68 LECTURE II. 



turally judge of other subjects from our- 

 selves, and knowing that we shrink from 

 whatever pains us, some persons seem to 

 conclude that the muscles contract because 

 they have been hurt. To the patient who 

 has suffered amputation, such a supposition 

 would seem absurd. He may feel pain 

 when no stimulus is applied to the limb, 

 or he may feel ease when it is. Nay, he 

 continues to feel pain, or sensations, in the 

 limb when it is rotten, or no longer in 

 existence ; which seems to show the in- 

 tegrity of the sentient principle remaining 

 in the brain. 



In vegetables, and in some of the lower 

 kinds of animals, no traces of a nervous 

 system are discoverable, yet the irritability 

 of life is manifest in all. In the ascending; 

 series of animals, in proportion as the brain 

 becomes large and complex, we have evi- 

 dence of the perceptions and intelligence 

 increasing ; a circumstance which would 

 lead us to believe that these faculties were 

 connected with that part of the nervous 

 system. We have also equal reason to 



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