224 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Min 



ingly opposite causes to concur in the same general design, and 

 even where the organs are deficient, that can supply their place 

 by the intervention of assisting instruments. Where reason 

 prevails, we find that it scarcely matters what the organs are 

 that give it direction ; the being furnished with that principle 

 still goes forward, steadily and uniformly successful, breaks 

 through every obstacle, and becomes master of every enterprise. 

 We have seen a man without hands or legs, convert by practice 

 his very stumps to the most convenient purposes, and with 

 these clumsy instruments perform the most astonishing feats of 

 dexterity. We may therefore conclude that it is the mind 

 alone that gives a master to the creation ; and that if a bear or 

 a horse were endowed with the same intellects that have been 

 given to a man, the hardness of a hoof, or the awkwardness of 

 a paw, would be no obstacle to their advancement in the arts of 

 dominion or of social felicity. A. 



Mind the Seat of Sensations. 



So indissoluble is the connection of sensation with some dis- 

 tant spot on the surface, that after an arm or a leg has been 

 amputated the patient constantly feels sensation in the lost 

 fingers and toes. In vain, says Mr. G. H. Lewes, experience 

 contradicts the sensation ; in vain he sees that his fingers and 

 toes are not there to feel ; he feels them as distinctly as ever 

 he felt them when they were parts of his living body. Nay, 

 so urgent is this conviction at times, that men have actually 

 had the feet cut off because of the pain felt there ; and the 

 pain still continuing after the feet were removed, they have 

 had the leg removed from the knee ; this not succeeding, they 

 have had the hip-joint removed. Here the seat of injury was 

 not in the foot, but the sensation was referred to the foot. 

 Long after we have learned to refer all sensations to the surface 

 we have but an indistinct conception of the exact spot on that 

 surface where the impression is made ; and throughout life we 

 are totally unable to refer with any accuracy to the particular 

 portions of the viscera, back, neck, and legs, which are affected, 

 whereas the hands, feet, tongue, and face admit of marvellous 

 nicety in this respect. PH. 



