The Press. — London, England, 1858-04-17 00:00:00

THE PRE S S, APRIL 17, 1858. re garded in these circumstances of emotional exaltation. The excited warrior, in the thick of battle, feels neither the sabre's cut nor the cannon's stroke. Again, the tactile sensibility may be most acutely awakened in the absense of all emotional excitement; internal spasm, neuralgia, and certain cases of local hysteria, show this phenomenon. Nay, the emotional sensibility, when greatly exalted, may very often be lowered by auperinducing bodily pain—in. tensifying tactile or common sensation. In that extraor dinary epidemic of the middle ages, the Dancing Mania, so admirably described by Becker, the paroxysms (under stood to bare been the reaction ensuing upon some morbid emotion) were most efibctually interrupted or sub dued by blows and kicks ; the operation of these, it may be presumed, having been to bring about sensational, and thereby to weaken emotional, sensibility. The patients, at the height of their excitement, seem to have had the external senses literally sealed. " While dancing," says Hecker, " they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to external impressions through the senses." He places this faculty in the "optic thalami" and the " corpora striate," and the remainder of his chapter on this portion of the mind is occupied with medical instances tending to establish this conclusion. As the white matter of the brain is generally admitted to be the seat of sense and emotion, so the organic region of intelligence is com monly placed in the grey matter, between which and the former lies the connecting link of the two. Dr. Noble's view of the subject is contained in the following passage. In cor respondence with the universally-acknow ledged distinction between thought and feel ing, intellect and sensibility— Anatomical and physiological facts suggest a seat of thought distinct ftom that of feeling; the separate regions baring between them a white central mass. What thin partitions sense from thought divide. White matter, then, intervenes between the vesicular neurine forming the sensory and emotive ganglia, and that which forms the convoluted surface of the cerebrum ; and impressions received in the former may be regarded as extending their influence along the fibres of the central mass, until the grey summit is attained, when changes are induced in that region which minister to the intelligence. Intuition of some existence—a perception—thus arises, and sensational ideas are in this way primarily obtained. If we reflect upon the processes that go on within the mind, we shall see that Leither a sensation nor an emotion neeessarily involves an idea, and that an essential diffe rence exists between such passive subjective states and an intellectual appreciation of their objective significance. How often, for example, do we find that, notwithstanding the full consciousness of a sensation, the idea suggested by it does not arise until some seconds or even minutes have elapsed ? The utterance of certain words, as sounds, is heard ; their signification does not, at the moment, strike the hearer; and yet in &short time, without any ex ternal cause, and without any effort of attention, the mean ing will some times break upon the intelligence. This theory is chiefly derived from Dr. Car penter, but Dr. Noble confirms it by some in teresting facts, not previously stated. The grey matter of the brain may be attacked by disease without fatal results, and portions of it may be abstracted without affecting seriously the bodily functions ; but if the white matter underneath these grey convolutions be dis turbed, fatal consequences, such as paralysis, apoplexy, and death, speedily ensue. In the widely-different symptoms attendant upon the misuse of our thinking and emotional powers respectively, the author discovers a corrobora tion of the foregoing view : This relative liability to ulterior physical mischief con sequent upon damage done to the hemispherical and sen sory ganglia respectively, very much corresponds with the comparative deterioration resulting from excessive thought and overwrought feeling. Studious habits, however con tinuous, in themselves operate with but little prejudice to the system ; when the health of severe students gives way, the fact is almost always directly traceable to irregularity of meals, inadequate sleep, neglect of out-door exercise, aed deprivation of suitable recreation ; let these be duly attended to, and scarcely any amount of pure thinking will act injuriously upon the system, or diminish the prospects of longevity. The ease, however, is very different when, from any cense, feeling is greatly perturbed, when the emotional sensibility is habitually excited ; then, more or less, the health constantly suffers ; organic changes, not unfrequently malignant, are induced; and sometimes life is prematurely and abruptly extinguished. See the per petually occurring effects of grief, anxiety, and corroding care --the wan countenance, the sickly and dingy com plexion, the wasted flesh. Look even at the results of too much