138 OF MIND. 



vellous power, property, or capacity, which enables the liver 

 cell to form what we call bile, which renders possible that 

 change in shape of the ultimate particles of muscle which 

 gives rise to contraction, and determines the change in the 

 ultimate molecules of nerve matter upon which the current 

 depends; but this power is not the function; it is that 

 which alone renders function possible. But even this com- 

 parison is not a true one, for the power above referred to 

 acts as if it were of some necessity, while the remarkable 

 characteristic of mental action is freedom of choice. Cer- 

 tain conditions being present, the liver cell must form bile, 

 the muscle must contract, the nerve cell must give rise to, 

 and the nerve fibre must transmit, the current ; but is it con- 

 ceivable that under certain conditions, actual or supposed, 

 the brain must think ? Is what I am now writing but the 

 result of the distribution of a little extra proportion of 

 certain nutrient constituents and oxygen to my nerve cells 

 which thereby compels me to say all these things ? Have 

 I no choice ? must I say all this, and in the precise way in 

 which it is here said ? All these things would surely have 

 been said in a far better and more perfect manner if the 

 ideas had been formed like a secretion by a healthy gland, 

 independently of experience and without any efforts of my 

 own. All our glands perform their work perfectly when 

 their formation is complete. They require no teaching, and 

 they work without effort, and for the most part without our 

 knowledge. Again, there is nothing in the action of a 

 gland which at all corresponds to the improvement in 

 capacity which results from exercise, so remarkable in the 

 case of cerebral nervous action. The general tissues and 



