Note 32 — MATTER AND MIND.

In an original and very remarkable essay, entitled "The Brain not the Sole Organ of the Mind," Dr. Hammond, of New York, says, "There is no exception to the law that mental development is in direct proportion to the amount of grey matter entering into the composition of the nervous system of any animal of any kind whatever; and that in estimating mental power, we should be influenced by the absolute and relative quantity of grey nerve tissue, in which respect we shall find man stands pre-eminent, although, as we have already seen, his brain, as a whole, is relatively much smaller than that of many other animals; and it is to this preponderance of grey matter that Man owes the great mental development which places him so far above all other living beings. As this grey tissue is not confined to the brain, but a large proportion of it is found in the ganglia of the sympathetic and some other nerves, and as an amount second only to that of the brain in quantity—and, indeed, in some animals larger—is present as an integral constituent of the spinal cord, Dr. Hammond infers, and he cites numerous experiments in support of this inference, that mental power must be conceded to the spinal cord, and that the brain can no longer be considered as the sole organ of the mind."