38 -THE HUMAN BRAIN. 



the rational, are susceptible of a twofold excitement; first, from a 

 circumambient world, or from beneath, through their own proper 

 circle : secondly, from the organism, or organisms, above them, and 

 thus indirectly from a higher circumambient sphere. Each also has 

 its memory; which in the spine is habit; in the animal brain is pro- 

 per memory; in the distinct cortex is principles, which hold things 

 together in the bonds of ratio or reason, as memory combines them 

 in the bonds of a common sensation. Habit then is the spine of the 

 nerve-man; memory is his world of sense, or his senses; and reason 

 is his proper head. 



Let us now pause for a moment to ask cursorily the use of the 

 brain to the mind, as illustrated by the foregoing observations. 

 Now, what is the use of the spinal cord to the senses and the brain ? 

 for this will give us a similitude of the answer to the previous ques- 

 tion. Its use is, to carry the general cerebral principles into an 

 automatic or mechanical sphere, and there to set them up in uncon- 

 scious operations. Thus, the spinal cord makes motions which look 

 as though they proceeded from emotions, when yet there is nothing 

 felt. This dramatic mechanics, is the marrow of the nervous sys- 

 tem, and consequently of the body. As a principle it reigns through- 

 out it. The whole system is a quasi thing; a mental theatre or 

 drama. The spinal cord moves as though it felt; the medulla ob- 

 longata breathes and eats, as if it were instinct with appetites : the 

 senses feel, as if they were conscious : and the brain understands, as 

 though it were a spirit. The cheek, too, blushes, as though it were 

 ashamed; and so forth. But all is quasi, and depends upon a real- 

 ity somewhere which is in none of the actors; and which reality, prox- 

 imately, lies in a spiritual organism, or in the human mind. Take 

 this away, and the mimicry is soon at an end. 



Thus far, then, the use of the brain to the mind is, to enable the 

 latter to personate itself in a dead world, which it could not do with- 

 out a brain and body, really dead, and yet seemingly or dramatically 

 alive. 



It is not long since it was believed that the actions of the spinal 

 marrow were evidences of consciousness, and that feeling was im- 

 plied in its habitual regular movements. And it is still thought by 

 many that sense or feeling is necessarily connected with conscious- 



