92 ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



products are quite different, yet they are both results 

 of chemico- vital action. The bile is a liquid as dense 

 as treacle, while the nervous fluid is as subtle as elec- 

 tricity ; but is it less a reality because of its subtlety? 

 And can all kinds of wonderful and unreasonable 

 powers be ascribed to it because it happens to be 

 subtle ? 



What becomes of a galvanic battery when it is 

 burnt'out, used up, or exhausted, and why is its activity- 

 limited ? The acid in the bath loses its corroding 

 (vivifying) activity, and the zinc plate becomes so far 

 tarnished (oxidized) that the feeble erosive will not 

 decompose it; it began to act with a feeble energy, 

 then grew into raging activity, and finally grew weak 

 and died. If there had been a renewal of materials, 

 the battery would have kept going; if it could eat 

 and digest, it might go on till eating and digestion 

 were impossible. But what became of the magnetism 

 evolved or elaborated ? We are told that heat, light, 

 and electricity are correlative states or interchangeable 

 conditions ; probably the whole story has not been re- 

 lated, yet we are led to understand that the generated 

 magnetism is not absolutely lost it is diffused in 

 universe where nothing is lost. 



A child is born with an undeveloped brain that 

 elaborates very little mind ; the- cerebral mass is almost 

 without convolutions, and the gray matter nerve 

 cells unfit to unfold even dreams. If death occur in 

 early infancy, the child never consciously thinks it 

 has never been conscious of existence. In time, with 

 vigorous health, the brain-cells develop, and the cere- 

 bral mass grows rich in phosphorus; to this is 

 pumped every second plenty of blood charged with 

 oxygen the nerve battery is in bounding activity, yet 



