises VOL. II.-E