of vast truths, is characteristic of savage as well as civilised man; in short, it shows that the mind was created for truth, and to be governed by it. The rapid and immense improvement in the social and religious condition of these and other degraded tribes of mankind, under the persuasive operation of doctrines calculated. to direct the will, especially by their hold upon the heart and memory, and thence to inspire the conduct with commanding and ennobling motives, is a beautiful fact; at once proving the fitness of the Christian doctrines for the moral constitution of man, and the unreasonableness of that philosophy which, in spite of the world's experience, attempts to teach us that the brain of a man must be remodelled before he can be mentally regenerated. If this be true, what a sudden development of new organs or new activities of brain must have happened in the South Sea Islands, and what a new state of cranium must the sensual atheist experience, who, by a flash of thought, is struck from his elevation of self-conceit and self-adoration into an humble conviction of dependence on his God and Saviour! A brain habituated to sensual impressions, without thought, is doubtless unapt for purely spiritual things; but still these belong to man, and when he feels himself immortal, he speedily recognises the truths that belong to God also.

Man's spiritual nature is rooted in his knowledge or memory, and as he believes, so will he act; as he receives truth, so is he influenced; and truth penetrates like the sword of the Spirit, killing all earthly hopes, and opening every mind that it strikes for the reception of a world of new realities. Let the will be arrested, and the attention fixed to look upon the Gospel, and its grandeur becomes manifest and influential. As when a man like Newton, having the idea of gravitation forced upon his attention, gradually beholds the universe hanging together, and all in motion by one Power, and makes

all his calculations in keeping with that knowledge; so the Christian sees in the one grand truth that God is Love the harmonising power of all worlds, and calculates only on the force of love as the governing principle of Heaven.

A man never forgets, however he may neglect, the truth which he has willingly admitted to his mind as a ruling principle, that is, a truth commended to his conscience. As the poor African said, 'When I hear anything great, it remains;' so whatever we feel to be morally true will cleave either to torment or to delight us, according to its nature, and according to our felt. obedience to the master truths-the demands of God upon our being, as made for ultimate fellowship with Himself.

Memory, then, is not the spontaneous automatic action. of an apparatus, like Babbage's calculating machine, with figures that revolve in endless combination. It is a state of mind. Mind produces and mind preserves it. Even those figures, thus revolving and combining, existed in all their power of infinite reproduction in the mind that conceived the method of thus evolving 'nunibers beyond number numberless,' from the transpositions and combinations of only nine remembered units. Thus, perhaps, from the vast but limited multitude of ideas derived from the impressions in time, eternity may be filled with thoughts. The order and happiness resulting from their endless multiplication will depend on the few regulating principles which God has given to us in His law, and if this continue to be broken, the confusion and misery of our spirits will be as ceaseless as our capacity of thinking. But who shall say that we can be gifted. with the power of remembering, comparing, judging, and learning for ever, save for the beneficent end of understanding and lovingly obeying the will of Him. who made us for Himself, and cannot give eternal being but for eternal blessing?

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THE CONNECTION OF

CHAPTER VIII.

MEMORY WITH THE HABIT AND CON

DITION OF THE BRAIN, AND THE USE OF THE BODY.

INTIMACY with facts and things in their mutual influence on each other, constitutes our individual world of knowledge, and remains in our minds without a necessary connection with language. Ideas must generally be presented by words from one mind to another in this state of being; but, that ideas once produced exist in the mind, independently of their conventional associates, is testified by a great variety of facts, especially in the history of disease, as it affects the manifestation of the mind; and this it does, more or less, in every instance, as we have already seen; because what is called health is nothing more than the state of body best adapted for the exercise and training of the soul in its intercourse with the material world. Memory, like all other mental manifestation, is suspended by pressure on the brain, and, in fact, by anything which powerfully disturbs its functions; hence it is presumed by some physiologists that memory has no existence but as a function of the brain, and many wonderful cases of recovery from cerebral injury, with restoration of this faculty, are referred to in proof that the brain is the sole cause of remembrance. The brain, of course, is necessary to conscious existence, such as we experience; and, therefore, of course, it is essential to memory in connection with the active manifestation of this life; but yet the very facts which are quoted as evidences that

R

memory is a function of the brain, also afford us positive proof that it is something more, that is to say, a superadded power that works with the brain according to its fitness.

I knew an intelligent lady, who suddenly lost all association between ideas and language. She became as completely destitute of speech as a new-born infant. Under medical treatment, however, she gradually recovered; she again learned to speak, read, and write, just as a child learns, until some months after the attack, when her former information and faculty rapidly returned. She then told me that her remembrance of facts was as clear as ever during this speechless state,— all she had lost was language. Even her recollection of music was perfect, and she performed elaborate pieces with her accustomed skill, although not a single idea in her mind could present itself in words. She soon afterwards died suddenly of apoplexy, and the cause of the impediment was then proved to exist in disease of the brain, not in the organ of language, but the posterior part. As we should conclude, from what we know of the functions of the front part of the brain as concerned in ideation, it has been proved by Dr. Bouilland and others, that the material condition on which the memory of words, or the signs of thought, depends, is the integrity of the anterior lobes of the brain. Dr. Marc Dax, of Sommières (Gard.), in an essay, published in 1836, associated the loss of verbal memory with lesions of the left side of the brain. Large comparison of facts, however, shows that whatever impairs or impedes the organisation proper to the exercise of any mental faculty, impairs the memory also and disturbs the co-ordination existing between words and ideas, which seems to depend on a propagated motion in all the fibres of the brain.

This loss of association between words and ideas is often observed in paralytics. It is probable that per

sons labouring under such malady are always conscious that the sounds they utter are unintelligible to those whom they address, and their distress is greatly aggravated by the fact. This was the case with the lady just mentioned, as well as in others whom I have known. Patients are rarely able to give us a distinct account of their sensations under such circumstances. Dr. Holland,

however, also relates an instance to the point, in which loss of memory and articulation of words followed an accident in an aged gentleman. He could not remember the names of his servants; nor, when wishing to express his wants to them, could he find right words to do so. He was conscious of uttering unmeaning sounds, and reasoned on the singularity at the time, as he afterwards stated.' The organs influenced by the will are more or less disordered when the power of recollection is morbidly defective, as in palsy. This disease is accompanied by an unsteadiness and tremor, or rigidity of the muscles, as well as an incapacity of fixing the attention. There is some interference with the muscular sense, by which we prepare ourselves for the use of our other senses.

Here it may not be inappropriate to observe the connection between attention, memory, and muscular action. All the voluntary activities of our bodies are modified by the state of our memories in relation to our senses, more particularly to the muscular sense, or that feeling by which we regulate our movements in regard to gravitation, and avoid danger. Although we seem not to attend to our ordinary muscular actions, yet we really do attend to them, and in fact exercise a power of comparison in every intentional movement. We walk according to our experience in the use of our legs and feet, and we handle objects as we have before felt. We balance our muscles instinctively in every effort, according to the necessity which former circumstances may