LECTURE I. 47 



ceive with perfect confidence the assurance 

 of philosophical liberty, the assurance that, 

 because they are sensitive and rational 

 creatures, true philosophy, therefore, con- 

 sists in gratifying their senses, and acting 

 as their reason dictates, for their own ad- 

 vantage, independently of all other consid- 

 erations. Wherefore do they tell us, 

 that we know not why a muscle acts, or a 

 nerve feels, and that both are properties of 

 organizatioh ? Is it not because they wish 

 to persuade others, as perhaps they may 

 have brought themselves to believe, " that 

 when the brains are out, the man is dead?" 

 Yet surely, it does not necessarily follow, 

 that perceptivity and consciousness are an- 

 n idled, because those actions have ceased 

 by which they have hitherto been affected 

 or manifested. 



I have heard it said that I was wrong in 

 bringing forward a metaphysical subject 

 before this assembly ; yet no one can, I 

 think, account Mr. Hunter's Theory of Life 

 to be metaphysical ; for we infer no more 

 than we do with respect to electricity, that 



