364- MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF 



necessarily groundless and ridiculous. Burton, for example, in his 

 compilation, says, " Inner senses are three in number, so called 



gives rise to the phenomenon of life. When living matter arranges itself, accord 

 ing to its properties, into that peculiar combination which we call nervous, other 

 peculiar phenomena appear ; and if its vital powers arrange it into that compo- 

 sition and organ called brain, and this is properly circumstanced, mind appears. 

 In truth, no combination of elements and arrangement of matter thus combined 

 occurs in inanimate substances as we find in vegetables ; no such combination 

 of elements and such organisation in vegetables as we find in brutes ; and no 

 such combination and organisation in the other organs of brutes as we find in 

 the brain, and the brain of no brute is equal to the development of its various 

 parts to the human brain. The vital and mental phenomena are unexampled 

 in the inanimate world result from no combination or organisation there, 

 simply because no such combination and organisation occur in the inanimate 

 world. Combine and organise inanimate matter by supplying seeds and young 

 plants with proper inanimate matter, and every vegetable may be generated 

 from one or two, in indefinite abundance, as long as matter is supplied and ne- 

 cessary circumstances attainable ; and you give living properties to matter pre- 

 viously inanimate. You may do this equally with animals, and thus multiply 

 minds ; you may do it equally with human animals, and thus multiply human 

 minds indefinitely generate souls ! Nay, you may generate what quality of 

 mind you please, just as you may generate the properties of a rose, or of a lily 

 if you prefer them, by propagating from a rose or lily, thus converting inanimate 

 matter into roses or lilies; and just as you can propagate the intellectual and 

 moral qualities of the intelligent and affectionate dog, or the musical qualities of 

 the bulfinch, if you prefer them, by propagating dogs or bulfinches, thus con- 

 verting inanimate matter into dogs and bulfinches. You may generate not only 

 human faculties, but any variety of them you please, as much as you can varieties 

 of body, by propagating and feeding different varieties of human beings, by con- 

 verting common matter into human beings, and human beings of whatever sort is 

 preferred. Propagate from cretins in Switzerland, and you have idiotism ; from 

 sagacious parents, and you have intelligence ; from parents endowed with a 

 specific talent, you produce this talent, be it musical or any other ; from violent, 

 vicious, half mad parents, and you beget a curse to mankind, in ferocity, de- 

 pravity, or eccentricity ; from mad parents, you produce madness ; from the 

 gentle, and benevolent, and affectionate, you generate gentleness and love. With 

 but one parent so marked, you may often succeed in generating his or her quali- 

 ties ; and when, with two alike, you fail, the failures are not more frequent, 

 nor caused by other circumstances, than failures of transmission of corporeal re- 

 semblances, or of the transmission of the mental qualities of brutes or of the 

 properties of vegetables. Strange souls, to be thus under our command as 

 to numbers and qualities ! So far from there being, as Lord Brougham says, 

 no case in which the combination of certain elements produces something quite 

 different, the world is incessantly filled with such cases ; all the vegetable and 

 animal creation are examples of inanimate matter incessantly combined into the 

 production of new qualities totally different from those previously possessed. 



