CHAPTER VI 

 MIND IS FUNCTION 



THERE are two theories of the method of con- 

 sciousness and thought. One is that thought 

 is produced through the mechanism of the 

 brain by an indefinable, but independent 

 force. 1 Another is, that the brain and nervous system, 

 in its molecular motion, its metabolism, produces the 

 thought and consciousness. The molecular motion of 

 the brain, as, of all the tissues of the body, is a spe- 

 cialized form of cosmic energy, and is as natural and 

 material as any other movement. The nervous fiber 

 is a specialized form of protoplasm, made so by its 

 constituent elements. Its composition is exceedingly 

 mobile, and therefore extremely sensitive, to incident 

 forces. It is so placed in the body, as to receive im- 

 pressions of the phenomena outside of itself, which 

 have any bearing whatever upon its own preservation. 

 This is its correspondence with environment; and its 

 reaction to this correspondence is its physical, as well 

 as its psychical life. This reaction, of the nerve tissue, 

 is its molecular motion, and controls, or inhibits, the 

 constant momentary movements of the organism in all 

 its parts, including that aggregation of its feelings 

 called its "mind." Those who profess to believe in 

 the independence of thought, from this physical pulsa- 

 tion, acknowledge the molecular movement, but dis- 

 miss it with the expression, that it is parallel only with 

 the thought. The materialist says it is the thought. 



NATURE OP MOLECULAR MOTION. It is well to state, 

 in this connection, that molecular motion of nerve mat- 



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