sphere of sense, he would be no better than an irresponsible brute; and the fact that man infers and travels on in reason beyond material things is itself a proof that he is not material, but indissoluble and undying, proceeding from an eternal origin to an eternal issue, in keeping with his moral and spiritual aspirations. Die mihi, flagito, verbaque reddito, Spem solidam gero. Remne tenens ero? 95 CHAPTER VII. THE CONNECTION OF THE SOUL WITH THE BRAIN, ETC. A FEW words concerning the definite nature of matter will conduct us to a consideration of the connection of the mind with the brain. The divisibility of matter has led to curious discussions, some saying that if matter cannot be divided and subdivided without end, and still remain possessed of dimensions, &c., then it must either become spirit or be annihilated. Such a notion is absurd, for it involves the belief of one of three impossibilities: the conversion of brute matter into a thinking principle, its withdrawal from existence, or its capability of being divided infinitely—that is, that every imaginary particle of matter may be still divided into as many parts as there are moments in eternity! Such reasoners seem to forget that the properties of matter are imposed by Omnipotence, and that to divide an atom is to divide an especial force, which is the same as to destroy it. In imagination indeed every material thing consists of parts, but we can yet understand that, as the very existence of an atom implies its wholeness it cannot be divisible. The will of His wisdom limits all things, even the exercise of His own power. Those who have lost all idea of Deity in their study of the physical world, might have learned a different conclusion, even from the law of chemical combination, by which the elements coalesce in certain proportions. Matter must have been made in definite atoms, or how should different chemical elements always combine by weight and measure, in exact order and proportion,-so much of one with so much of another, and in no other manner? The reason of this universal fact we can understand, when we conceive that so many definite atoms of one element combine with so many definite atoms of another. If there be not definite atoms, how can there be definite combinations? Regarding the ultimate atoms of the elements as the forms of specific forces, we may divide them for ever into imaginary parts; but we cannot believe them divisible in fact, since we necessarily conceive their force and their form constituted as one existence. It has been asked-Could not God have caused matter to think? Who can say, yes? He has not made us capable of thinking so. We cannot conceive of such matter, for the words 'thought' and 'matter' always present inconvertible and contradictory ideas; because our rational consciousness assures us that thought has no analogy to any known property of matter. Who could dare to talk, even in metaphor, of definite atoms of mind, or definite combinations of the thinking power? Or of a soul, as divisible by weight and measure ? As God is a spirit, He has qualified us to believe in spirit; and as He requires us in spirit to worship Him, He has created our mental being after His own similitude; and hence we enjoy His truth, because we possess a spiritual existence capable, when enlightened by Himself, of fellowship with Him. The mental unity, which each man calls I, cannot exist as a part of the body; for what part can we suppose to be a unit, either in structure, function, or substance? The soul, being one, spreads undivided, operates unspent,' and confers a kind of unity upon the organisation which it employs, by the act of using it for one purpose at a time. It is but one will that enforces the obedience of the body, therefore no diversity or division in the organisation can destroy the impression of our unity in volition and feeling. 'If joy or sorrow,' observes Dr. Brown, 'be an affection of the brain, it is an affection of various substances, which, though distinct in their own existences, we comprehend under this single term. If the affection, therefore, be common to the whole, it is not one joy or sorrow, but a number of joys and sorrows, corresponding with the number of separate particles thus affected; which, if matter be infinitely divisible, may be divided into an infinite number of little joys or sorrows, that have no other relation to each other than the relations of proximity, by which they may be grouped together in spheres and cubes, or other solids, regular or irregular, of pleasure or pains; but by which it is impossible for them to become one pleasure or pain.' The felt unity is in the soul, not in the body, and that as the image and evidence of the eternal ever-present One. Thus, too, the consciousness of our own mental action constrains us to believe that our Originator is a Person, whatever be the diversity in the mode of His manifestation. It will be argued, as it has been, that the brain is a thinking machine, which acts when the living blood is circulating through it as the moving power; and as iron becomes magnetic when in certain relations to electricity, heat, or light, so brain is rational when properly organised and supplied with aliment; or as the steamengine, by the expansive force of caloric in water, with a proper arrangement of materials, rhythmically breathes and acts, so mind and motion in man result from mere physical contrivance. He breathes, moves, wills, hopes, and prays as a machine-a machine adoring its Maker! The locomotive as much produces the power that moves it, as the convolutions of cerebral matter produce the H mind. There must be two powers at least acting together; one in the machine, another in the mind that uses it. The magnet does not think, the engine does not reason; they have neither feeling nor will; there is no analogy: but even the effective properties which the magnet and the engine exhibit, belong to something superadded to the materials of which they are composed. Magnetism and caloric preserve their properties when transferred to other material relations. How infinitely superior is mind! and yet even on the mechanical theory, why deny that the soul or thinking power may be superadded to the body, and may exist either in the body or out of it, manifesting itself according to circumstances? As the Creator regulates its place and its purpose by moral relations, that is, in connection with His own moral attributes now, may we not rest assured that so it will ever be ? In short, we must believe that, in whatever world, or whatever connection, memory and anticipation, conception and inference, feeling and purpose, and all that pertain to faith, hope, love, will always characterise the human soul; for our own consciousness assures us that God intends it to perceive the wonders of His power, and to be influenced by Himself and His creatures for ever, or why do we so unavoidably think of God and an eternal future? But what is the connection of the mind with the brain? M. Flourens's experiments appear to prove that the brain may be destroyed to a large extent, in any direction, without destroying any of its functions; but when the nervous mass, connecting the organs of the senses and their sympathies together, is divided, the manifestation of mind is interrupted. It follows inevitably from his experiments, that the faculty of perceiving and desiring one object operates on the same organ as the faculty of perceiving and comparing any other object, and therefore the different affections are not functions of different |