90 ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



ducts of the brain, I once made use of the following 

 language, which I will repeat on this occasion : 



" In his physiology, at the commencement of the 

 second section. Dalton says : l In entering upon the 

 study of the nervous system, we commence the ex- 

 amination of an entirely different order of phenomena 

 from those which thus far have engaged our attention. 

 Hitherto we have studied physical and chemical ac- 

 tions taking place in the body and constituting the 

 process of nutrition. We have seen how the lungs 

 absorb and exhale different gases ; how the stomach 

 dissolves the food introduced into it; and how the 

 tissues produce and destroy different substances by 

 virtue of the varied transformations which take place 

 in the interior. In all these instances we have found 

 each organ and each tissue possessing certain proper- 

 ties and performing certain functions of a physical or 

 chemical nature (italics mine) which belong exclusively 

 to it, and are characteristic of its action. The func- 

 tions of the nervous system, however, are neither 

 physical nor chemical in their nature.' ' 



How Professor Dalton could have considerately 

 written the above is more than I can comprehend. 

 He must know that brain and blood are the physical 

 agencies in mind-making, and that the function is 

 chemico-vital. The contact of the portal blood and 

 the ultimate granules of the liver are not less physical, 

 nor the elaboration of bile more chemical. The evolu- 

 tion of mental essence is thoroughly organic, mind is 

 an organic product, chemico-vital in origin. Mind 

 springs from living brains, and ceases to manifest itself 

 as soon as the cerebrum is dead ; it becomes suspended 

 in its activities as soon as a blow upon the head arrests 

 circulation in the brain, or stuns cell-action in the cere- 



