eps. It is
related that Lord Mansfield once gave the advice to a younger friend
newly appointed to a colonial judgeship, "Never give reasons for your
decisions. Your judgments will very probably be right, but your reasons
will almost certainly be wrong." The brain of the young judge evidently
worked unconsciously with accuracy, but was unable to trace the steps
along which it really travelled.

We are not left to the unaided study of our mental processes for proof
that the human brain is a mechanism. In the laboratory of Professor
Goltz in Strasburg I saw a terrier from which he had removed, by
repeated experiments, all the surface of the brain, thereby reducing the
animal to a simple automaton. Looked at while lying in his stall, he
seemed at first in no wise different from other dogs: he took food when
offered to him, was fat, sleek and very quiet. When I approached him he
took no notice of me, but when the assistant caught him by the tail he
instantly became the embodiment of fury. He had not sufficient
perceptive power to recognize the point of assault, so that his keeper,
standing behind him, was not in danger. With flashing eyes and hair all
erect the dog howled and barked furiously, incessantly snapping and
biting, first on this side and then on that, tearing with his fore legs
and in every way manifesting rage. When his tail was dropped by the
attendant and his head touched, the storm at once subsided, the fury was
turned into calm, and the animal, a few seconds before so rageful, was
purring like a cat and stretching out its head for caresses. This
curious process could be repeated indefinitely. Take hold of his tail,
and instantly the storm broke out afresh: pat his head, and all was
tenderness. It was possible to play at will with the passions of the
animal by the slightest touches.

During the Franco-German contest a French soldier was struck in the head
with a bullet and left on the field for dead, but subsequently showed
sufficient life to cause him to be carried to the hospital, where he
finally recovered his general health, but remained in a mental state
very similar to that of Professor Goltz's dog. As he walked about the
rooms and corridors of the soldiers' home in Paris he appeared to the
stranger like an ordinary man, unless it were in his apathetic manner.
When his comrades were called to the dinner-table he followed, sat down
with them, and, the food being placed upon his plate and a knife and
fo