CONNEXION BE-nVKEN THE MIND AND BRAIN. 211 



more beneficially applied, than that on which I am 

 now insisting. 



In thus treating of the brain as the indispensable 

 instrument or organ of the mental faculties, I must 

 not be understood as representing mind and brain to 

 be one and the same thing. I mean only that the 

 brain is necessarily engaged in every intellectual 

 and moral operation, exactly as the eye is in every 

 act of vision ; and that, as the mind cannot see with- 

 out the intervention of the eye, so neither can it 

 think or feel, during life, except through the instru- 

 mentality of the brain. Consequently, it would be 

 as reasonable and logical to infer, from the former 

 proposition, that the eye is the mind, or the mind 

 the eye, as to infer from the latter that the brain is 

 the mind, or the mind the brain. 



It requires, however, to be distinctly understood, 

 that activity of mind and activity of brain are in- 

 separable, and that every change in the one is at- 

 tended by a corresponding change in the condition 

 of the other. If, by the excessive use of stimulants, 

 the brain be highly excited, the mind will be dis- 

 turbed in an equal degree, as is exemplified every 

 day in the phenomena of intoxication ; and if, on the 

 other hand, the mind be suddenly roused by violent 

 passions, the vessels of the brain will instantly take 

 on increased action, redness will suffuse the face, 

 and excitement of the brain will show itself in char- 

 acters as legible as if produced by a physical cause. 



The mind and brain being thus inseparably asso- 

 ciated during life, it becomes an object of primary 

 importance to discover the laws by which their 

 healthy action is regulated, that we may yield them 

 willing obedience, and escape the numerous evils 

 consequent on their violation. To this inquiry the 

 following pages shall be devoted. 



The brain being a part of the animal system, and 

 subject to the same general laws as every other or- 

 gan, the reader will not be surprised that I should. 



