in which he becomes a candidate for marriage to that in which, after having been a husband and father, he becomes a grandfather, and sees in the second generation that springs up around him the secondary ramifications of the branches of which he is the parent stem. So that, whatever be the position of a man (I mean of a complete and regularly constituted man), on whatever rung of the social ladder we may imagine him placed, we are always sure to find at the bottom of his actions, open or secret, as the first cause of their motives, the craving for physical pleasure, and as a consequence, psychic pleasure, with all the sentiments to which it gives birth. It is this which, always present, always active, becomes in every act of his life the natural stimulus of the briskness of his mind, the resources of his imagination, and the vigour with which he enters upon the struggle for existence. It tinges his whole. personality, animates him incessantly, and produces such concordant action of all his powers that we may say, without fear of mistake, that the measure of his physical is also that of his moral virility.

3. Genital excitations play such an important part in the sum total of the operations of psycho-intellectual life, that when they are arrested in their development, in consequence of certain operations that nip them in the bud in the regions where they have their point of origin, a very remarkable effect is produced upon the intellect and character.

Every one knows how mild and easy castrated animals are to manage, and how this fits them for the rule of man, through the modification of their natural impetuosity. In man, the same practice pro

duces similar effects. According to Godard,* castration performed on the adult singularly weakens the moral energy, as the following fact, reported by d'Escayrac, de Lauture, proves. "I have seen," he says, "six slaves belonging to the kachef of Abouharas, in Kordofan, who, in consequence of a conspiracy against the life of their master, were emasculated by him. All were adults at the time of this mutilation, and none of them died. Their characters changed completely, and the submission they now show differs remarkably from the spirit of rebellion that animated them previously."

Godard afterwards adds+ that, according to Dionis, castrated persons are unsociable, liars, and rascals, and that they never seem to practise any human virtue; and that, according to Benoît Mojou, eunuchs are the vilest class of the human race, cowards and rascals because they are weak, envious and spiteful because they are unhappy.

Finally, he has noticed that even where no mutilation has been practised, individuals with congenital absence of the two testicles are effeminate, unenergetic, timid; they blush easily, everything frightens them, and it is difficult even to examine them without a great deal of trouble.

* Godard, "Recherches tératologiques sur l'appareil séminal de l'homme," F. 68. Paris, 1860.

+ Loco citato, p. 73.

CHAPTER III.

THE JUDGMENT.

JUDGMENT is the principal operation of cerebral activity, by means of which the human personality, in presence of an excitation from the external world, either physical or moral, expresses its condition.

Among the diverse operations of the brain in action, that of judging is a regular physiological process, which is developed according to fixed laws and inevitable organic conditions, and which, like the different phenomena of muscular activity (the progression of the human body in space, for instance), expresses life in exercise and the nervous power in a dynamic state.

The action of judging, so far as it is a physiological process accomplished by means of the cerebral activities in movement, is decomposable into three phases, which are as follows:

I. A phase of incidence, during which the external excitation impresses the sensorium and rouses the conscious personality to action.

2. An intermediate phase during which the personality, seized upon and impressed, develops its latent capacities, and reacts in a specific manner.

3. A final phase of reflexion, during which the process, continuing its progress through the cerebral tissue,

U

is projected outwards in phonetic or written co-ordinated manifestations. The impressed human personality, in fact, expresses itself, exhales itself in its entirety, in either articulate or written language.

I. It is always a recent or former sensorial impression that naturally excites an operation of the judgment and determines its action. The sensorium is impressed, the human personality takes part in the phenomenon; it is strongly affected, and reacts immediately. This work of absorption of the sensorial excitation and of conscious reaction, on the part of the personality, implies then a series of connected operations which follow and complete one another, like the different phases of a simple somatic process. It even requires a certain appreciable time, to be effected in the cerebral tissue, and, according to the nature of the individual, will act with greater or less facility, and perfect itself with exercise, as Donders has demonstrated.*

* Donders, by means of very ingenious registering instruments, has succeeded in introducing a precise notation in studying the evolution of certain phenomena of the cerebral activity. The method consists in making an impression upon a person and noting the precise instant at which he responds to it. The person who makes the experiment must, as soon as the impression is felt, press with his finger a spring which sets a revolving cylinder in motion. The number of revolutions indicates the time that has elapsed, that is to say the time necessary to permit the complete process of the judgment, the impregnation of the sensorium and its expressed reaction, to manifest themselves externally. The precise duration of voluntary transmission is known, since it is always pretty much the same, and thus we arrive at the knowledge that a luminous sensation is more quickly perceived than an acoustic or a tactic. In this case it is a simple thought that is transmitted.

Donders again applied himself to ascertain by the same process the time necessary to solve a dilemma. A person is in darkness, a green or red light is flashed upon him, and he is to make a certain signal with the right or left hand according to the colour exhibited. The sum of these operations is more complex and requires much more time; but, as the elements of the previous experiment are here again found, we have only to deduct the time necessary for this,

It is in this first phase of the operation that the whole secret of its final rectitude resides; for to see well and to judge well are synonymous, and to acquire the power of pronouncing with certainty, respecting such or such a circumstance, we cannot surround ourselves with too many precautions.

Nothing, in fact, is more difficult than to have a clear and precise appreciation of real things. The minute care taken by physicists and chemists, and the infinite precautions with which they surround themselves, in order to appreciate simple physical phenomena, show us how frequent are the causes of error, and how liable to deception is all observation; since we so often find two observers, in the presence of the same physical and palpable phenomenon, each describing it in his own fashion, and each giving a very different report respecting it.

A fortiori we can understand that when we have to do with the interpretation of complex things, to form judgments respecting history, contemporaneous or past; respecting the facts of our current life, in which all human passions are openly or secretly at work; respecting political matters; the ascertainment of the real facts may become very difficult, the very notion of truthobscure. We see how those judgments, which we succeed in formulating, always fail at some point or another, from the intervention, more or less eager, of our own personality.

to ascertain the time required by the brain to discern whether the light was green or red, and which hand was to be used. Donders, "Archives néerlan daises," 1867, vol. ii. Instrument for measuring the time necessary for psychical acts.