Pathological shrewishness in literature

Legends and physiology

Prince Arthur and Sir Galahad

Nathaniel Hawthorne's and George Eliot's characters

The Mill on the Floss

Shakspere, Burns, Byron, and their wives

Anatomy and physiology in the picture gallery

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PHYSIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS.

CHAPTER I.

MANKIND is made up of physiological units who have hitherto cared but little for physiology; physiology, however, cares much for them; for the life of each unit is nothing more than a succession of physiological incidents— incidents, for the most part, in the physiology of brain and nerve.

The sun and stars are not light and do not give light; they merely give out a force-wave which is itself dark until it touches nerve. Thunder is silent until its silently travelling vibrations fall on nerve. So in like manner the universe itself starts into existence only when an outer mysterious something comes into contact with still more mysterious central nerve. Thus the brain makes its own world out of the raw material of circumstancematter, force, change-which lies around it. The ocean of circumstance flows everywhere,

and beats on every object-nerve alone responds, shapes, controls, creates.

The universe is an enigma; but in truth the enigma lies mainly in the inner nerve. If the brain, in organisation and power were, say, six times more effective than it is, the universe would be six times less unknown; six times grander; it would have a six-fold deeper poetic significance; human conduct would be six times more finely fashioned.

The emotions, thoughts, resolves, and deeds of mystic nerve substance, when clearly seen and passionately sung, are spoken of as poetry; they are put on the stage and we talk of them as the drama; they are discussed in Parliament and framed into laws; they seek the supernatural in grove, or temple, or pagoda, or mosque, or chapel, or church, and we speak of religion; they are trained, by teachers and by the world, and we discourse on education; but after all, and in no remote sense either, they are simply events in the physiology of the nervous system.

Everything that is known, or can be known, is part of some science, whether the science is clearly or but dimly understood. Everything

that is done or can be done belongs to some art; the art may be lofty or humble, true or false, adequate or feeble. There is, moreover, no art which is not based on some knowledge, that is on some, one or more, of the sciences.

The more we come to see that many arts are founded on physiological truths, many of them on the truths of human nature-on the truths of human nerve, the more will those arts prosper. Poets, dramatists, historians, moralists, politicians, jurists, teachers, physicians, are first of all artists in physiology. No doubt the arts (and artists) differ from one another in glory, but, putting glory aside, the artist will be effective or ineffective in proportion as he accepts or rejects (it may be consciously or it may be unconsciously) the physiological basis of his art.

It is true that not all the knowledge gained by nerve can be called physiological knowledge. Nerve searches the heavens and infers certain astronomic laws; it traces the formation of the earth's crust and geological truths are brought to light. But the knowledge which tells of the direct outcome of nerve life-of sensation, emotion, thought, volition, action-this know