ON EXPRESSING THOUGHTS. 145 



it only amount to gentle quivering, can occur in any part 

 of these bodies without an effect being produced upon the 

 currents which traverse the delicate wires impinging upon 

 different parts of their surfaces. Points in a vast number of 

 circuits differing widely in their ultimate distribution are 

 thus brought, as it were, within the influence of it may be 

 each of these little masses of living matter, and the rate of 

 transmission of the current through many different wires 

 having different destinations and acting upon diverse 

 machinery may thus be affected at the same moment, de- 

 termining a variety of actions. But if it be admitted that 

 the brain in structure and action resembles such an arrange- 

 ment of minute voltaic batteries and conducting wires, we have 

 to explain how all these were formed and made to take up 

 the positions they occupy in relation to one another and to 

 other organs before we can give any satisfactory and com- 

 plete explanation of its action. For the kind of work per- 

 formed by a machine is due to its structure as well as to the 

 forces by which the machine is set in motion. And further, 

 the movements occurring in the little bodies supposed to 

 act upon the currents transmitted by the threads must take 

 place spontaneously. It need scarcely be remarked that 

 any such action in a machine or any mechanical or chemico- 

 mechanical contrivance whatever, is impossible. 



On expressing Thoughts. But in considering the nature 

 of mental nervous action, it is necessary in the first instance 

 to distinguish clearly between the mental action the actual 

 thought ; and its expression. The conversion of thoughts 

 into symbols which others can appreciate is due to a highly 

 elaborate mechanism working in the most perfect manner, 



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