246 VESTIGES OF THE 



surjirising agent, which takes magnetism, heat, and light, 

 as other subordinate forms, and of whose general scope 

 in this great system of things we are only beginning to 

 have a right conception. It has been found that simple 

 electricity, artificially produced, and sent along the nerves 

 of a dead body, excites muscular action. The brain of a 

 newly killed animal being taken out, and replaced by a 

 substance which produces electric action, the operation 

 of digestion, which had been interrupted by the death of 

 the animal, was resumed, showing the absolute identity 

 of the brain with a galvanic battery. Nor is this a 

 very startling idea, when we reflect that electricity is 

 almost as metaphysical as ever mind was supposed to be. 

 It is a thing perfectly intangible, weightless. Metal 

 may be magnetised, or heated to seven hundred of Fah- 

 renheit, without becoming the hundredth part of a grain 

 heavier. And yet electricity is a real thing, an actual 

 existence in nature, as witness the effects of heat and 

 light in vegetation — the power of the galvanic current 

 to re-assemble the particles of copper from a solution, 

 and make them again into a solid plate — the rending 

 force of the thunderbolt as it strikes the oak. ►^^ee also 

 how both heat and light observe the angle of incidence 

 in reflection, as exactly as does the grossest stone thrown 

 ol)liquely against a wall. 80 mental action may be im- 

 ponderable, intangible, and yet a real existence, and 

 ruled by the Eternal through his laws.* 



* If mental action is electric, the proverbial quickness of tlionglit 

 — that is, the quickness of the transmission of sensation and will — 

 may be presumed to have been brought to an exact measurement. 

 The speed of light has long been known to be about 192,000 miles 

 per second, and the experiments of Wheatstone have shown that the 

 electric agent travels (if I may so speak) at the same rate, thus 

 showing a likelihood that one law rules the movements of all the 

 "imponderable bodies." Mental action may accordingly be pro- 



