332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In the first place, you must study facts, scientifically. I think that 

 such works as Bain's, while criticisable in many directions, neverthe- 

 less are works of very great interest, as showing a wise tendency in 

 the investigation of the mind of man the founding of mental phi- 

 losophy upon physiology. I do not commend the system in all its 

 particulars, but I speak of its tendency, which is in the right direction. 

 I would say the same, also, of Herbert Spencer's works. There is 

 much in him that I believe will be found sovereign and noble in the 

 final account of truth, when our knowledge of it is rounded up. There 

 was never a field of wheat that ripened which did not have a good 

 deal of straw and husk with it. I doubt not but Herbert Spencer will 

 have much straw and husk that will need to be burned. Nevertheless, 

 the direction he is moving in is a wise one, which is the study of 

 human nature of the totality of man. 



It was believed once that man did not think by the brain. I believe 

 that notion has gone by. Most men now admit that the brain is the 

 organ of the mind. It is held that it cannot be partitioned off into 

 provinces, and that there are no external indications of its various func- 

 tions. I shall not dispute that question with you. It is now generally 

 conceded that there is an organization which we call the nervous sys- 

 tem in the human body, to which belong the functions of emotion, 

 intelligence, and sensation, and that that is connected intimately with 

 the whole circulation of the blood, with the condition of the blood as 

 affected by the liver, and by aeration in the lungs ; that the manufac- 

 ture of the blood is dependent upon the stomach : so a man is what he 

 is, not in one part or another, but all over ; one part is intimately con- 

 nected with the other, from the animal stomach to the throbbing 

 brain ; and when a man thinks, he thinks the whole trunk through. 

 Man's power comes from the generating forces that are in him, name- 

 ly, the digestion of nutritious food into vitalized blood, made fine by 

 oxygenation ; an organization by which that blood has free course to 

 flow and be glorified ; a neck that will allow the blood to run up and 

 down easily ; a brain properly organized and balanced ; the whole sys- 

 tem so compounded as to have susceptibilities and recuperative force ; 

 immense energy to generate resources and facility to give them out 

 all these elements go to determine what a man's working power is. 

 And shall a man undertake to study human nature, every thing de- 

 pending upon his knowledge of it, and he not study the prime con- 

 ditions under which human nature must exist ? 



I have often seen young ministers sit at the table, and even those 

 of sixty years of age, eating out of all proportion, beyond the necessi- 

 ties of their systems ; and I have seen, on the other hand, ministers 

 who ate below the necessities of their systems, under a vague impres- 

 sion that sanctifying grace wrought better on an empty stomach than 

 on a full one. It seems to me that all Divine grace and Divine instru- 

 ments honor God's laws everywhere ; and that the best condition foi 



