if the posterior filaments are pricked or irritated, no muscle is in the least degree excited, but the animal betrays unequivocal indications of suffering. As the filaments are blended together in the nerve at C, there is no possibility of distinguishing those that are for motion from those that are for sensation; but those which perform the one function separating from those which perform the other before their insertion into the spinal cord, we have it in our power to ascertain by experiment which function each performs. Whether there are distinct filaments for conveying nervous influence to the involuntary muscles, has not yet been made out; but since there is a distinct system of nerves (the sympathetic) which seem to be chiefly appropriated to those organs and which unquestionably are not sentient nerves,-it is to be presumed that this is the fact, and to be hoped that physiologists will hereafter supply the evidence of it, for when this link is added to the chain it will be complete. We have seen that the voluntary muscles are both the instruments of loco-motion, and the means by which the animal acts on external objects to render them subservient to the accomplishment of any desire it may feel, or any conception it may form: that of these instruments, the very end of their existence requires that it should have the complete and the instantaneous command; that, on the contrary, the involuntary muscles are the instruments by which the physical and the vital processes that sustain life are carried on: that the regularity and constancy of their action might be interrupted, but could seldom be promoted by the volition of the animal; that, therefore, they are placed beyond its control, and are consequently rendered involuntary. Now, it is a part of the same wise constitution of our nature, that the action of the voluntary muscles should be attended with sensation, but that the action of the involuntary muscles should be wholly unattended with it. This fact deserves particular attention. We could have had no idea of resistance, for example, "which forms so large a part of what we call our idea of matter, without the feelings which attend the action of voluntary muscles. Resistance means a force opposed to a force; the force of the object opposed to the force which we apply to it. The force which we apply is the action of our muscles, which is only known to us by the feelings which accompany it. Our idea of resistance then is the idea of our own feelings in applying muscular force. The feeling of weight or attraction, is also a feeling of resistance."-There are other elementary sensations which are derived from the action of the voluntary muscles, which it is not necessary to specify at present it is sufficient to bear in mind, that this action is a source of several distinct and very important primary sensations. The action of the involuntary muscles, on the contrary, as long as it is natural and healthy, is attended with no distinct consciousness. These involuntary muscles, as has been stated, are the instruments by which the vegetative functions are performed, or by which those processes are carried on, which are necessary to maintain the integrity of organized structure. All these processes go on without producing any distinct consciousness. In the plant, these vegetative processes are the only functions that are performed; in the animal, the two functions of sensation and motion are superadded; but the addition of these two new functions in the animal, does not alter the nature of the functions which it performs in common with the plant. We do not feel the conversion of food into chyme in the stomach, nor the change of chyme into chyle in the duodenum. When duly elaborated, we are not conscious of the absorption of the chyle by the lacteal vessels, nor of its transmission by these tubes into the current of the venous blood. We are not taught by any internal sensation, that there is an immense column of blood always flowing towards the heart, and another column always pouring from it. Although the muscular contractions by which the circulation is accomplished are powerful and incessant, continuing night and day without intermission, from the commencement to the termination of life, yet so little are we conscious of their existence, that a century or two only have elapsed since the circulation itself was discovered. Nevertheless, the general result of these involuntary actions is a consciousness which is quite distinct and peculiar. When all these actions go on vigorously and well, the general result is a state of consciousness, a state of pleasurable sensation, common to the entire system, which every one has felt, which cannot be described, but which is named the state of health. This general and peculiar consciousness, the ultimate result of the natural action of all the organs, which we denominate health, is the only consciousness which, as long as they remain perfectly sound, the involuntary actions contribute to produce for the moment their action becomes distinctly perceptible, even perceptible enough to draw the attention to the organ producing the sensation, it is a certain "sign that the action of that organ is deranged. Hence it is truly said, that digestion is performed perfectly only when it is accomplished without our knowing that we have a stomach. But in disease, the case is widely different: comparatively slight deviations from the state of health render some of these involuntary actions but too acutely sensible, and then they immediately become very important elements in the train of thought, influencing and modifying them to a far greater degree than is commonly apprehended. Both as enabling us to distinguish the sound from the morbid states of consciousness, to detect the sources as well as the elements of the latter, and to discover the means of counteracting the circumstances that tend to their formation, it is very important to attend to the distinction here pointed out. If, for example, the pyloric portion of the stomach be inflamed, there is often no sense of uneasiness in the stomach itself; but the most distressing sensations are produced in the system in general; the appetite either entirely fails, or becomes voracious, the function of digestion is disordered, healthy chyle is not formed, the strength fails, the flesh wastes, the voluntary muscles lose their firmness, and become soft and flaccid; their mobility increases to such a degree, that they are excited to irregular and violent action on the application of almost any stimulus, however slight; the sensibility increases