Chapter III: Genesis of the Brain (2)

If Massachusetts is within sixty years of this collision with destiny, other countries are still nearer the dead line of the coming century. Italy is parallel with Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but Great Britain and Ireland are considerably further advanced. British India and the Netherlands are still further advanced, and half a century, if they had the American ratio of growth, would bring them to their limit, while Belgium's progress would be arrested in thirty years.

A wise statesmanship would not seek to hurry mankind on to this great crisis, the results of which have never been foreseen or provided for, but would realize that the greater the amount of inferior and demoralized population the more terrible must that crisis be when it comes--a crisis which can be safely borne only by elevating the entire population to a higher condition than any nation has ever heretofore attained.

Calculate as we may, the crisis must come, as certainly as death comes to each individual; and whether our social system can bear the strain of such conditions is beyond human ken. Look even two centuries ahead, and what do we see? At that time the prolific energy of the people of this republic, if continued as it has been in the past, will give us more than twice the estimated population of the entire globe at present--more than three thousand millions.

It is possible that our vast territory (including Alaska) of three million, six hundred thousand square miles may, with the greatly improved agriculture of the future, maintain such a population, especially if relieved by overflow to the north and south.

If the evil elements at work to-day predominate in our population, which retrogressive legislation would promote, it will be a time of calamity and social convulsions; but if the benevolent and enlightening influences now at work predominate (as we may hope), two centuries hence will bring us to a consummation of prosperity, enlightenment, and happiness, of which the pessimistic and sceptical thinkers of to-day have no conception. A thorough comprehension of the science of man will lead us in the path of enlightened progress.

EVILS THAT NEED ATTENTION.

The public mind has been greatly stirred upon the subject of monopolies and legislative abuses; but there are some glaring evils, which a short statute might suppress, that are flourishing unchecked.

Speculative dealers in the necessaries of life have learned how to build colossal fortunes by extortion from the entire nation, and the nation submits quietly because gambling competition is the fashion. The late Charles Partridge endeavored to show up these evils and have them suppressed. We need another Partridge to complete the work he undertook.

A despatch to the _Boston Herald_, March 5, shows how the game has been played in Chicago on the pork market:

"'Phil Armour must have been getting ready for this break for three months,' said a member of the board of trade to-day. 'Since September last he has visited nearly every large city in the country. He knows from observation where all the pork is located, and, having cornered it, his southern trip was a scheme to throw his enemies off the scent, and enable his brokers to quietly strengthen the corner. His profits and Plankinton's cannot be less than $3,000,000.'

"But if Armour and his old Milwaukee side partner have made money, so have hundreds of others here. A messenger boy in the board of trade drew $100 from a savings bank on Monday last at 11 o'clock and margined 100 barrels of pork. To-day the lad deposited $1,000, and has $300 for speculation next week.

"Those poor snorts who are expecting to have pork to-day to make their settlement, paid $21. Anything less was scouted. 'You will have to pay $25 next Saturday night,' was all the comfort afforded.

"An advance of 2 cents a bushel in wheat was also scored by the bulls to-day. The explanation is that the several big wheat syndicates encouraged by the action of pork have made an alliance. The talk at the hotels to-night is that Armour has started in to buy wheat."

We have laws that forbid boycotting, and they are enforced in New York and New Haven by two recent decisions. Financial extortion is an equal crime, and needs a law for its suppression. Why is the metropolitan press silent? Have the syndicates too much influence? Will editors who read these lines speak out?

In the last _North American Review_, James F. Hudson, in an essay on "Modern Feudalism," says:--

"The conquest of all departments of industry by the power of combination has just begun. But the mere beginning has imposed unwarrantable taxes on the fuel, light, and food of the masses. It has built up vast fortunes for the combining classes, drawn from the slender means of millions. It has added an immense stimulant to the process, already too active, of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. The tendency in this direction is shown by the arguments with which the press has teemed for the past two months, that the process of combination is a necessary feature of industrial growth, and that the competition which fixes the profits of every ordinary trader, investor or mechanic, must be abolished for the benefit of great corporations, while kept in full force against the masses of producers and consumers, between whom the barriers of these combinations are interposed."