joyous excitement—the sleepless nights, the nervous excitability, the fever flush. We have none of these phenesiena exhibited by the merely studious man ; by him at least who is exempt from striving, competitive anxiety, from ambitions struggles, and other influences that deteriorate feeling. You will rather notice a fionrishing state of both mental and bodily health. Longevity, too, notoriously attaches to philosophers and men of science, if they only take ordinary care of themselves, and do not engage too vehemently in the battle of life, which corn- Premises the sensibility. Dr. Noble's argument seems to be resolvable into the two syllogisms,—lntellectual work does not injure the health; injury to the grey matter of the brain does not affect the health ; therefore there is a connection between the grey matter and the intellect : and, Over emotion does affect the health ; so does an injury to the white matter; therefore there is a connection between the white matter and the emotions. Many other interesting pas sages might be quoted, but the above, which seems sound as far as it goes, and is at all events a step towards a valid induction, is as good a specimen of Dr. Noble's manner and argument as could be quoted. The book will probably prove interesting both to the ama teur and the physician; though we cannot help thinking that, until it becomes possible to observe the functions of the brain at work in the way that Dr. Beaumont observed diges tion through the orifice in St. Martin's stomach, physiological psychology is destined to no more than a very slow progress. The Commerce of India. By B. A. Irving, M.A. London: Smith and Elder. THE contents of this volume, to which the Le Bas Prize was adjudged at Cambridge in the year 1852, are, we think, rather superior to the average of this kind of compositions. Whether or no this circumstance be attributable to later revision, we cannot tell. Certain en tirely new chapters have been added, but, if the work has not been in great part rewritten, it is as creditable to the writer's good sense as to his power of massing together facts. Having awarded this general praise to Mr. Irving's performance, we shall feel less com punction in criticising faults of detail, some of which are due to mistaken political zeal, which is pardonable in a young man, and others to the immaturity of that particular mental power by which we estimate the comparative value of facts. Sometimes, accordingly, his language is too grand for his topic, and at others he bestows but a passing glance at eveute which deserve careful examination. Mr. Irving's earlier chapters aro compiled with discrimination and industry ; nor do we see any reason to question the justice of hie conclusions. He points out five different routes by which the products of India were conveyed to the different quarters of Eurone, and using this division as the thread of his essay, proceeds to give a short sketch of the different commercial nations of antiquity and the middle ages by whom these laws were respectively adopted. The roads were as follows : First, by the way of the Persian Gulf, to cities on the Tigris and Euphrates ; thence by means of caravans to cities along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean; whence the Tyrians in olden times, and the Venetians and Genoese in the middle ages, transported it to every corner of Europe. Secondly, by the Red Sea to cities in Arabia, and in after times to Alexandria in Egypt, and thence, by the same means as in the first route, it found its way to Euro pean emporia. Thirdly, by the Cape of Good Hope, a route which, though longer than either of the preceding. is, owing to the passage being entirely by sea, both so much less expen sive and so much more certainAas to have almost entirely superseded the old routes. Lastly, direct overland communication by means of caravans from city to city ; to the south, through I3eloo chistan and Persia, to the cities of Syria ; centrally, through the Balk and Kliiva, along the shores of the Cas pian, to the towns on the Euxine ; and lastly, to the north, through Chins, across the deserts of Tartary, by way of Kiskta and Maimatschin, to 'Moscow and the cities of Central Europe. Such have been the several directions in which the rich commodities of the East have been conveyed to the West . To what particular entrepots they were brought, and what effects they prodneed upon the fortunes and character of the nations through which they passed, we now proceed to investigate. We thus get a very clear idea of those com mercial channels from which the merchant princes of Tyro and Venice derived their splendour. But the discovery of the Cape route by the Portuguese in 1488 put an end to the monopoly which the Venetians had so long enjoyed as the carriers of Europe, and gave first to Portugal, then to Holland, and finally to our own country, the command of the In dian trade. Venice might, perhaps, have been able to dispute with her new rivals the supre macy of the Eastern seas, had not the wars following the League of Cambray exhausted her resources, And disenabled her