Reform will never come from the ranks of the alienists. We have waited in vain for it ever since the dawn of the better management in other countries. Reform must grow out of public indignation and agitation. ELY VAN DE Warker.

UNCONSCIOUS CEREBRATION, AS EVIDENCED BY MNEMONIC ACTION.

BY EDWARD M. GALLAUDET, LL. D.,

President of the National Deaf-Mute College, Washington, D. C.

"A are us

RE there any mental processes of which we are unconscious

at the time [of their occurrence], but which we recognize as having taken place by finding certain results in our minds ?" This question, ably discussed by Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his essay entitled, "Mechanism in Thought and Morals," is presented in but slightly different form by Sir William Hamilton, in his Eighteenth Lecture on Metaphysics, as follows:

"Are there, in ordinary, mental modifications-i. e., mental activities and passivities of which we are unconscious, but which manifest their existence by effects of which we are conscious ?"

Hamilton and Holmes answer the question in the affirmative, adducing arguments and offering pointed illustrations in support of a theory which runs counter to the philosophy of Plato, Cicero, St. Augustine, Descartes, and the English metaphysicians whose writings antedate those of Hamilton. Neither Holmes nor Hamilton claims originality for their theory, both ascribing the honor of its authorship to Leibnitz. Given to the world by this writer as early as 1714, the doctrine escaped the notice of English and French philosophers for more than a century, and was even put forth as original by Cardaillac, whose claims were for a time sustained by Damiron.

The terms employed by different writers to express this phase of mental action are various. Leibnitz speaks of "obscure ideas, obscure representations, perceptions without apperceptions;" and in this choice of words is declared by Hamilton to have "violated the universal usage of language." But Hamilton himself is, in the opinion of Stuart Mill, hardly less unfortunate, for the expression

"unconscious mental modification" involves, according to the latter, "a contradiction of terms." Mill falls short of an absolutely satisfactory terminology, but improves on his predecessors when he says, "I am inclined to agree with Sir William Hamilton, and to admit his unconscious mental modifications in the only shape in which I can attach any very distinct meaning to them, namely, unconscious modification of the nerves."

It seems, however, to have been reserved for the physiologists to apply strictly scientific terms to this so-called function of the mind. Holmes, in discussing the doctrine which he says “has been of late years emerging into general recognition in treatises of psychology and physiology," speaks of "latent consciousness," "obscure perceptions," "the hidden soul," "reflex action of the brain," and "unconscious cerebration." This last expression, which Holmes prefers, is attributed to Dr. Wm. B. Carpenter, and by him made the title of a chapter in his recent work on Mental Physiology, in which he collates the fragmentarb materials furnished by earlier writers, such as Hamilton, J. S. Mili, Herschel, Hartley, Holland, Brodie, Laycock, Abraham Tucker, Holmes, Lecky, and Miss Cobb. Arranging the suggestions of these writers in an orderly manner, Carpenter gives a lucid and full statement of the theory they more or less clearly perceived, but failed to enunciate in adequate terms. This doctrine, which by many metaphysicians, more especially in Britain, has been considered altogether untenable, and even most objectionable, seems destined to secure a place in the science of Mental Physiology, greatly weakening, if not altogether destroying, the force of the famous saying of Descartes, "Cogito ergo sum," and utterly overthrowing the cardinal doctrine of the Cartesian philosophy: "La pensée constitue le nature de la substance qui pense."

It is not intended in this paper to discuss at any length the doctrine of Unconscious Cerebration, for this would be, in the main, to repeat Dr. Carpenter's chapter already referred to. Nothing farther will be attempted than to call attention to certain familiar mental phenomena, bearing upon the doctrine, which seem to have escaped the notice of the pure metaphysicians, and of the mental physiologists as well. These are the phenomena which belong to the act of recognition.

Two friends meet. At the instant the eye of one falls on the other, a "mental process" occurs, wholly beyond the control of the

will, quite outside of consciousness, the effect of which is manifest in the recognition which has taken place, and each says to himself, "Here is my friend." An attempt to describe this "mental process" will show it to be incapable of analysis, simple, single, unaffected by any succession of associated ideas. There is a word and a blow, with the blow first.

It is not alone through the sense of vision that the mind is forced to the performance of this act. The avenues of hearing, smell, taste, and touch, bring impressions which will compel similar automatic action of the brain, and it is interesting to observe how the absence of either of the senses precludes the possibility of that particular mental activity which depends for its existence on the missing sense. The act of involuntary recognition in such a person as Bulwer's ideal character of Nydia in his Last Days of Pompeii, must bring a completely abnormal perception to the mind: and the flower girl touchingly reveals her imperfect mental development when she says in her sor:

"The blind girl's home is the house of night,

And its beings, empty voices."

Yet in her the mental process would be as perfectly performed as in others the automatic action of the brain would be as surely compelled by the tone of a familiar voice, as in instances of visual recognition.