WHAT IS INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS?

A large amount of that which the world calls greatness is nothing more than vigorous and brilliant commonplace. Taine, who is the most splendid writer upon Bonaparte, ascribes to him intellectual greatness, but it was greatness on a common plane--the plane of animal life. He had a grand comprehension of physical and social forces, of everything upon the selfish plane, for he was absolutely selfish, but of nothing that belongs to the higher life of man, to the civilization of coming centuries. To him Fulton was a visionary and so was Gall. It was not in his intellectual range to see the steamships that change the world's commerce, and the cerebral discoveries that are destined to revolutionize all philosophy.

The pulpit orator, Beecher, who has just passed away, was estimated by many as intellectually great; but Mr. Beecher never took the position of independence that any great thinker must have occupied. He never moved beyond the sphere of popularity. He never led men but where they were already disposed to go. Upon the great question of the return of the spirit, one of the most important and fundamental of all religious questions, Mr. Beecher was silent. That silence was infidelity to truth, for Mr. Beecher was not ignorant of the truth he concealed. Nor was he faithful to any true ideal of religion. With his princely salary he accomplished less than other men, living upon a salary he would have scorned. He lived for self--he spent thousands of dollars on finger rings, and a hundred thousand on a fancy farm, but little if anything to make the world better.

The _Boston Herald_ estimates very fairly his intellectual status, saying: "He spoke easily. His stories were well told, his points well put. He invested people with a new atmosphere, but he did not set them to thinking, and can hardly be called a thinker himself. Much as he has done to forward the vital interests of humanity, he has contributed nothing to the vital thinking of his generation. The secret of his power is the wonderful combination of animalism, with a certain bright way of stating the thoughts which are more or less in the minds of all men. Few preachers have lived with their eyes and ears more open to the world, and few have better understood the art of putting things. Mr. Beecher knew supremely well two persons--himself and the man next to him. In interesting the man next to him he interested the multitude. He had in a great degree the same qualities which made Norman McLeod the foremost preacher of his day in the Scotch pulpit. Such a man lives too much on the surface to exhaust himself. He has only to keep within the sphere of commonplace to interest people as long as he lives.... Mr. Beecher lived on the surface of things. He never got far below the surface. If he ever was profound it was only for a moment at a time.... His work was to illustrate the ideas which were operative in the world at the time, not to originate or formulate them."

This is a just estimate. Brilliant commonplace is not greatness, but the man who is thoroughly commonplace in his conceptions, who expresses well and forcibly what his hearers think, is the one to win applause and popularity. Had Beecher been a great thinker, a church of moderate size would have held his followers. But he was not and thinkers knew it. The Rev. George L. Perin, of the Shawmut Universalist Church, Boston, said of Beecher, "As we have tried to analyze the influence of his address we have said to ourselves, 'There was nothing new in that, for I have thought the same thing a thousand times myself;' and yet at the same time everything _seemed_ new, and we have gone away thinking better of ourselves because he taught us to see what we were able to think but had not been able to express. He had the remarkable faculty of dressing up the things that everybody was thinking, and making us see that they were worth thinking. And there was something contagious about his wonderful faith in human nature. He believed in the divinity of man and made others believe in it." In other words, he added much to the sentiment of his hearer, but little to his thought. This was greatness of character and personal power, but not intellectual greatness. Beecher was a great man, but not a great thinker. The great thinker overwhelms his hearers with new and strange thought. The multitude, fixed in habit, reject it all. Clear and dispassionate thinkers feel that they cannot reject it, but it is too new even to them to elicit their enthusiasm. They sympathize with him only so far as they had previously cherished similar thoughts.

Hence we see it is ordained that the teacher of great truths must struggle against great opposition; and in proportion to his resistance by his contemporaries is the grandeur of his reception by posterity; in proportion to the power arrayed against him is the remoteness of the century in which that power shall be extinct and his triumph complete.

