290 Letter from Sir Everard Home 



Aet. VI.— J Letter from Sir Everard Home, Bart., re- 

 specting a Statement published by Doctor Bostock in his 

 Elements of Physiology. 



To the Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Science. 

 My DEAH Sir, 



May I request that you will insert in your Journal the following 

 Notice and extract from my Lectures, that all those who have been 

 misled by the assertion, may be better informed. 



NOTICE. 



Dr. Bostock, in the first volume of an Elementary System of 

 Physiology, p. 234, states, that Sir Everard Home regards the 

 gelatinous substance in the brain as the very essence of life ; 

 and in a note, says, " Sir Everard has broached the most direct 

 system of materialism that has been given to the world." 



Sir Everard Home begs to assure Dr. Bostock in this public 

 manner, that the expression essence of life is not met with in any 

 part of his works. That he is not either a materialist or a craniolo- 

 gist ; that he has a full conviction in the being of an all-wise God, 

 to whom he looks up for mercy, and in whom he puts his trust. 



Sir E.'s expression is materia vitce, by which he did not mean 

 that such matter was the essence of life, but the first matter on 

 which the vital principle is exerted. 



Extract from Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, vol. in, page 42. 

 On the Brain and Nerves. 



As the transparent mucus is not only one of the most abundant 

 materials of which the brain itself is composed, but is the medium 

 by which the globules of the retina are kept together, and serves the 

 same purpose in the medullary texture of the nerves, there can be no 

 doubt that the communication of sensation and volition more or 

 less depends upon it. And it would appear from the following case, 

 that when terminations of nerves are covered with this mucus, it 

 partakes of their sensibility. 



