THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 149 



good, and what unhappy external circumstances, each has had to 

 contend with. Not revenge, but example, is the professed object 

 of our legal punishments : — example to the culprit himself and 

 others, or, if the punishment is capital, to others only ; and there- 

 fore frauds, which, from being very easily committed, may become 

 very detrimental to society, are punished more severely than those 

 which, ceteris paribus, from being difficult of perpetration, can 

 scarcely from their frequency become dangerous. Were moral 

 demerit regarded, the fraud easily committed, would, caeteris pa- 

 ribus, be punished the most lightly. A vicious man must some- 

 times be destroyed, as a wild beast,* for the good of others, 

 though, for aught we know, his faults may, like the acts of the 

 beast of prey, be chargeable rather on his nature ; and while we 

 feel justified in punishing, and the culprit is perhaps conscious 

 how richly he deserves his fate, we may pity in our hearts and ac- 

 knowledge that we ourselves have often been less excusable. 



" Teach me to love and to forgive, 

 Exact my own defects to scan, 

 What others are to feel, and own myself a man." 



Gray. Ode to sldversity. 



(H) While the brain is evidently the organ of mind, the nerves 

 united with it, and the spinal marrow, together with its nerves, 

 arc as evidently the instruments by which it affects, and is affected 

 by, the other parts of the body, to which these nerves are dis- 

 tributed. By their instrumentality, the brain contracts the volun- 

 tary muscles, influences the functions of every other part when 

 under the operation of the different passions, and receives impres- 

 sions made upon every other part. The consequences of divisions 

 of the nerves or spinal marrow, fully substantiate these points. 



In brainless foetuses, the circulation, secretion, &c. proceed 

 equally as in others which, besides spinal marrow, nerves, and 



* A man of determined bad principle may in like manner be shunned by the 

 most benevolent, on account of being odious and dangerous, though they wish 

 him so well as ardently to long for his reformation. 