SPIRITUAL WONDERS.

SLATER'S WONDERFUL SPIRITUAL TESTS (described by a Brooklyn newspaper correspondent).--"I have something to say to that gentlemen with the black hair and high forehead," he continued, turning to another part of the house; "you have a business engagement to-morrow morning at 10 o'clock with two men. I see you go up a flight of steps into a room where there are two desks. In the second drawer of one of these are the papers of the transaction which you had in your hand to-day. You are going to invest $4,000. Is that all so?"

"Perfectly," said the man, in amazement.

"Well, now, these two men are sharpers, and if you want to save that $4,000 keep out of that bargain. Legal advice is good, but mine is better."

"I believe it," said the man, emphatically. His name was C. G. Bulmer, and he lives at 229 Macon Street, Brooklyn. Your correspondent has since verified the accuracy of the test.

"And don't you suffer with your limbs?" he inquired of a lady just in front of him.

"Well, not now; I used to; I feel it now."

"Well, I am going to show you that I know all about your limbs. The pain is here," he continued, touching the calf of his leg. "You have a peculiar feeling of drowsiness and then sharp pains run through you, right there. Is it true?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll tell you something else. You missed what your sister called a big chance when you were seventeen years old, and she said you were a great fool to let it go by. Is that so?"

"It is," said the lady reddening.

"There's a man in the hall," he continued, pacing restlessly up and down with clasped hands. "He has been sitting here and saying to him self, 'Well, this is all mind-reading. Now, if he will tell me something that is going to happen I may believe something in Spiritualism.' He has been rather scoffing me. Now, I want to know if this is true. I am talking to you," pointing his long, thin finger at a gray-haired man who sat on his left. "All correct?" The man bowed his head. "Well, I tell you, that one Christmas day," he continued, so solemnly that a hush fell on the audience--"I don't think the spirits ought to tell these things, but I am forced to say that one Christmas day a member of your family will die." A startled look passed over his face, and a shiver ran through the audience at the uncanny message. The man's name could not be learned, but on the succeeding Sunday your correspondent heard two women get up in the audience and admit that the young Spiritualist was correct.

SPIRIT PICTURES.--Henry Rogers, a slate writing and prescribing medium of established reputation, recently located at 683 Tremont Street, Boston, has wonderful powers in the production of spirit pictures of the departed. His most recent success is certainly a fine work of art, resembling a crayon portrait of a young lady. His previous pictures are entitled to a high rank as works of art. They are purely spirit productions, no human hand being concerned. San Francisco has similar productions under the mediumship of Fred Evans, but the pictures have not the artistic merit of those produced by Rogers, whose beautiful pictures, however, require many sittings for their production; while those of Duguid of Glasgow, and Mrs. De Bar of New York, are produced in a few minutes and are also highly artistic. One of the very finest works of art at San Francisco is the portrait of Mrs. Watson, made by a medium, Mr. Briggs.

Our highest productions in art, music, poetry, philosophy, and medicine, are destined yet to come from the co-operation of the spirit world. We have no music at present superior to that of the medium Jesse Shepard.

SPIRIT TELEGRAPHY.--In 1885 we were informed of the success of spirits at Cleveland, Ohio, in communicating messages by the telegraphic method in rapping, in which our millionaire friend, Mr. J. H. Wade, has taken much interest. A little apparatus has been constructed, with which the spirits give their communications in great variety. I have repeatedly stated that the diagnoses and prescriptions of deceased physicians have always proved in my experience more reliable than those of the living. This has been verified at Cleveland. The late Dr. Wells of Brooklyn has been giving diagnoses and prescriptions through the telegraph. One of these published in the _Plain Dealer_ exhibits the most profound and accurate medical knowledge. The full account of these telegraphic developments in the Cleveland _Plain Dealer_ I expected to republish, but my space was already occupied. It may be found in the _Banner of Light_ of April 9. But we shall have other reports hereafter.

