American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1872-09-28
Unconscious Brain Work.

Sir Benjamin Brodie has referred, in his
Psychological Inquiry to 4 very re-
markable quality of the brain, a quality
which DIR. Carpenter calls unconscious
cerebration. 1t often happens that after
accommodating a number of facts in an in
quiry, the mind becomes so confused in
contemplating them, that it is incapable
of proceeding with its labors of arrange
ment and elaboration; dismayed at the
chaotic heap, it backs, as it We're, upon it
self, and we feel certain it is no use cud-
ceiling our dull brains any longer. After
little while, however, without having
once consciously required to the subject,
| we find to our surprise, that the confusion
which involved the question has entirely
subsidized, and every fact has fallen into its
right place. 1t is possible that the brain
can without our knowledge, select and
| eliminate, aggregate and seggregate facts
rs subtilely as the digestive organs act
upon food introduced into the stomach.
Sir Henry Holland is inclined to dissent
from this conclusion, and leans rather to
the explanation of the phenomenon which
Sir benjamin BrOdie has himself sugges-
ted-namely, that the seeming ordering
process may be accounted for by sup
posing that all the unnecessary facts fade
from the memory, whilst those which are
essential for the ultimate arrangement
ard classification of the subject under
consideration are left clear of the weeds
that before encountered them. But this
explanation involves confession OF an
eliminative process going on ANONYMOUSLY
in the brain, which appears little less Won
derful than hidden cOgitatiOn. Why
should the Ilnessential facts alone fade? We
see no reason why we should refuse to
| recognize masked operations of the mind.
Surely we see every day examples of GER
ebral acts being performed, of which the
individual afterward is totally oblivious.
Let us instance, for example, the NEIL
tai impression engraved with a soaring
iron as it We're, upon the brain in mo-
ments of delirium. Under chlOrOfOrm,
again, the mind is often in a great state of
eXaltation, and goes through mental labor
of kind calculated, one would imagine,
to leave traces behind it on the memory;
nevertheless, water does not more readily
give up impressions made upon it than
does the tablet of the brain under this in
fiuence. Even in our dreams, of which we
take no notice, but which are patent to
bystanders by our speech and action,
there must be plenty of 8 unconscious
cerebratiOn.r Indeed, Sir Henry Holland.
in reference to vague feeling that all of
particular act, that 1--WE have gone
through it all BEFORE" endeavors to eX-
plain it by suppOsing that the faint
shadow of a dream has suddenly, and for
the first time, come to our recollection in
a form so unusual, that it seems as though
we had acted the part before in another
world. That we go through brain work
unconsciOusly, we have, therefore, no
doubt. and we see no reason why we
should deny the existence of power seated
in the brain. whose duty it is silently to
sift the grain from the husk in the inn
mense mass of mental pabulum supplied
to it by the senses.-Ediubuyg ReUie,o.