234 GENERAL VIEW OF THE FUNCTIONS. 



merits ; so that a stimulus applied to one may immediately excite a respondent 

 action in the other, however great may be its distance. Hence it may be said 

 to have an internuncial function ; but this, so far as it is performed without 

 the necessary participation of the consciousness or will of the individual, is 

 not essentially higher in character, than the corresponding function in Plants, 

 although the latter is affected by a different apparatus. The ministration of 

 the nervous system to purely Animal life, obviously consists in its rendering 

 the mind cognizant of that which is taking place around, and in enabling it to 

 act upon the material world, by the instruments with which the body is pro- 

 vided for the purpose. It is important to observe, that every method at pre- 

 sent known, by which Mind can act upon Mind, requires muscular contraction 

 as its medium, and sensation as its recipient. This is the case, for example, 

 not only in that communication which takes place by language, whether 

 written or spoken ; but in the look, the touch, the gesture, which are so fre- 

 quently more expressive than any words can be ; and thus we trace the limi- 

 tation, which, even in communication that appears so far removed from the 

 material world, constantly bounds the operations of the most powerful intel- 

 lect, ami the highest flights of the imagination. That in a future state of being, 

 the communion of mind with mind will be more intimate, and that Man will 

 be admitted into more immediate converse with his Maker, appears to be alike 

 the teaching of the most comprehensive Philosophical inquiries, and | the 

 most direct Revelation of the Divinity. 



286. The Organs of Sense are instruments, which are adapted to enable 

 particular nerves to receive impressions from without; of a kind, and in a de- 

 gree, of Avhich they would not otherwise be sensible. Thus, although the 

 simple contact of a hard body with the nerve may be readily conceived to 

 produce a material change in it, of such a kind as would be easily propagated 

 to the central sensorium, it is evident that a nerve must be peculiarly modi- 

 fied, to receive and conduct sonorous impressions from the undulations of the 

 air ; still more to be susceptible of the impressions produced by those un- 

 dulations, to which most Natural Philosophers now attribute the transmission 

 of light. And, even when this difficulty has been provided for, by some mo- 

 dification in the structure of the nerve itself, there is evidently another still 

 remaining, that of understanding how distinct images of the form, colour, 

 &c., of external objects can be communicated to the nerve of sight; or ideas 

 of the direction, pitch, quality, &c., of sonorous undulations, can be obtained 

 through the auditory nerve. There is reason to believe that many among 

 the lower Animals, which do not see objects around them, are conscious of 

 the influence of light ; and thus the distinction between the mere reception of 

 the impression, and the communication of the optical image, becomes evident. 

 The former may take place through the intervention of nerves, whose sensory 

 extremities offer no peculiarities : the latter can only be received through the 

 medium of an instrument, which shall, from the mixture of rays tailing 

 equally upon every part of a surface, produce an optical image, and then 

 impress it upon the expanded surface of the nerve ; so that each fibril may 

 receive a distinct impression, the image presented to the mind being formed 

 by the combination of the whole. That this is, in fact, the share which the 

 organs of special sense bear in the general endowments of the whole appa- 

 ratus, may be inferred especially from the conformation of the Eye ; which 

 is in every respect a merely optical instrument, of the greatest beauty and 

 perfection, adapted to present to the nerve, in the most advantageous manner, 

 the images of surrounding objects in all their variations. And we might con- 

 ceive that, if it were possible for the interior of the living eye to be replaced 

 by one constructed of inorganic materials by the hand of man, without de- 

 stroying the functional power of the retina, the sense of sight would be but 