SPIRITUAL MUSIC.--Maud Cook, a little blind girl nine years of age, at Manchester, Tenn., is an inspired musical wonder,--a performer and composer. She is said to equal Blind Tom, and the local newspapers speak of her in the most enthusiastic terms. She needs a judicious and wealthy friend to bring her before the public in the best manner.

SLATE WRITING.--Dr. D. J. Stansbury, of San Francisco, is very successful in obtaining spiritual writing in public as well as in private. The _Golden Gate_ says:--

"There came upon the slates at Dr. Stansbury's public seance, last Sunday evening, the following message from Judge Wm. R. Thompson, father of H. M. Thompson, of this city: 'The essential principles of primitive Christianity and the precepts of Modern Spiritualism are essentially one and the same, which, if practised, would lead to the highest standard of morality and be the means of grace by which all might be saved.'"

THE FIRE TEST.--At the great spiritual convention held at Cincinnati for several days at the end of March, (the spiritual anniversary) the report states,--

"Mrs. Isa Wilson Porter, under control of an Oriental spirit, held her bared hands and arms in the flames of a large coal oil lamp. She also heated lamp chimneys and handled them as readily as she would in their normal condition, and made several gentlemen cringe and some ladies screech by slightly touching them with the hot glass. The test was made under supervision of a committee of doctors and well known physicians, who reported at the conclusion that previous to its commencement they examined the lady's hands and arms, and that they were in their natural condition, and that her pulse beat was seventy. While the test was in progress the pulse indicated forty. After its conclusion the pulse beat was sixty-five; the arms and hands were a little red, but unscorched, and the hair upon them not even singed. This incident seems weak in the description after witnessing the fact of tender flesh and blood held in such a flame for several minutes."

MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE.

ERRATUM.--In the April number, the view of the upper surface of the brain, by mistake of the printer, was turned upside down--see page 29. The engraving on page 31 must be referred to, to illustrate the description in this number.

CO-OPERATION is making great progress. A colony similar to that at Topolobampo is to be established on 3,000 acres at Puget Sound. Manufacturers are beginning to adopt the principle of giving a share of profits to their employees, but space forbids details. Topolobampo has 400 busy colonists, and is not ready yet for any more.

EMANCIPATION.--Brazil has about a million of slaves. Emancipation is proceeding slowly. It may be thirty years before slavery shall be entirely extinguished.

INVENTORS.--A correspondent remarks very justly that "Inventors have rescued the race from primitive barbarism. They have transformed the primeval curse into a blessing. True saviors they, whose every gift has multiplied itself a thousand-fold by opening new fields of industry, and scattering luxuries even among the poorest. To the inventor, and not to the statesman, politician, or warrior, do we owe our present prosperity."

IMPORTANT DISCOVERY.--"Tests were recently made at Louisville of a new and not expensive process for hardening and tempering steel, by which hardness and elasticity are carried forward in combination. A drill made of the new steel penetrated in forty minutes a steel safe-plate warranted to resist any burglar drill for twelve hours. A penknife tempered by the process cut the stem of a steel key readily, and with the same blade the inventor shaved the hairs on his arm. The inventor is a young blacksmith. He has also a new process for converting iron into steel."

SACCHARINE.--This new substance said to be 200 times as sweet as sugar is manufactured from coal tar. It was discovered about six years ago in the laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, by Prof. Remsen and a student named Fahlberg, who has since taken out patents upon it. It is greatly superior to sugar, as it is free from fermentation and decomposition. A small quantity added to starch or glucose will make a compound equal to sugar in sweetness. It is a valuable antiseptic and has valuable medical properties.

SUGAR has been discovered to have great value as an addition to mortar, as it has a solvent action on lime. An English builder wrote an important letter to the authorities of Charleston, S. C., on this subject, after that city had suffered from the earthquake.

