084 



B I M A N A. 



deaf to the reports, though after a time the ear reco- 

 vers its tone, and the hearing returns. 



Many other instances might be adduced, all tend- 

 ing to prove that there is no knowledge produced by 

 mere animal sensation ; and that, therefore, if there 

 were not in man a principle in addition to the mate- 

 rial body, man could not acquire any knowledge 

 capable of being communicated to others, or of 

 forming the basis and guide in future plans and trains 

 of conduct in himself. If the knowledge is capable 

 of being used by the party himself upon future occa- 

 sions, it follows, as a matter of course, that it can 

 also be communicated and rendered useful to another 

 party of similar understanding, the only addition 

 required being a means of communication. We need 

 hardly add that language spoken, or expressed by 

 symbols of some kind or other, is the means of com- 

 munication among man ; but it is worthy of remark 

 that while these idiomatic expressions which denote 

 merely local modes can with difficulty be translated 

 even into an analogous language, the truths of 

 science readily admit of translation into all lan- 

 guages, unless where the language happens to be 

 that of a people who are too ignorant for understand- 

 ing them. 



Animals do communicate with each other ; but 

 their means of communication are very limited, and 

 there is no ground whatever for supposing that they 

 can communicate any thing at all resembling those 

 truths to which we give the name of science or know- 

 ledge. They communicate merely animal sensations, 

 the same as human beings communicate by dumb 

 show and inarticulate sounds ; and they are without 

 the reflective sentiments, the mental emotions, 

 which in human beings may arise from these, just as 

 .the mental perception of relation follows the affec- 

 tion of the senses in other cases. 



We have preferred this mode of viewing the grand 

 fundamental distinction between man and the other 

 animals, to the other one of arriving at the same 

 conclusion from an examination of the organisation 

 of the human body, because it is more satisfactory, 

 and also admits of being treated in a more popular 

 manner. But when, carrying the distinction which 

 we have attempted to describe along with us, we 

 examine the organisation, we find that it affords 

 as , clear and unbroken proofs of what has been 

 stated, as if the body had been framed for the 

 express purpose of demonstrating the truth of the 

 mind's existence, immateriality, and consequent im- 

 mortality. It could not indeed be otherwise : for, 

 as the truth to be demonstrated by an appeal to 

 the body is the existence of the mind and the 

 adaptation of the body as an instrument for the 

 use of that mind, it follows that every step of the 

 examination must go either to the establishment of 

 that truth, or to its overthrow. This being a case of 

 nature, and notof human invention or contrivance, and 

 nature being in every other case so perfectly con- 

 sistent, that there never is any conflicting evidence 

 to weigh, other than that which becomes apparently 

 so from our ignorance, and to know being always 

 perfectly synonymous with to believe, the evidence 

 must all go one way in this case also ; and a very 

 slight examination may convince any one that the 

 evidence of reason points to the very same conclu- 

 sion to which revelation invites, namely, that the 

 principle of action in man is a principle not mate- 

 rial, and therefore not liable to death or dissolution. 



Farther, that no bounds can be set to the quantity 

 of knowledge which tins principle is capable of 

 acquiring ; and that it is man's own fault, or his folly, 

 if the acquisition does not go on accumulating, in a 

 rapidly increasing progression, ;ige after age. For, 

 though past history shows that in former times there 

 was a dotage of nations, as well as a manhood of 

 intellectual strength, yet, independently of the fact 

 that nations are always physically young, the same 

 history affords evidence that the dotage which 

 brought about the decay and ruin of the cultivated 

 nations of antiquity, was the imbecility of a consti- 

 tution wasted by disease, and not the effect of any 

 natural decay. In proof of this, one may appeal to the 

 state of modern Europe, and of all those parts of the 

 world which modern Europe influences, and that is now 

 the greater part of the habitable surface. During llie 

 last hundred years the nations of modern Europe 

 have had at least their full complement of war, and 

 those wars have certainly been more expensive, and 

 probably more destructive of human life (that is, in 

 proportion to the number of men actually killed, 

 though certainly not in proportion to the numbers 

 composing the nations between which these wars 

 were carried on) ; but still, even in the hottest of 

 the fight, the course of improvement was never 

 stopped not totally even at the very scenes of 

 engagement. Nay, the necessities of the war may 

 in manj' cases have been stimuli, and very powerful 

 stimuli to improvement. Of this we may mention, as 

 one instance, the contrivance by the French chemists 

 to produce nitre from artificial beds in their own 

 country, when the nation was so hemmed in that it 

 could not procure a supply from foreign countries. 

 This is but one instance, out of many, which will 

 readily suggest themselves to every one who takes an 

 interest in this most interesting question. 



This view of human nature, according to which the 

 really active part of it is elevated above the nature of 

 material things, and not clogged, encumbered, or 

 bent down, by the resistance of any of the common 

 laws of matter, which restrain and limit the very in- 

 stincts of all other animals, is calculated to raise 

 high the hope and confidence of man, even, in this 

 world. No doubt the body is subject to the laws of 

 matter ; and admirably as the body is constructed, 

 that which man can achieve individually and with 

 the naked hand is very limited below what we 

 would consider even tolerable subsistence in the most 

 favoured spot upon earth. But the mental purpose 

 and the mental plan are formed and fabricated inde- 

 pendently not only of all the trammels of physical 

 nature and its properties, but absolutely unbounded 

 by space or by time. If we carry along with us this 

 single principle, that we cannot in any thing which 

 we attempt overcome a mechanical resistance or dis- 

 solve a chemical union, without the application of a 

 power greater than that which resists in the one case, 

 or holds in union in the other, we may not only 

 plan, but absolutely carry into effect, whatever \\ e 

 purpose. The qualities of matter are so numerous too, 

 and they have been disclosed under circumstances 

 often so' unlikely, that we can no more set bounds 

 to what shall be discovered in nature than we fan 

 to what shall be devised by mind. If our forefathers, 

 only a century and a half ago, had been told that the 

 scientific use of a few bushels of coals and a few gal- 

 lons ot water, would increase the life of man seven- 

 fold in useful duration, they would have deemed the 



