1864. ] Atheism and Science. 547 
is the sole cause of the apparent design. “There is no natural con- 
trivance which might not be imagined more perfect than it is ;” the 
order which “appears to us as produced by design,” “ was established 
by natural conditions.” ‘Nature has produced a number of beings 
and contrivances in which no design can be detected, and which are 
frequently more apt to disturb than to promote the natural order of 
things.”* Very little has yet been done to show the use of such 
“ troublesome and disgusting creatures” as “ dangerous reptiles and 
insects.” 
It is a mistake to suppose that nature has done anything in antici- 
pation of the advent of man, “there are no ends which nature had in 
view to favour a privileged being. Nature is an end in itself.” 
The brain is in all animals the seat and organ of thought. The 
two are inseparable, and the brain is proportioned in size, shape, and 
structure, to the magnitude of its intellectual functions. “ Mental 
function is a peculiar manifestation of vital power, determined by the 
peculiar construction of cerebral matter.” 
The peculiar chemical constituents of the brain, and its complica- 
ted structure, account for the remarkable functions it performs. It 
is easy to prove that mind and brain are inseparable, for accidents to 
the brain cause a concomitant imperfection of the mind, and the 
entire removal of the brain leaves the body alive, but the soul is gone. 
“Thought is a motion of matter,” and the brain is “only the car- 
rier and the source, or, rather, the sole cause of the spirit or thought. 
‘The senses are the source of all truth and all error, and the human 
mind is a product of the change of matter.” 
The souls of brutes differ from those of men in quantity, not in 
quality. The term “instinct” is a misnomer, and all so-called in- 
stincts are the consequences of “ deliberation, the result of comparisons 
and conclusions.” The transition from the lower animals to man is 
imperceptible; the Crétin is below the brute, and the Negro has all 
the “characteristic peculiarities of the Ape.” 
Language is not a distinctive feature in Man. The lower animals 
can speak, some by signs, others by sounds, whilst there are whole races 
of men who are no better than animals in this respect, speaking more by 
signs than by articulate sounds. Educability is not peculiar to man ; it 
is chiefly the difficulty of communication which prevents animals from 
rising in intelligence. The soul has no “personal continuance,” for 
thought cannot exist without brain, and with the dispersion of the 
“ force-endowed materials, and their entrance into other combinations, 
the effect which we call soul must disappear.” This doctrine cannot 
be objected to on the ground that the “ thought of eternal annihilation 
is revolting to the innermost feelings of man,” for “the thought of an 
eternal life is more terrifying than the idea of eternal annihilation.” 
Neither is there anything to be gained by a continuance of life. 
-* We cannot refrain from quoting here a sentence of the author's, from 
another part of the work (p. 251):—‘ Exact science inculeates modesty.” This 
expression is, however, used in the chapter of “concluding observations,” and 
perhaps it was a conclusion at which the author had not arrived at so early astage 
of his investigations. 
