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There are some facts in abnormal states especially difficult of explanation under the idea that conscious states are predetermined by acts of cerebration. There are those double experiences, double states of consciousness, which proceed each under its own impressions, and totally suspend each other with an abrupt transition. Can two series of physical states utterly diverse, each coherent within itself, and incoherent in reference to the other, go forward in the brain, arresting one another in an irregular yet decisive way? Possibly, but few would have the boldness to affirm that such a fact is plain enough to be offered as the solution of any other fact, that capricious physical states are more explicable than capricious intellectual ones, so much more so as be able to account for the latter.

It may be said that the two hemispheres of the brain take up a disconnected instead of a concurrent action, and eo give grounds for a divided consciousness. If this theory is to have any weight, if the implied facts are not far too obscure and uncertain to explain anything, it must still involve, we think, some transfer of attention on the part of the mind, akin to that by which we see through one or the other eye. The physical states of brain in its two halves are doubtless continuous, and, if the controlling source of impressions, must give continuous impressions.

We ought, therefore, if states of brain determine mental states, to have two coetaneous mental experiences, instead of a consecutive experience made up of alternate parts. The latter fact seems to imply the unity of mind, and that superiority by which it shifts its organs, calling them into service or letting them drop from it. Thus, if the axis of the eyes are thrown out of relation, the mind soon learns to use one eye to the neglect of the other.

This idea of cerebration proceeds on that of an antecedent physical causation of mental states, and a strict