ARTIFICIAL IVORY.--We shall no longer need the elephant for ivory. Compounds of a celluloid character, made from cotton waste, can now be made hard as ivory, or flexible or soft as we wish. White and transparent, or brilliantly colored, it can be handled like wood cut and carved, or applied as a varnish. An artificial ivory of creamy whiteness and great hardness is now made from good potatoes washed in diluted sulphuric acid, and then boiled in the same solution until they become solid and dense. They are then washed free of the acid and slowly dried. This ivory can be dyed and turned, and made useful in many ways.

PAPER PIANOS.--Pianos have lately been made from paper in Germany, instead of wood, with great improvement in the tone.

SOCIAL DEGENERACY OF THE WEALTHY.--The _Boston Herald_ says: "The spirit of the age is censorious. There is no doubt of that, or that with every new day the tendency toward pessimism increases. But even taking these facts into consideration, there is no denying that the young man about town of the nineteenth century is a blot upon our boasted modern civilization. His is not a pleasant figure to contemplate, though it is one that we all see very often and know very well--clothed irreproachably in the most expensive raiment that London tailors and unlimited credit can supply. He lives lazily and luxuriously on his father's money and his wife's, and, being after his natural term of days laid away in a tomb at Mt. Auburn, ends his existence without making any more impression upon the world's history than a falling rose leaf, or an August cricket's faintest chirp."

PREVENTION OF CRUELTY.--In Congress, Feb. 14, Mr. Collins, for the judiciary committee, has given a favorable report on the bill and memorial of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, asking the passage of a law to protect dumb animals in the various territories from unnecessary cruelty. In the report Mr. Collins says: "This body occupies the foremost place among the organizations of men and women who in our time have done so much to repress and punish human cruelty, abuse, and neglect in dealing with dumb animals. In all the States, we believe, laws now exist to prevent and punish unnecessary exposure, neglect, or cruel treatment of beasts of burden and other animals. To bring the federal legislation into co-operation and harmony with the laws of the States on the subject, and provide a uniform rule for the District of Columbia and the Territories, your committee recommend the passage of the bill."

VALUE OF BIRDS.--Maurice Thompson contends that the failure of orchards in this country is largely or mainly due to the war upon birds. The mocking bird he considers the most valuable of all. "No Scuppernong vine," he says, "should be without its mocking bird to defend it." Let ladies think of this who patronize cruelty by wearing birds' plumage on their bonnets.

HOUSE PLANTS.--Dr. J. M. Anders has decided after eight years' investigation that house plants are very sanitary agents, and even thinks that they help to ward off consumption and other diseases.

THE LARGEST TUNNEL IN THE WORLD has been completed at Schemnitz in Hungary. It was begun in 1782, and is ten and a quarter miles long, nine feet ten inches high, and five feet three inches wide, costing nearly $5,000,000. Its purpose is to drain the water of the Schemnitz mines, which is worth $75,000 a year.

"WESTWARD THE STAR OF EMPIRE," ETC.--"The Fall River (Mass.,) iron works, which have been in operation for fifty years, have shut down permanently and all the hands have been discharged. It was found impossible to compete with western works that are situated near the base of natural gas and iron supplies."

STRUCTURE OF THE BRAIN.

(_Continued from page 32._)

Nevertheless, in men and animals killed in full health there is very little serum in any part of the brain, the blood requiring all the space there is for fluids; and as the blood distends one part of the brain more than another in consequence of local excitement, the other portions of the brain, which are in a passive state, are compressed and deprived of their full supply of blood, so that they are of less nourished and their development declines.

Thus do we hold our destiny in our own hands. If we will cultivate the faculties which are most in need of cultivation, their organs, receiving more blood, will grow faster than any other portions of the brain, while the organs that are kept in check and deprived of activity will gradually decline in power and size, so that the character will become essentially changed. It is in the power of every individual who has the necessary determination to change essentially his own nature for better or worse, as well as to modify and enlarge his capacities, changing the structure of his brain; and this should encourage every young man and woman to make for themselves a noble destiny. Moreover, it is still more practicable to accomplish this by means of education, with all proper appliances for the young; and this should encourage philanthropists to struggle for that social regeneration which is so clearly possible for all the world, as I have shown in "The New Education." The study of the anatomy of the brain and the innumerable experiments I have made on the brain, showing how completely the brain of the impressible can be revolutionized in its action in a few minutes, make it very apparent that society as a whole is responsible for the continued existence of criminals, paupers, and lunatics; for there should not be one, and would not be, if mankind could be aroused from their criminal apathy and ignorance to the performance of our duty in education. But alas! "the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not."

