136 OF MIND. 



has vast information of which he can make but little use for 

 lack of intellect. 



The Brain is not a Gland. Some have looked upon 

 brain as a sort of gland by which thoughts and ideas were 

 formed or secreted, as if thought, which can neither be 

 touched, weighed, measured, nor in any way physically 

 estimated, was a thing allied to the bile, the saliva, or the 

 gastric juice, which are material substances, and can be 

 analyzed and otherwise experimentally studied. It would 

 not be more unreasonable to maintain design or will to be 

 a part of the material framework of the organism, than to 

 assert that mind, like certain kinds of matter, is secreted. 

 Thought is no more material than that peculiar capacity 

 which makes living matter of a certain kind at length 

 become oak, cabbage, dog, man, &c. Nay, it is further 

 removed from the material, for while the property or power 

 referred to influences the very particles of matter, and 

 makes them take up certain fixed and definite positions, 

 thought only produces a sort of evanescent vibration, which 

 results in the expression of ideas which are themselves as 

 immaterial as the thought itself. 



Of Mind as a Function of the Brain. Mental energy 

 has been regarded as the function of the brain, but if it be so 

 it is a function of a very different order from that discharged 

 by other organs. Function implies an act in which will, 

 purpose, design, are not concerned, and in which material 

 changes can be proved to take place. The function of a 

 gland is to produce a secretion. Certain conditions neces- 

 sitate the production of this or that particular secretion, 

 which may vary to some extent, according as the conditions 



