As will be seen, these experiments were no ›precision-investigations›; and the same may be said of the clinical and pathological ones. And this may be the more easily understood, when we consider that in those times so much interest was not attached to such special observations of pathological changes in the cerebral cortex; for this was then regarded only as a gland, a secreting organ or reservoir for the ›spiritus animalis›. These observations were therefore made more as it were in passing. The same is also true of the experimental investigations on animals, quoted above. These were in reality made not in order to investigate any function of the cortex, but for other purposes, namely, in order to search out the causes of the pulsations of the brain, or the qualities and functions of the dura mater, etc. Yet, as we shall see later on, some of the cases, in the original descriptions, really contain statements somewhat more exact and of greater interest even for the theory of cortical localizations, than those which SWEDENBORG quoted; but he seems to have here adduced no more than what had reference to the _cortex regarded as a whole_, and which showed what great changes in both the power of sensation and motion injuries in the cortex could produce. If we take this into consideration, and if we synthesize all these experiences, and add to this the increased knowledge concerning the minute structure of the brain, which had been produced especially by MALPIGHI’s discoveries, we must admit that SWEDENBORG had good reasons for his view that the soul’s activity had its seat in the cortex of the cerebrum. THE DOCTRINE OF LOCALIZATIONS. But SWEDENBORG, as is well known, did not stop here. The cerebral cortex certainly constituted a whole which transformed the sensations into thoughts and determinations, but all the regions of the cortex were not of the same degree: some ruled the higher, others the lower functions, thus also containing subdivisions, in some of which the sense-impressions were received, in others from which the motor impulses proceeded. (See ›The Brain›, Nos. 66, 68, 71, 88, 98, 100, 102, etc.). This conception of the brain appears at first glance as very modern. But upon searching the literature before SWEDENBORG’s time one finds that the thought was not so entirely original. New was the thought of attributing the psychical functions to the cortex, new also was the attempt to accurately determine upon the place where the different functions originate; but the _idea of localization_ itself is found again in the literature which SWEDENBORG already had at his disposal.