142 



OF MIND. 



molecules of which are active, and there are no molecules 

 which act like machines in fact, there is no molecular 

 machinery, and, it is scarcely necessary to say, nothing what- 

 ever has been built by the sun. The expression is altogether 

 incorrect, is calculated to mislead, and, there is reason 

 to think, has led many to accept conclusions utterly at 

 variance with established truths. The phrase " properties of 

 the molecules" is made to do duty in the same way, and 

 we are told that the properties of a living being existed 

 potentially in the molecules of cosmic vapour of which his 

 body is made; but can we hope to learn much by discussing 

 the possible properties of the hypothetical molecules of 

 hypothetical primitive nebulosity ? The brain we do know 

 something about, and we can learn much more concerning it, 

 but of the primitive nebulosity of ourselves, or of the world 

 we inhabit, we can know nothing and can learn nothing. 



Of Thought as a Result of Chemical Action. Some 

 have expressed the opinion that thought was to be explained 

 by the oxidation of chemical compounds in the brain. 

 Judging from some of the remarks which have been made 

 concerning the supposed chemical changes in nerve matter, 

 one would infer that the brain, instead of consisting of 

 millions of separate anatomical units exhibiting an elaborate 

 structure and arranged in beautiful order, was but a mass of 

 fatty albuminous pulpy material, rich in phosphorus, the 

 action of which was determined by the oxidation of certain 

 of its component elements, particularly the last, the oxygen 

 being carried to the nerve pulp, and the products of chemical 

 change being removed from it by the blood circulating in 

 the vessels freely ramifying in the substance of the pulpy 