from com peting with the powerful armaments of Por tugal which swept tho 'adieu Ocean. The following sketch of the old Venetian trade is worth quotation : The merchandise of Tndia, especially from ( Malabar) and Cambeth (Cambay ), was first co= Hormus ( Ormuz), a port on the Persian Gulf, and was thence transported to Basaora, on the Euphrates, all whisk places belonged to the Tartars. From Basaora it up the Tigris to Belden (Bagdad), and thence by navigation to Antioch and Licia, where it was for Europe on board the vessels of Venice and Genoa. That of late, however, the merchants of the southern part of Arabia had recovered their old commerce. The trade came to Ahaden (Aden), thence to Chum (ancient Copt's), on the Nile, and thence to Alexandria. This, observe, was the old route of the time of the Ptolemies. Our authority in. forms us, however, that some articles of small size, but great value, were still brought by the old course. He mentions with indignation the wealth which the Sultan of Egypt by this means indirectly drained from Christendom. On an immense number of articles, a long list of which he gives, a duty of not leas than one third of their value was charged at Alexandria. ~t • The Portuguese enjoyed a monopoly of the India trade for about a hundred years (1500 A.D.-1600 A.D.), at the end of which time they began to recede before the Dutch, who after a reignof about a century and a half were in turn dispossessed by the English. The difference between the Dutch and Portuguese trade was this—that the latter was exclusively a royal monopoly, carried on by the king's ships, the king's servants, and the king's money ; whereas the former, like ourselves, intrusted the India trade to a company. The conEtitution of the Dutch East India Company was as follows : The Company being formed out of several smaller eve% whose members were naturally desirous of retaining under their own management as mach of the tied. as was possible, possessed a very peculiar constitution. Its go• vernment was intrusted to Diu different chambers, whose influence was proportioned to the amount of their sib~ scriptions and the importance of the cities which they represented. The total capital was between six and sevea million florins, and was tinder the management of ailttp five directors. Of these, twenty.five were allotted to kat& sterdam end the neighbouring towns; to Middleburg tam assigned twelve ; whilst Delft, Rotterdam, Hoorn, mail Enkhuysen, were each represented by seven. This syskiiis, notwithstanding its complicated character, for many= worked well: and it was not until misfortunes in produced discontent at home, that its disadvantages beam* apparent. In his account of the rise and progress of the English East India Company, Mr. Irving does not differ materially from the standard autho rities. In his narrative of the Company's relations with James and Charles I. we nodes 1 a little foolish declamation about the vices of the Stuarts and the virtues of Oliver Crom well. When Charles purchased their stores of pepper from the Indian merchants at a high price, he had fair prospects of being able to pay fot• it. Had he done so, the Company would have made a large profit. They were not compelled to sell it. In the then position of the King's affairs such an act of coercion was impossible. The affair was an ordinary com mercial speculation, in which a risk was en• • countered for the chance of a large return. The adventure turned out unfortunate, but the King was no more chargeable with ill ' faith than the merchant captain vessel founders in a gale and ailiteies ir t: cargo to the bottom. Again, when Chu granted a trading licence to Sir Willis. Courten, in alleged violation of the OW& pany's charter, he was only doing exactly lAA William 111. did afterwards, and acting, as, cording to Mr. Mill, if not with literal legality . , at least in perfect accordance with the public opinion of the time. Of the " Massacre cf Amboyna" (1623), when some fifteen or sixteen Englishmen were put to death by the Dutch, Mr. Irving says : The reader will expect to hear that the perpetrators of this horrid massacre met with condign punishment from their own countrymen, if not Immediately, yet, at any rate, when it was positively and indignantly demanded by the insulted majesty of this realm. Let him know, however, that a Stuart filled the throne. That although the principal perpetrators of this crime were once actually cur prisoners in Portsmouth, the Secretary of State connived at, if he did not absolutely aid in their escape, and after • more than a quarter of a century, it was reserved fee the energetic Cromwell to insist upon, and to obtain, the punishment of the surviving authors of this outrage on humanity. Mr. Irving has no right whatever to speak of this affair as a " horrid massacre " unless he can pssve it. Mr. Mill tells us that it was the result of a legal trial. The English had consented to be subject to the Dutch laws. They were tried for a conspiracy to seize Amboyna. And though the evidtnpe way have been defective . . .. • '' • • • •--- • - ••.`ed - 0e„,.