The purely automatic character of the act of involuntary recognition is shown by its unexpectedness, which distinguishes it from the mental act which often follows conscious efforts to recognize people, objects, or places, which something tells us have been subjects of thought before. An instance of involuntary and absolutely unexpected recognition occurred not long since in the experience of the writer, which seems worthy to be related in this connection.

Early in September, 1874, I was about leaving New York in the Boston express train, on my way to Hartford, Connecticut. Entering a parlor car and securing a seat, I noticed a gentleman behind me whose appearance attracted my attention, but in connection with whom no suggestion came to mind that I had ever seen him before. I went so far in a little speculation, judging merely from his looks and manners, as to think he was probably some Wall Street banker, getting off on an excursion to the country. Presently the train started. I took up a newspaper, and in a few minutes the conductor came for my ticket. Stopping behind

me at the side of the supposed New York banker, the conductor asked a question, the purport of which I did not understand. The gentleman made his reply in a single word-Hartford, pronounced with a decided foreign accent, Hartfort. Within a few seconds the thought flashed into my mind that the gentleman behind me was Dr. Brown-Sequard. I am certain that in no way had the person or the name of the distinguished Doctor been suggested to me on that day, nor for many days preceding. My surprise and curiosity were very great at the decided conviction which presently took possession of my mind that my traveling neighbor was Dr. Brown-Sequard, for neither consciousness nor any power of memory under my control afforded any satisfactory ground for this conviction. Soon, however, I found myself dimly remembering having met the Doctor. I regarded his features intently for some seconds, in the hope of confirming or rejecting my conviction. Failing in this, I ransacked the storehouse of my memory for an occasion on which we had met, but with no better result. I knew I had not seen the Doctor when he lectured in Washington, in the winter of 1873-4, for I distinctly remembered circumstances that had prevented me from attending his lectures, much to my regret. A half hour passed, during which time my mind was wholly occupied with futile endeavors to account for the idea that possessed me. My neighbor had by this time fallen asleep, and I ventured to ask a gentleman beyond him, whom I thought was his traveling companion, if he were Dr. Brown-Sequard. The reply I received left me as much in doubt as ever, for the two were strangers to each other. A stop of the train ended the nap of the subject of my inquiries, and as we moved on I resolved to settle the question of identity, at least, if I could not account for my seemingly absurd mental possession; my reason all the time declaring most emphatically against the probability of my having rightly named my companion. With an apology for intrusion I said: "Am I right in thinking I am addressing Dr. Brown-Sequard ?" The quiet answer "You are," surprised me as much as the incoming of my inaccountable conviction had done. I hastened to explain the peculiar mnemotecnic condition in which I found myself, and added that I was mortified, in claiming acquaintanceship with so distinguished a person, to be uttery unable to remember where I had met him. When I mentioned my name and residence to the Doctor, he said he had an indistinct remem

brance of having met me, but could go no further towards completing a train of associations which should lead us back to the time and place of our meeting. As we chatted together an undet current of thought went on in my mind, in which, after thinking of Washington, New York, Boston, Hartford, London, Berlin, Brussels, Vienna, and other cities, Paris came prominently up as the place in which we must have met. I asked the Doctor if he knew Mr. T., an American banker in Paris, and if it could have been at his house that we had met. He replied that while he knew Mr. T. well, he had never visited at his house. "But," added he, "I have another American friend in Paris, who lives very near Mr. T.'s bank, at whose house we may have met-Mr. H. W." With the mention of this name my mental embarrassment was at an end for I at once remembered having dined in company with Dr. BrownSequard at Mr. W.'s, in the spring of 1867, more than seven years before.

My interest was next aroused to determine, if possible, whether the suggestion to my mind of the name of Brown-Sequard was to be attributed wholly to the effect of his voice in the utterance of a single and most common-place word; for it seemed not improbable that the doctor's face had, unconsciously to me, prepared the way for the recognition completed by his voice; and I asked if it were possible that I had recently seen his portrait in some illustrated paper. He replied, laughingly, that he thought not; for though often asked to allow the publication of his likeness, he had never permitted it to be printed; and so I came at length to a very positive conclusion that my recognition of the doctor was to be attributed solely to a mnemonic resonance within me occasioned by the mere sound of his voice. No other sense-impressions seem to have been combined with this. No train of thought, depending on any association of ideas, led up to the recognition. On the contrary, long continued conscious cerebration failed to bring up any such association. The mental process presented nothing further than the utterance of a single word with a peculiar accent, in a tone belonging to a certain individual whom I had met but once, more than seven years previously, and the almost instant sounding forth in my mind of the name of the person.

President Porter, in his Human Intellect, very properly separates the phenomena of memory into two classes, which he terms respectively the spontaneous and the intentional memory. He is