s already been said it is plain that memory is entirely
distinct from consciousness, and that it is in a certain sense
automatic, or at least an attribute of all nerve-centres. If this be so,
it would seem probable, _a priori_, that other intellectual acts are
also distinct from consciousness. For present purposes the activities of
the cerebrum may be divided into the emotional and the more
strictly-speaking intellectual acts. A little thought will, I think,
convince any of my readers that emotions are as purely automatic as the
movements of the frog's hind leg. The Irishman who said that he was
really a brave man, although he had a cowardly pair of legs which always
ran away with him, was far from speaking absurdly. It is plain that
passion is something entirely beyond the conscious will, because it is
continually excited from without, and because we are unable to produce
it by a mere effort of the will without some external cause. The common
phrase, "He is working himself up into a passion," indicates a
perception of the fact that consciousness sometimes employs memories,
thoughts, associations, etc. to arouse the lower nerve-centres that are
connected with the emotion of anger. It is so also with various other
emotions. The soldier who habitually faces death in the foremost rank of
the battle, and yet shrinks in mortal fear or antipathy from a mouse, is
not an unknown spectacle. It is clear that his fear of the little animal
is based not upon reason, but upon an uncontrollable sensitiveness in
his nervous system acquired by inheritance or otherwise. It does not
follow from this that conscious will is not able to affect emotion. As
already pointed out, it can arouse emotion by using the proper means,
and it undoubtedly can, to a greater or less extent, directly subdue
emotion. The law of inhibition, as it is called by the physiologist,
dominates the whole nervous system. Almost every nerve-centre has above
it a higher centre whose function it is directly to repress or subdue
the activity of the lower centre. A familiar instance of this is seen in
the action of the heart: there are certain nerve-centres which when
excited lessen the rate of the heart's beat, and are even able to stop
it altogether. The relation of the will-power to the emotions is
directly inhibitory. The will is able to repress the activity of those
centres which preside over anger. In the man with red hair these centres
may be very active and the will-