362 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF 



Numerous old writers had assigned situations for the faculties, 

 but in the most fanciful manner ; and, from regarding as distinct 



mind does not require sleep, is not weakened by over-exertion of the brain or 

 any other part, by want of food, by cold, &c., and is not affected by narcotics 

 and stimulants. Those who wish to show the mind independent of the brain in 

 one point, must show it in all. 



In reply to the argument for an immaterial something from the consciousness 

 of personality, I reminded my readers formerly that the fly must be as con- 

 scious of its individual being its personality as the philosopher about whose 

 head it buzzes. If he must be believed to have an immaterial and immortal 

 soul ou this account, so must the fly, and so must the smallest microscopic 

 creature. Nay, if an animal is of such a nature that it will re-acquire bodily per- 

 fection, or can live when divided into two or more, its mind can do the same : so 

 that aplanaria's consciousness may be made into two or ten if we please (see supra, 

 p. 254.) each new animal made from sections having its sense of personality, 

 and therefore its pretension to an immaterial principle, as much as the original 

 and as much as a philosopher ; and simply because its sensorial nervous system, 

 though divided, fully thrives. Our own minds, and those of all other animals, 

 are known to us only as powers generated merely by matter, through being of a 

 certain composition and placed under certain circumstances, possessing or acquir- 

 ing the property of changing and developing, till at length brain results, with its 

 mental properties ; and, as the respective parts of this brain are farther improved 

 in texture and developed, so increased and fresh faculties appear. The properties 

 of every other organ come in the same way. 



Lord Brougham (p. 102. sqq.) censures former writers for not using an argu- 

 ment which, unfortunately for their characters as observers of nature, was used 

 by Drs. Barrow (7th Sermon on the Creed), Bentley (Sermon ii.) Clarke (On the 

 Being and Attributes of God, Prop, viii.), Reid (Essays on the Powers of the 

 Human Mind, vol. i. p. 97.), Beattie (Dissertations, chap. i. sect. i.). A parti- 

 cular combination of matter, he asserts, cannot give birth to what we call mind, 

 because this would be " an assertion altogether peculiar and unexampled," of 

 which " we have no other instance ;" because " we know of no case in which 

 the combination of certain elements produces something quite different, not 

 only from each of the simple ingredients, but also different from the whole 

 compound," " both the organised body and something different from it 

 and not having one of its properties neither dimensions, nor weight, nor 

 colour, nor form." (p. 102. sqq.) " To think," says Dr. Barrow, in anguish, 

 " a gross body may be ground and pounded into rationality, a slow body may 

 be thumped and driven into passion, a rough body may be filed and polished 

 into a faculty of discovering and resenting things ; that a cluster of pretty thin 

 round atoms (as Democritus, forsooth, conceited), that a well-mixed combin- 

 ation of elements (as Empedocles fancied), that a harmonious contemperation 

 (or crasis) of humours (as Galen, dreaming, it seems, upon his drugs and his 

 potions, would persuade us); that an implement made up of I know not what fine 

 springs, and wheels, and such mechanic knacks (as some of our modern wizards 

 have been busy in devising), should, without more to do, become the subject of 



