Letter. 7 - Inquiry for New Discoveries

Summary

H. M. to H. G. A.

This last letter of yours is extremely interesting. Let me say, in the first place, that there is no danger of my thinking that you exaggerate the value of the discoveries you have made as to the functions of some portions of the brain. I do not see how it is possible to overrate them,—supposing them proved, of which I have no doubt.

Let us just look at the course of the affair.—First, I suppose, all movement, all operation of one thing upon another, was concluded, before science existed, to imply spirit. The winds, the waters, the waving and sprouting trees, the flickering fire, were all animated by spirits; and so were the movements of man,—the rolling eye and jerking limbs of the new-born infant, as well as the far-reaching thought of the philosopher. How very lately were still-born children supposed to be damned because they had not been baptized! Then, almost every organ seems to have been honoured and glorified before the brain; and especially the heart. How long will the word Heart stand in our parlance for soul, affections, sensibility, conscience? Then, by slow degrees, the brain seems to have risen into a sort of vague consideration as an indispensable, noble, but most mysterious part of our frame. All along, while any attention at all was paid to the brain, there seems to have been some kind of general impression that its size and mode of development indicated character.