Chase.] 14:0 [Feb. 7, 



doubtedly to be found in the human brain. But the Christian sees evidences 

 of the sway of consciousness everywhere ; in the rudimentary nervous sys- 

 tems of insects and molluscs ; in the busy industry of coral-building polyps ; 

 in the shapeless jelly of the amoeba ; in the development, from a single 

 cell, of the most complicated vegetable and animal forms ; in the structure 

 of crystals ; in the formation of compounds, with new properties, by 

 chemical affinity ; in the continual renewals of creation during each re- 

 turning year ; in the unity of plan which is manifested in the arrangement 

 of planets and of spectral lines ; in the modifications of that plan which 

 are displayed in vegetable growth and in stellar systems ; in all the indi- 

 cations of life, and law, and order, and purpose, and adaptation of means 

 to ends with which the universe is filled. If steam engines could think, 

 they might regard steam as the source of all the varied and intricate de- 

 signs which are wrought out by machinery, with much more reason than 

 man can give for regarding the brain as the source of consciousness. 



The more mechanical consciousness becomes, either in its immediate or 

 in its mediate manifestations, the less is the liability to mistake. The in- 

 stinct of animals is more unerring than the reason of man ; crystallization 

 and organic growth follow established design more closely than instinct ; 

 the cell, which was meant for one part of the body, rarely goes to any 

 other part ; machinery accomplishes its results with greater uniformity 

 than manual labor ; the calculating machine computes difficult tables with 

 more certainty than the most skillful mathematician. Mechanical philoso- 

 phy may naturally regard mechanical perfection as the best evidence of 

 superiority, but a higher philosophy esteems freedom more highly than 

 automatism, and consequently finds in the possibility of imperfection, evi- 

 dence of a high degree of perfection. Man, sinful as he is, and "born 

 unto trouble as the sparks fly upward," is a nobler creature, from the very 

 fact that he has the power to choose between right and wrong, than he 

 would be if he were compelled always to act from unerring instincts. 

 Now, he is capable of indefinite progress ; then, he would have been 

 stationary ; uow, virtue and merit and satisfaction in the performance of 

 duty are within his reach ; then, he would have been a mere slave ; now, he 

 has a distinct personality, created in the image of God, made a little lower 

 than the angels ; then he would have been a mere machine. 



Liebnitz and Coleridge and Cousin all gave great prominence to the doc- 

 trine that "S3 r stemsare true by what they affirm, but false by what they 

 deny." "The heavens declare the glory of God;" but "the fool hath 

 said in his heart, there is no God." We may affirm that consciousness is 

 connected with a brain, but if we say that all consciousness is connected 

 with a brain, we deny the positive assertions of others and make a gratui- 

 tous assumption which is scientifically untenable. We may admit, with 

 Hreckel, that every organic cell has a conscious "soul life;" that in the 

 infusoria a single cell performs all the different functions of life ; that, per- 

 haps, in the higher organisms, the numerous single cells give up their indi- 

 vidual independence, and subordinate themselves to the "state-soul " or 



