above, to the
surface of the brain, now below, on a longer course, to the surface of
the body.

Luys has suggested, therefore, that these intermediate stations of
cerebral organs constitute peculiar centres in which crude nervous
impressions sustain a primary elaboration before passing to the surface
of the brain. Further, that the generation of emotions, which differs in
so many respects from that of ideas, is especially connected with these
centres as distinguished from the cerebral hemispheres lying above them.
This idea is based on the following facts:

1st. The nervous masses in question are well developed in animals in
whom the cerebral hemispheres, or organs of intellection, are
comparatively rudimentary; and in these same animals, while little or no
capacity for abstract reasoning exists, the instincts and feelings
attain individuality and intensity.

2d. The emotions stand in much closer relation to sensation and
movement, than do the operations of thought. The latter, indeed,
necessitate immobility, and, if sufficiently intense, diminish the power
of sensation; they seem to indicate a concentration of nervous action
upon organs unconnected with motility or sensibility. On the contrary,
movements of some kind are the first result of emotions, of which each
is expressed by a characteristic gesture, and these increase in
violence with the intensity of the feeling. A powerful emotion, as well
as an absorbing thought, may, it is true, annihilate or transform
sensation; but this is explicable by the fact that the strongest
emotions are excited by ideas. Hence, on the hypothesis, the impression
radiating downwards to the emotional centres from the cerebral
hemispheres, would counteract a sensory impression radiating upwards
from them, by a literal interference analogous to that observed in
opposing waves of sound. But as the direction of the impression
generating emotion coincides with that of the motor impulses, the latter
would not be counteracted, but reinforced.

3d. Conversely, sensations of various kinds, transmitted to these
centres from different parts of the body, are as effective as ideas in
generating or modifying emotional conditions--often, indeed, much more
so. The hypochondria of the ancients, the dyspeptic melancholia of the
moderns, the infinite varieties of hysterical sensibility, are all
well-known illustrations of this undisputed fact. The elastic
consciousness of well-being that emboldens th