30 



of an extraordinary divine influence. What appears so 

 harmless when endorsed in certain hallowing connections, 

 may, having once obtained high sanction, reveal a widely 

 pernicious influence if its testimony be claimed under 

 other circumstances. 



Wednesday, March 29, 1876. 



Dr. A. H. Johnson's fourth and last lecture on The 

 Relation of the Mind to the Nervous System was deliv- 

 ered this evening. 



The lecturer said that the state of the various tissues, 

 fluids, viscera, and functions of the body are almost con- 

 stant factors in mental products. The customary diet, 

 the habitual practice in the use of food, may have quite 

 as much influence as scholastic training in deciding for a 

 life-time the spirit, methods, and direction in which men- 

 tal powers shall be exerted. It is not needful to induce 

 all the prominent symptoms of dyspepsia, before the mind 

 will show that things so vulgar as the components of the 

 daily meals are toning, and limiting, and almost dictating 

 its action. 



Indifierence to literary pursuits, flagging enthusiasm in 

 mental work, impatience in analytic thought, easy, super- 

 ficial, inefficient study of facts and truths with which one 

 is especially called to deal, are not always indications of 

 defects in direct mental training ; they may be symptoms 

 of the oppression of various organs which are vainly 

 seeking to rid the body of refuse and superfluous nourish- 

 ment. Overwork in the digestive organs may produce a 

 more or less complete inhibitory action upon the brain. 

 A certain amount of nervous action is required to carry 

 on the process of digestion. 



I 