-,.... , , 1 ik t ,,,,, , , 7 ; •,...,, • THE PRESS, APRIL 17, 1858 • 69 ret arded in these circumstances of emotional exaltation, does not injure the health; injury to the grey following sketch of the old Venetian trade is The excited warrior, in the thick of battle, feels neither the matter of the brain does not affect the health • worth quotation : ) • sabre's cut nor the cannon's stroke. Again, the tactile ' therefore there is a connection between the sens ibility may be most acutely awakened in the absense The merchandise of India, especially from / of all emotional excitement; internal spasm, neuralgia, grey matter and the intellect : and, Over- (Malabar) and Cambeth (Cambay), was first co= an d certain cases of local hysteria, show this phenomenon. emotion does affect the health ; so does an ]corona (Ormuz), a p o r t on t h e P ers i an G u lf , an d was Nay, the emotional sens ibilit y , when g reatl y exalted , may injury to the white matter; therefore there is thence transported to Ham ra , on th e E u ph ra t es , a ll w hi e b very often be lowered by auperinducing bodily p places ed to the Tartars. From Bassora it a counection between the white matter and tensifying tactile or common sensation. In that extraor- up the Tighe to Baldac (Bagdad), and thence by divary epidemic of the middle ages, the Dancing Mania, the emotions. Many other interesting pas- navigation to Antioch and Lima, where it was so admirably described by Becker , the paroxysms (under- sages might be quoted, but the above, which for Europe on board the vessels o f V en i ce an d G eno a. stood to have been the reaction ensuing upon some seeing sound as far as it goes, and is at all That of late, however, the merchants of the southern part morbid emotion) were most effrctually interrupted or sub- events a step towards a valid induction, is as of Arabia had recovered their old commerce. The trade deed by blows and kicks ; the operation of these, it may good a specimen of Dr. Noble's manner and u le t , e s o n f d t t h h e e tth nc iamt e es to oomf A teh l e e a : p a itcd n el d ese ri m a o . ifesin T o h all i ti s rs , o iaz biL b rve oriutt , grey w i ss nai cameto N Ahaden (Aden), thence to Chum (ancient Copt's), ,r be presumed , having been to bring about sensational, and on t he argument as could be quoted. The book will the old ro t thereby to weaken emotional, sensibility. The patients, at the height of their excitement, seem to have had the probably prove interesting both to the ama- forme us, however, external senses literally sealed. " While dancing," says ten: and the physician ; though we cannot value, were still brought by the old course. He mentions Hecker, " they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to help thinking that, until it becomes possible with indignation the wealth which the Sultan of Egypt by this means indirectly drained from Christendom. On an external impressions through the senses." to observe the functions of the brain at work • He places this faculty in the "optic thalam i" in the way that Dr. Beaumont o b served diges- immense number of articles, a long list of which he gime, a duty of not less than one third of their value was oturyed and the " corpora striate," and the remainder tion through the orifice in St. Martin's stomach, at Alexandria. of his chapter on this portion of the mind is physiological psychology is destined to no The Portuguese enjoyed a monopoly of the occupied with medical instances tending to more than a very slow progress. India trade for about a hundred years (1500 establish this conclusion. A.D.-1600 A.D.), at the end of which time they As the white matter of the brain is generally began to recede before the Dutch, who after a admitted to be the seat of sense and emotion, The Commerce of India. By B. A. Irving, M.A. reignof about a century and a half were in turn so the organic region of intelligence is com- London: Smith and Elder. dispossessed by the English. The difference mealy placed in the grey matter, between between the Dutch and Portuguese trade was Bits P rize was adjudged at Cambridge in the this—that the latter was exclusively a royal of the two. Dr. Noble's view of the subject monopoly, carried on by the , king's ships, the year 1852, are, we think, rather superior to the is contained in the following passage. In cor- king's servants, and the king s money ; whereas average of this kind of compositions. Whether respondence with the universally-acknow- the former, like ourselves, intrusted the or no this circumstance be attributable to ledged distinction between thought and feel- India trade to a company. The conttitution later revision, we cannot tell. Certain en- ing, intellect and sensibility— of the Dutch East India Company was as tirely new chapters have been added, but, if Anatomical and physiological facts suggest a seat of the work has not been in great part rewritten, follows : thought distinct fr om that of feeling; the separate regions it is as creditable to the writer's good sense The Company being formed out of several smaller *twee baring between them a white central