210 MATERIALISM. 



what alone we know of the properties of matter from 

 the functions we individually know and feel as the 

 qualities of mind. Refine upon material atoms the 

 /xeye#77 aSuaipera as you will, no step is gained in 

 advance. Bring in that organic agent, Protoplasm, 

 which some modern physiologists regard as the basis 

 of all living organisation (a compound itself of the four 

 great elements already known in connexion with the 

 phenomena of life), and we still get no farther. The 

 structure of the brain, however keenly scrutinised in 

 its medullary and cineritious substance, its convolu- 

 tions and commissures, and the intimate texture and 

 distribution of its fibres and cells, discloses nothing of 

 the real mystery. Chemistry, though subtle enough to 

 detect a minute proportion of phosphorus in all cerebral 

 matter, embodied in a curious crystallisable compound, 

 protogen, of which again another compound, neurine, is 

 supposed to be the base, has done more to perplex 

 than enlighten by these discoveries. Nor need this 

 failure cause surprise, seeing how imperfect is our 

 knowledge even of the most conspicuous parts of the 

 structure of the brain ; of its doubleness as an organ, 

 of the functions of the cerebellum, &c. To memory, 

 the most mechanical perhaps of the mental acts, we 

 can assign no seat or texture in the brain. We see no 

 organisation for this vast storehouse of the past no 

 secret place for memories latent for half a life no 

 material links serving to associate them together, nor 

 any physical cause for their decay or obliteration in 

 old age. There has been a good deal of speculation 

 of late founded on the cerebral cellular structure, and 



