MIND IS FUNCTION 167 



the same nerve tissue, formed of the same molecules, 

 placed exactly the same way, with the same number of 

 cells, all composed of the same elements, combined in 

 the same proportions. Its waste, by the way of the 

 venous system, and renewal by the arterial blood, is a 

 slow and continuous process, during which the old and 

 new atoms are constantly in physiological contact and 

 accord. The molecular motion producing the images 

 of immediate sensation, and associative memory, and 

 the coalescing of these into ideas, is a continuous pro- 

 cess. Thus, long before what is called above the "new 

 brain ' ' is formed, the experience of an old brain is con- 

 stantly renewed, and there is nothing new and untried, 

 or unknown, such as there would be, if every two years 

 an entirely new brain was manufactured outright, 

 from new material, which in the meantime, never had 

 any psychic experience, and this new structure mechan- 

 ically put into the skull, after the old one had been 

 bodily removed. 



We know that human consciousness is the manifes- 

 tation made, apparently, by nerve tissue in the body, of 

 which the brain is the largest, and most complex part. 

 As long as the brain is active, these manifestations 

 appear. Did any one ever see, or hear, or feel the 

 manifestations, except in connection with the nerve 

 structure? Whatever cells arise in the brain are iden- 

 tical, in structure and function, with the ones replaced, 

 have the power of memory, of all the organism has 

 done during its life, the same reason; in short, it has 

 every identical feature of the cells replaced, each new 

 cell being really the old cell, not a chemical substance 

 even being changed, in the least particular. They act 

 just as the body cells do. The new cells keep up the 

 peculiarities of the body shape, the physiognomy, the 