The study of the brain continually leads us into grand philanthropic conceptions by showing the splendid possibilities of humanity,--showing how near we are to a nobler social state from which we are debarred by ignorance, by moral apathy, by ignorant self sufficiency, by intolerant bigotry, and by selfish animality,--qualities which, alas! pervade all ranks to-day.

But returning from this digression to our study of the interior of the brain: the great ventricles of which we have considered the position, and which are called lateral ventricles, are interesting for another reason, that they are the central region around which the cerebrum is developed, as it folds over upon itself in its early growth, and consequently must be borne in mind as its centre when we are studying its comparative development in different heads. The basilar organs lie below the ventricles and the coronal organs above.

If we have inserted a finger under the corpus callosum, the fibres of which are above our finger, we may feel below, the structure which may be called the bottom of the ventricle, and which is likewise the base or trunk of the superincumbent parts from which they spring, as a tree from its stump.

This structure is one mass, called anteriorly the corpus striatum, or striated body, and posteriorly the optic thalamus or bed of the optic nerve, though the optic nerve has its principal origin in another part, called the optic lobes. The thalamus and corpus striatum are called together, the _great inferior ganglion_ of the brain. They are masses of gray substance, with white fibres from below passing through them, and white fibres originating in them to ascend and spread, so that their entire masses of fibres, ascending and spreading out like a fan, constitute an extensive structure which folds together toward the median line somewhat like a nervous sac, inclosing the cavity of the ventricle and sending its representative fibres across the median line,--which are called the corpus callosum. This will be more fully explained when we consider the genesis of the brain as it grows in the unborn infant.

As the reader now understands the principal parts around the ventricles, let him look lower down to complete the survey and understand the plan of the brain, though not its anatomical minutiae. The optic thalamus is indicated in the engraving, but the corpus striatum, being more exterior and anterior, does not appear. Practically they may be regarded as one body.

Where the thalami come together and touch or unite on the median line, the junction is called a commissure (commiss. med.) and the space between them where they do not touch is called the third ventricle (ventric. III), which, like the lateral ventricles, may also hold a little serum. It is unnecessary to consider the small parts above the thalami, the choroid plexus of blood vessels, the fornix or strip of nerve membrane, and the septum lucidum or delicate fibres under the corpus callosum.

Beginning at the bottom of the figure, we observe the medulla oblongata rising from the spinal cord to reach the cerebrum. Behind this we see the cerebellum divided on the median line, and thus presenting where it is divided the appearance called _arbor vitae_, from its resemblance to the leaf of that evergreen.

As the fibres of the medulla oblongata ascend they pass between the cerebellum and the _pons Varolii_ (bridge of Varolius) mingling with its substance. The pons or bridge (for if the brain were laid on its upper surface the pons would appear like a bridge over the river represented by the medulla oblongata) is the commissure or connecting body of the cerebellum, as the corpus callosum is of the cerebrum. When the head is held erect the fibres of the pons arch forward from the interior of the cerebellum on one side across the median line to the other side, so that a straight line through from the right to the left ear would pierce its lower portion. It looks toward the front, corresponding with the upper jaw, just below the nostrils, through which region it may be reached for experiment.

My experiments upon the brain of man show that the pons on each side of the median line is the commanding head of the respiratory impulse, and in marking the organ of respiration on my busts, it is located around the mouth from the nose to the chin. When this region (especially its lower portion) is prominent it indicates active respiration and a forcible voice. Hence there is a great contrast in the vocal power of two such heads as are shown in the adjoining figure. This discovery has been verified by the pathological researches of Dr. J. B. Coste, published at Paris, 1857.

