MIND. 37 



nate with each other, just like affections of other organs; the 

 laws of the mind are precisely those of the functions of all other 

 organs, a certain degree of excitement strengthens it; too 

 much exhausts it ; physical agents affect it, and some specifi- 

 cally, as is the case with other functions, for example, narcotics. 

 The argument of Bishop Butler, that the soul is immortal and 

 independent of matter, because in fatal diseases the mind often 

 remains vigorous to the last g , is perfectly groundless ; for any 

 function will remain vigorous to the last, if the organ which per- 

 forms it is not the seat of the disease, nor much connected by 

 Sympathy, or in other modes, with the organ which is the seat of 

 the disease the stomach often calls regularly for food, and 

 digests it vigorously, while the lungs are almost completely con- 

 sumed by ulceration. All the cases that are adduced to prove 

 the little dependence of the mind upon the brain, are adduced in 

 opposition to the myriads of others that daily occur in the usual 

 course of nature, and are evidently regarded as extraordinary by 

 those who bring them forward. An exact parallel to each may 

 be found in the affections of every other organ, and each admits 

 of so easy an explanation, that it may be always truly said, ' Ex- 

 ceptio probat regulam. " h 



s The Analugy of Religion, natural and revealed) to the Constitution and Course 

 of Nature. By Joseph Buller, LL.D. Lord Bishop of Durham, p. 33. 



h I will not insult the understanding of my readers by showing that we have 

 no authentic instance of the real absence of brain in the cranium of a being 

 possessed of a mind. The records of medicine no less teem with wonders than 

 those of theology. The miracles of the Fathers and of the Romish Church may 

 be matched by cases not only of mind without brain, or some similar organ, but 

 of human impregnation without males, or by males without testes, and of human 

 foetuses nourished without communication with the mother. 



In most cases where the mind is said to have been vigorous when the state 

 of the body at large, or of the brain alone, rendered the perfect performance of the 

 cerebral functions improbable in the eyes of the relaters, I believe the mental 

 power has been greatly over-rated, that, because the individual merely talked 

 collectedly, he was imagined sufficient for the exertions of his best health. 



The part of the brain affected by disease may have been one whose function is 

 not intellectual, but merely relating to the feelings, or may have related to 

 intellectual faculties whose state was not noticed by the narrators. In truth, the 

 narrators give us no satisfactory account of the feelings and intellectual powers of 

 the patients, nor of the exact portions of the brain affected ; nor could they, being 

 unacquainted with phrenology ; and they also forget that the cerebral organs are 

 all double. (See Gall, 1. c. t. ii. 188. sqq., 246. sqq. ; and a paper by Dr. Andrew 



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