THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 363 



faculties what are merely modes of action of faculties to which they 

 were altogether strangers, their assertions on the subject were 



so rare capacities and endowments, the author of actions so worthy and works so 

 wonderful, &c. &c. how senseless and absurd conceits are these ! How can 

 we, without great indignation and regret, entertain such suppositions ? " Asa 

 son of Galen, I would reply to Barrow ("dreaming, it seems, upon his" dusty 

 folios of divinity in his study, instead of looking abroad through nature) and to 

 Lord Brougham, 1. That the brain, matter though it be, is seen, in positive 

 fact, to have these capacities and endowments that it has them in proportion as 

 it is better organised and has a greater bulk of its respective portions that the 

 mental phenomena are disturbed by all the means, applied to the brain, that dis- 

 turb the functions of other organs when applied to them : 2. That there is an 

 insensible transition of mental qualities from the lowest brutes through the 

 cleverest, and through human beings of the dullest apprehension and feelings 

 (many of whom are far below most brutes) to the highest among us ; and that 

 the mental properties of the lowest are neither "dimensions, nor weight, nor 

 colour, nor form," any more than the mental properties of ourselves, and must 

 therefore arise from something more than matter, or our high capacities may be 

 merely properties of matter. What faculty or degree of faculty that appears in 

 the scale of animals is the first sign of soul ? Nay, the properties of simple 

 life, such as vegetables have in common with us, are neither " dimensions, nor 

 weight, nor colour, nor form," they cannot be produced by "grinding, pound- 

 ing, thumping, driving, filing, polishing, by springs, wheels, and such mechanic 

 knacks." They, I suppose, are not now ascribed to a soul, though they once 

 were, and ought to be still by such believers in souls. 



The vital properties of a cabbage, I presume, are allowed to result from a 

 well-mixed combination of elements ; and if such a combination produces such 

 a result, other combinations may and do produce results still higher. What in 

 common with extension, impenetrability, and inertness, have heat, electricity, mag- 

 netism? yet matter placed under certain circumstances displays these properties; 

 and a change of circumstances changes them. Biniodide of mercury is yellow ; 

 but reduce its temperature to a certain point, nay, only touch it, and instantly it 

 becomes red. Soft iron and nickel have magnetic properties at a certain tem- 

 perature, but suddenly lose them at a higher, and nickel at a less elevation than 

 iron. Soft iron connected with a magnet, or encircled by a coil of copper wire 

 and connected with a galvanic battery, becomes magnetic, but no longer than the 

 connection lasts. 



What property of dimension, weight, &c., is that possessed by mercury, iron, 

 and so many other elements, of variously affecting living natures, both corporeally 

 and mentally ? A few elements combined in various proportions acquire various 

 such properties, and, in some, properties of the most deadly kind. Prussic acid is 

 only certain proportions of carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen all which, in other 

 proportions and combinations, are essential elements of our bodies. The living 

 matter of vegetables and animals is common matter arranged and compounded 

 as in no other instances, and which, properly circumstanced as to temperature, &c. 