mass. whose members were naturally desirous et retain' under retaining What thin partitions sense from thought divide. as to his power of massing together facts. their own management as much of the node as was Having awarded this general praise to Mr. possible, possessed a very peculiar eonstitntion. Its goe White matter, then, intervenes between the vesicular Irving ' s performance, we shall feel less coin- vernment was intrusted to six different chambers, whom neurine forming the sensory and emotive ganglia, and that nunetion in criticising faults of detail, some of influence was proportioned to the amount of their sub. which forms the convoluted surface of the cerebrum ; and • . impressions received in the former may be regarded as which are due to mistaken political zeal, which seriptions and the importance of the cities which they represented. The total capital was between six and seven extending their influence along the fibres of the central is pardonable in a young man, and others to million florins, and was under the management of silt). mass, until the grey summit is attained, when changes are the immaturity of that particular mental five directors. Of these, twenty.fiye were allotted to km& induced in that region which minister to the intelligence. power by which we estimate the comparative aterdam and the neighbouring towns; to Middleburg WI Intuition of some existence—a perception—thus arises, value of facts. Sometimes, accordingly, his assigned twelve; whilst Delft, Rotterdam, Hoorn MA and sensational ideas are in this way primarily obtained. Enkbuysen, were each represented by seven. This side., If we reflect upon the processes that go on within the mind, language is too grand for his topic, and at notwithstanding its complicated character, for many = we shall see that neither a sensation nor an emotion others he bestows but a passing glance at worked well: and it was not until misfortunes in neressarily Involves an idea, and that an essential diffe- events which deserve careful examination. produced discontent at home, that its disadvantages beam* rence exists between such passive subjective states and an Mr. Irving's earlier chapters aro compiled apparent. intellectual appreciation of their objective significance. with discrimination and industry ; nor do we In his account of the rise and progress of the How often, for example, do we find that, notwithstanding the full consciousness of a sensation, the idea suggested see any reason to question the justice of hie English East India Company, Mr. Irving does by it does not arise until some seconds or even minutes conclusions. He points out five different not differ materially from the standard autho- have elapsed ? The utterance of certain words, as sounds, routes by which the products of India were rities. In his narrative of the Company's is heard; their signification does not, at the moment, conveyed to the different quarters of Eurone, and relations with James and Charles I. we nodes A strike the hearer; and yet in &short time, without any ex- using this division as the thread of his essay, ternal cause, and without any effort of attention, the mean- a little foolish declamation about the vices of ing will some times break upon the intelligence. proceeds to give a short sketch of the different the Stuarts and the virtues of Oliver Crom- This theory is chiefly derived from Dr. Car- commercial nations of antiquity and the middle we ll. When Charles purchased their stores of pester, but Dr. Noble con fi rms it by some in- ages by whom these laws were respectively pepper from the Indian merchants at a high teresting facts, not previously stated. The adopted. The roads were as follows : price, he had fair prospects of being able to grey matter of the brain may be attacked by ' Ti cities by the way of the Persian Gulf, s to cities on the pay for it. Had he done so , the Company • disease without fatal results, and portions of gris along tulip(' hrates eastern ' sho thence b y mean of the Medite of caravans to rranean ; would have made a large profit. They were res it may be, abstracted without affecting seriously whence the Tyrians in olden times, and the Venetians not compelled to sell it. In the then position the bodily functions ; but if the white matter and Genoese in the middle ages, transported it to every of the King's affairs such an act of coercion was underneath these grey convolutions be die- corner of Europe. impossible. The affair was an ordinary com- turbed, fatal consequences, such as paralysis' Secondly, by the Red Sea to cities in Arabia, and in mercial speculation, in which a risk was one after times to Alexandria in Egypt, and thence, by the apoplexy, and death, speedily ensue. In the countered for the chance of a large return. -.., widely-different symptoms attendant upon the peon emporia. same means as in the first route, it found its way to Euro- The a d venture turne d out un f ortunate, b u t $ misuse of our thinking and emotional powers Thirdly, by the Cape of Good Hope, a route which, the King was no more chargeable with ill respectively, the author