Following the line of the ascending fibres, after passing through the pons they continue expanding and plunge into the thalamus and corpus striatum. Their first appearance above the pons (marked in the engraving by the word _Pedunc._) is usually called the _crura_ or thighs of the brain. The right crus, running through the thalamus, expands by successive additions into the right hemisphere, and the left crus into the left hemisphere, of the cerebrum, and the two hemispheres unite together on the median line by the corpus callosum.

There is very little space for the crura (plural of crus) between the pons and the thalamus, but if we look at the posterior surface of the ascending fibres or crura we see a larger surface, on which we find a quadruple elevation called the _corpora quadrigemina_ (the four twins). This is an important intermediate structure between the cerebrum and the cerebellum, and in fishes is the largest part of the brain, but in man is the smallest portion, as will be explained hereafter, and is the origin of the optic nerve, as well as a commanding head for the spinal system, from which convulsions may be produced.

The quadrigemina are distinguished also as the location of the pineal gland, which rests upon them, to which we may ascribe important psychic functions. The engraving shows the fibres connecting the quadrigemina with the cerebellum, and a channel under them (aqueduct of Sylvius) connecting the ventricles of the cerebrum with those of the spinal cord. What is called the fourth ventricle is the small space between the medulla oblongata and the cerebellum. At this spot the posterior surface of the medulla oblongata, as it gives origin to the pneumogastric nerve, which conveys the sensations of the lungs, becomes the immediate source of the respiratory impulse on which breathing depends, and hence is of the greatest importance to life. A very slight injury at this spot with a lancet or point of a knife would be fatal. It is recognized by converging fibres which look like a pen, and are therefore called the _calamus scriptorius_, or writer's pen.

If the reader has not fully mastered the intricacy of the brain structure, he will find his difficulties removed by studying two more skilful dissections. The following engraving presents the appearances when we cut through the middle of the brain horizontally and reveal the bottom of the ventricles, in which we see the great ganglion, or optic thalamus and corpus striatum, and the three localities at which the hemispheres are connected by fibres on the median line, called anterior, middle, and posterior commissures. These commissures are of no importance in our study; they assist the corpus callosum in maintaining a close connection between the right and left hemispheres.

Behind the thalami we see the quadrigemina, the posterior pair of which is labelled _testes_, and resting upon them we have the pineal gland, a centre of spiritual influx. Behind the thalami, the posterior lobes are cut away that we may look down to the cerebellum, and the middle of the cerebellum is also removed so that we may see the back of the medulla oblongata and its fibres, called restiform bodies, which give origin to the cerebellum. The fibres from the cerebellum to the quadrigemina are shown, and the space at the back of the medulla, called the fourth ventricle.

As the fibres of the medulla pass up through the pons to the great inferior ganglion, and the fibres of the corpus striatum pass outward and upward to form the cerebrum, this procession of the fibres is shown in the annexed engraving, in which we see the restiform bodies passing up to form the cerebellum, and the remainder of the medulla fibres passing through the pons, and then, under the name crus cerebri or thigh of the cerebrum, passing through the thalamus and striatum to expand in the left hemisphere of the cerebrum. We see the quadrigemina on the back of the ascending fibres and their connection by fibres with the cerebellum behind, as they connect with the thalami in front. This is as complete a statement of the structure of the brain as is necessary, and further anatomical details would only embarrass the memory.

The engraving above represents not an actual dissection, but the plan of the fibres as understood by the anatomist. The intricacy of the cerebral structure is so great that it would require a vast number of skilful dissections and engravings to make a correct portrait. Fortunately, this is not necessary for the general reader, who requires only to understand the position of the organs in the head, and the direction of their growth, which is in all cases directly outward from the central region or ventricles, so as to cause a prominence of the cranium--not a "bump," but a general fulness of contour. Bumps belong to the growth of bone--not that of the brain.

Let us next consider the genesis of the brain, which will give us a more perfect understanding of its structure, by showing its origin, the correct method of estimating its development.