1872.] 379 [ Price. 
brain is connected every nerve that gives to the mind the sensations re- 
ceived by it ; and with the brain is connected every nerve that executes 
the will of the mind upon every muscle of the body movable by the will. 
A ligature round the nerves of sensation will prevent the mind receiving 
sensations by them from a point beyond the ligature ; a ligature round the 
nerves that obey the will, will paralyze its power to command the muscle 
to which the nerve is attached. The perception and command are inter- 
cepted at the ligature ; and beyond mental power has ceased. The mind, 
that is the light of our being, sits enthroned in a chamber of life-long 
darkness, cushioned upon medullary matter; moved by no muscle, vet 
moving every motor muscle as bid to obey its will. The eyes are called 
its windows ; but that is to speak figuratively, for no ray of light ever 
enters there ; the senses are called its portals, through which we learn all 
we know of things without us, but no sense ever lets into the mind one 
particle of matter. 
We have seen that the life of the body is fed by material food taken 
into the stomach, The mind is not so fed, nor fed by any material food. 
The mind, or a mental capacity, exists ina child at birth, underived from 
sensations, for it must pre-exist to receive the first as all after sensations. 
Though we may not know how it can exist ; of its nature and operations 
we can observe and know as much as of matter and life ; and we have no 
more right to refuse to know all that we can understand of it than of 
them. It is the nobler part of our being, and that which is most charac- 
teristic and most prophetic of the purpose of existence. 
The immaterial mind is fed but with immaterial food. It draws this 
from sensations without and within; and thus learns the nature and 
qualities of all perceived things. It digests that it receives; forms con- 
ceptions or ideas by its inherent power ; has capacity of comparing, think- 
ing and judging, and thus is also self-fed from within by immaterial 
thoughts as no life is fed. Thus we may observe the mind to be developed; 
the mind that can frame the constitutions and laws that preserve human 
society, and that can administer them ; that can wield the physical arms 
and resources of the nation; and can develop the truths of philosophy 
and religion. All this is done by thought, only by thought; by thought, 
indeed, sometimes inspired ; and the quieter the body and the brain, the 
more surely truthful is the mental judgment and the might of its power. 
Now let us consider some of the sensations that the mind notices as 
perceptions and conceptions, and stores as ideas, to be used in thought 
and judgment, and see if they own a material source. The eye opens 
upon all visible things, and by a lens the picture of them is represented on 
the retina, or back part of the globe of the eye ; a picture the reverse of 
that in the outside world, upside down, right side left. The retina is the 
expansion of the optic nerve leading to the brain, that gives to the mind 
@ perception and conception of the image on the retina ; not that the im- 
age can itself be taken through the round opaque tubular nerve ; not that 
there is any material picture on the retina, any more than the reflection 
from the mirror is a real picture on its surface : but the mind has capacity 