discovers a eorrobora- though longer than either of the preceding. is, owing to faith than the merchant captain the passage being entirely by sea, both so much less expen- vessel founders in a gale and conies= of the foregoing view : sive and so much more certain,ias to have almost entirely This relative liability to ulterior physical mischief con- su p erse d e d th e o ld routes. cargo to the bottom. Again, when Charlie sequent upon damage done to the hemispherical and sen- L ast l y , di rec t over l an d communication by means of granted a trading licence to Sir Willis. sory ganglia respectively, very much corresponds with the caravans from city to city ;to the south, through 13elon- Courten, in alleged violation of the OW* comparative deterioration resulting from excessive thought chistan and Persia, to the cities of Syria ; centrally, pany's charter, he was only doing exactly lOW and t overwrought feeling. Studious habits, however con- t h roug h th e B a lk and Kliiva, along the shores of the Cate William 111. did afterwards, and acting, mous, in themselves operate with but little prejudice to pian, to the towns on the Euxine ; and lastly , to the north.. cor the a ding to Mr. Mill, if not with literal legality, system ; when the health of severe students' gives way, through China, across the deserts of Tartary, by way o f • . the fact is almost always directly traceable to irregularity Klaus and Maimatschin , ' to 'Moscow and the cities of at least in perfect accordance with the public of meals, inadequate sleep, neglect of out-door exercise, Central Europe. opinion of the time. Of the " Massacre cf and deprivation of suitable recreation ; let these be duly Such have been the several directions in which the rich Amboyna" (1623), when some fifteen Or sixteen .- attended to, and scarcely any amount of pure thinking will commodities of the East have been conveyed to the West. Englishmen were put to death by the Dutch. set injuriously upon the system, or diminish the prospects To what particular entrepots they were brought, and what Mr. Irving says : of longevity. The case, however, is very different when, effects they prodneed npon the fortunes and character of from any cause, feeling is greatly perturbed, when the the nations through which they passed, we now proceed to The reader will expect to bear that the perpetrators of emotional sensibility is habitually excited ; then, more or investigate. this horrid massacre met with condign punishment from less, the health constantly suffers ; organic changes, not We thus get a very clear idea of those corn- their own countrymen, if not immediately, yet, at any rate, infrequently malignant, are induced; and sometimes life when it was positively and indignantly deman ded by the is Prematurely and abruptly extinguished. See the per. mercial channels from which the merchant insulted majesty of this realm. Let him know, however, petually occurring effects of grief, anxiety, and corroding princes of Tyro and Venice derived their that a Stuart filled the throne. That although the care —the wan countenance, the sickly and dingy coin- splendour. But the discovery of the Cape principal perpetrators of this crime were once actually our plexion, the wasted flesh. Look even at the results of too route by the Portuguese in 1488 put an end to much joyous excitement—the sleepless nights, the nervous at if he did not absolutely aid in their escape, and after • prisoners in Portsmouth, the Secretary . of State connived the monopoly which the Venetians had so long excitability, the fever flush. We have none of these more than a quarter of a centurv, it was reserved for the carriers of Europe, and gave p h enomena exhibited by the merely studious man ;by enjoyed as t h e energetic Cromwell to insist upon , anti to obtain, the h im at least who is exemp t f rom striving, competitive first to Portugal, then to Holland, and finally punirlimeut of the surviving authors of this outrage on anxiety, from ambitions struggles, and other influences that to our own country, the command of the I n - humanity , deteriorate feeling. You will rather notice a flourishing dian trade. Veniee might, perhaps, have been Mr. Irving has no right whateverto speak of this state of both mental and bodily health. Longevity, too, notoriousl y attaches to hiloso her. and men of science if able to dispute with her new rivals the supra- affair as a " horrid massacre " unless he can , they only take ordinar y c p of themselves, and do not maey of the Eastern seas, had not the wars peeve it. Mr. Mill tells us that it was the result en g a g e toe vehemently in the battle of life, which coin- following the League of Cambray exhausted of a legal trial. The English had consented to promises the sensibility. her resources, end disenabled her from corn- be subject to the Dutch laws. They were tried Dr. Noble's argument seems to be resolvable peting with the powerful armaments of Par- for a conspiracy to seize Amboyna. And into the two s)llogisms,—lntellectual work tugal which swept the Indian Ocean. The though the evidence may have been defective •