Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-01-26
MENTAL SCIENCE.
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS
FUNCTIONS.
The Brain and Sociability-Crime q
Form of Parasitism Among
Human Communities.

"Brain and Sociability" is the title of
an address delivered at the Congress of
German Naturalists of this year, by Pro-
fessor Theodore Meynert, whose works on
the nervous system have given him a
worldwide reputation. Like much that
he writes, ii contains many digressions,
and in particular enters into details con-
corning the nature Of instinct. The por-
ton OF the address most germane 10 the
title is here reproduced in abstract.
The struggle for existence has its origin
in the tendency of organisms to multiply
indefinitely. Sociability consists in the
moderation of this strife in the more or
less conscious resolve of certain portion
of the animal kingdom to live and let live
The Hindoo philosophy attempts to en-
brace the entire animal law under such
law, but this is practically impossible. The
Christian ideal of a single brotherhood of
man is realizable, because it includes but
one animal species. Such communities
confined to one species, or still more fire.
quently to one society, are to be seen in the
animal world The organized troops of
elephants, the communities giants and bees,
illustrate it abundantly. With what kind
of psychic or physiological activity to con-
meet these manifestations is question ca
pable of various answers. One finds 1t
difficult to draw the line separating the
conscious from the unconscious, the de-
signed from the instructive, the voluntary
from the reflex. 1t is somewhat less hope
less to arrange organisms by means
of an anatomical comparison of their nerv-
GUS systems. This would not coincide with
the geological scale throughout; for the
Amphiorus, though a vertebrate, has al
most no brain. By the classification here
adopted, the ant and the bee would stand
high in the scale. In man the cortical
organ is situated to one side, the reflex
organs to the other side, of the base of the
Uranium; and the ganglia furnishing COM
munication with the organs of sense are
between. In the same way in the inverte-
brates the ganglia anterior to the oesopha-
geal arch are subordinate to those posterior;
they play the role of higher and lower
brain, and have the same significance as vol
untary and reflex action have in the verte-
brates. In the ants, according to Forel, the
greater the intelligence of the animal, the
more developed are these ganglia. Passing
upward from the leech to the water-beetle
(Dytiscus), to the ant, one passes to a nerv-
Gus system in which the inferior cerebral
ganglia are larger than the superior, to
one in which they are equal, to one in
which the superior gains the ascendancy.
Forel finds among ants that these ganglia
are much reduced in the incapable males,
little larger in the females and well de-
veloped in the workers. While conscious
ness need not be exclusively connected
with these anterior ganglia, their high de-
velopment eclipses the powers of the lower
centers, and this seems to be the more per-
feet the greater the excess of the superior
over the inferior ganglia.
The methods by which the sociability
is retained among animal communities
the power of communication, the power of
recognition of friends and enemies, the Sc
lection of single queen, so that there
shall be unity in the governmental this
need not detain US here. The point to be
noted is the type of sociability represented
by an insect community-a sociability linn
tied in its scope, but within that limit rem
dering the struggle for existence less keen.
An ant of another species is treated as an
enemy; degree of resemblance determines
communism. Sympathy is not developed
among the lower animals. Nutrition is
the prime object of each. The most COM
mon dependence of one animal form upon
another is parasitism. Parasites have
been divided into those that do not feed
upon the animal itself, but take its nutri-
ment, those that make return for what
they take, and parasites proper. Parasit-
ism in general is the anti-social character
istic both in animals and men. Its most
perfect expression is slavery" while
reciprocity" "mutualism," is the essence
of all sociabilty, and is the ideal towards
which civilization is striving.
From this general point of view the en-
envy of sociability among human commu-
mites, that is crime, is nothing but form
of parasitism. This it is that binds to-
gether criminals of all grades and nations.
1t is lack of the true social instinct In
the natural development of the child, one
can distinguish two egos. The primitive
ego is formed by the consensus of sense
impressions, the motions, the pleasures and
palms, yielded by its environment and its
activity is directed to the preservation of
SELF Upon this is built second ego,
which, however, is not limited, like the
earlier. 1t unites the individual to other
men; it makes one share the life of all.
1t POUNDS societies, and is the true germ of
mutualism." it contributes its activity to
the general welfare of all. This wide
scope of the secondary ego is gained
by an increase of the intense cere-
bral work. Its motive of actions become
so complex and so many, that the mind
can no longer contain them. 1t brings
about an ethical, social feeling, that pre-
vents what is harmful to the community,
and opposes it.
The deprivation of moral sense would
thus be kind of imbecility. 1t is a de-
ficiency in the secondary ego; it reduces
an individual to the stage of childhood in
which self-preservation is the only end.
The criminal retains the parasitic nature
of his infancy, feels his life to be different
from those of his kindred, and is thus ex-
Guided from the sentiment of sensibility
except toward those like himself. In as
far as this is a mal-direction, and not an
absence, of the moral sense, it is subject to
reformatory measures. Other forms of
anti-social psychic conditions exit, such as
mania and the entertainment of decisions
One can follow the mechanism of sociabil-
ity into the brain. The anterior portions
of the brain exercise control over the
lower centers-those connected with the
exercise of sense and individual functions.
The anterior brain, then, can be regarded
as the organ of sociabillty. Its develop
ment increases the sense of mutualism"
The superiority of the lower centers brings
about the anti-social characters. Here are
centered the parasitical, purely personal
tendencies.