in a still greater proportion; circumstances which, in a state of health, would excite scarcely any feeling, are now the causes of emotions almost too painful to be endured; the trains of ideas not only become preternaturally intense, but they succeed each other with preternatural rapidity, hence their true relations are not distinctly perceived; often indeed so confusedly, that the exercise of a sound judgment is impossible. One of the most painful feelings connected with this disordered state, is the consciousness which the mind has of its own weakness, vacillation, and untrustworthiness; it cannot fix its attention with steadiness on any point, and the mental irritability that results, reacts upon the diseased organ that produces it, aggravating the physical disease, while that, in its turn, increases the mental disorder, and thus a state of body and mind is produced that is truly wretched. This is the state to which the strange name of "nervous" is often attached. In like manner if the secretion of the liver be imperfect, the process of digestion is equally impaired. Healthy bile not being mixed with the nutritive matter prepared by the stomach, healthy chyle cannot be formed; the body immediately feels inert and languid, the mind dull and torpid, the trains of ideas become gloomy and desponding, and the temper irritable and capricious. Again, the nerves that supply all the nutritive organs are most intimately connected with certain large nervous ganglia and plexuses situated in the abdomen. A state of irritation, or of slight and long-continued inflammation of these ganglia and plexuses, gives rise to an extensive circle of diseases, which influence the trains of thought and feeling in a most remarkable and an exceedingly painful manner. All these morbid states have hitherto been jumbled together under the names of nervous and bilious. Little progress has yet been made in the discrimination of the diseases that arise from this source, but attention is awakened to the subject, and the power which a clear and exact knowledge of it will confer, to mitigate human suffering, is immense. There cannot be a doubt, that in the great majority of cases, the first origin of mania takes its rise in some physical disorder of this nature; and that if the seat of the malady, and the nature of the disordered state, were discriminated at an early period, the occurrence of the maniacal condition might be effectually prevented. And it is equally certain that those mental states which do not entirely overwhelm the volition of the individual, and obviously deprive him of the power of controlling his actions, but which still hurry him into extravagant and vicious courses, terminating at length in the commission of atrocious crimes, not unfrequently have their origin in the same physical disease, and might be wholly prevented were the physical disease attended to in the commencement, and the proper remedies applied. How many crimes would be prevented were the physical health studied with relation to the mental and the moral! How much suffering would be saved were the mental and the moral health studied with relation to the physical! Surely these are considerations which deserve the attention of the parent, the instructor, the physician, the moralist, and the legislator. ART. II.—1. History of Scotland. By Patrick Frazer Tytler, Esq. HISTORY is in truth, as hath been said of it, little else than a register of crimes. There is scarcely a green spotan oasis in its vast desert, on which the jaded mind and eye of the intellectual traveller can rest for a moment with unmingled satisfaction. Murder succeeds to murder, and massacre to massacre; fraud follows fraud, oppression oppression, and injustice injustice; successful crime, violence, and villany call aloud to and cheer on crime, violence, and villany, in the vain and unprofitable record, until we turn with a disgust that amounts to loathing, and ask if this be the policy, the heroism and the wisdom, if these be the boasted deeds of those venerable and illustrious ancestors, whom some have been in the habit of holding up to us as the pure and unapproachable models of whatever is wise, virtuous, and valiant. To a mind turning from the consideration of the point which human society has at present attained, and the prospects which calm and enlightened benevolence holds out to it for the future, the history of the past, at least as it has been hitherto written, seems almost as little calculated either for pleasure or instruction, as to a mind sane and well regulated would be the horrible and revolting records of a madhouse or a brothel. The Scotch are fond and proud of their history. To such a degree are they so, that, if they possessed the Roman's power, in all probability there would be no deficiency of his will, to force some rude and filthy fable of divinity of origin down the throat of mankind. But that trick has never succeeded, except in the case of the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks had none to detect and contradict their fables: they had not then, as they had afterwards, a mark set upon their monstrous mendacity. Græcia mendax had not then become a byeword among the nations. 'A fixed figure for the time of scorn To point his slow unmoving finger at' The cause of the success of the Roman fable is explained in the insolent observation of the historian of those conquerors of the world. "Si cui populo licere oportet consecrare origines suas, et ad Deos referre auctores, ea belli gloria est populo Romano, ut quum suum conditorisque sui parentem Martem potissimum ferat, tam et hoc gentes humane patiantur æquo animo quàm imperium patiuntur.-LIVY-Preface. The The Scotch are proud of their history.' And in that history they have something whereof to be proud. But that something when compared with the whole mass, is small indeed. bright and heroic æra of Scottish history was the period of the fierce and obstinate, and ultimately successful struggle for freedom under William Wallace and Robert Bruce, the only really and greatly successful leaders Scotland ever possessed, because they were the only ones who were, in any high sense of the words, at once wise and valiant. Indeed, certain of the house of Douglas, and others, may be considered as successful thieves; perhaps they merit the more dignified name of robbers, as one or two of them were certainly bold villains; but none of them possess any claim to the title of a great commander. In short, the rest of her history consists of a series of ill-conducted enterprises, with incapacity, imprudence, disorder, |