382 
[Mareh 1, 
Price.] 
touched, but no matter or thing will be transmitted into the brain. The 
mind, by its perceptive power in the brain and nerve, will have taken 
notice of the properties of the object, and formed an idea of it. By no 
sense has the brain or mind been materially fed. Here we should recol- 
lect the physical condition of the brain. It fills the chamber of the skull ; 
is always dark, is always silent. Therein is the source of all the intel- 
lectual light in the world, yet not one real spark, or beam of light has 
there ever glowed. No ray of light can depict a picture therein ; no 
vibration can carry a sound within it ; no tasted food, or touched thing, 
nor aroma of incense, can enter there. But the nerve of each sense has 
been affected by an outward object, and the perceptive mind has reached 
to notice the action of the outward thing upon the nerve. In the eye it 
is a picture thrown by the light on the retina and it is there perceived ; 
in the ear vibrations have stirred the floating fibrous extension of the 
auditory nerve, and there they have been perceived with their varied dis- 
tinctions; and by the other nerves of smell, touch and taste, the per- 
ception has been at the point of contact. The mind’s command reaches 
by the motor nerve to the remotest muscle : sensation by touch may reach 
as far; and there appears to be no reason why the mental perception has 
not reached to the point whence such sensation is said to have come. 
The mind wills to move the toe, and it has at the same instant the per- 
ception that it has moved. Indeed, each nerve of sensation has its local 
duty to inform the mind instantly of every impingement’upon the surface 
over which its fibres are spread. This it can only do by the mind’s taking 
notice of it, sothat sensation implies perception. The nerves at the stump 
of an amputated leg, when irritated there gives the perception as at the 
foot or toe to which the nerve when unsevered had been attached, for that 
had been its established duty in its relation with the mind; and the per- 
ceptive mind yet adheres to its original consciousness, and still takes its 
perception as from a living foot, where now there is none. The percep- 
tion that had formerly reached the extremity of a perfect nerve comes to 
consciousness as from that point, though the nerve has been touched mid- 
way. And when the optic nerve is involved by disease, its illusive visions 
produced by disease, appear as they would, if truly pictured on the retina ; 
and so if the auditory nerve be so involved, the illusive sounds appear to 
enter the ear. And so, too, as to those bright visions and hymning tones by 
which the dying are often preternaturally visited, showing them, in ad- 
vance, celestial scenes and companionships such as they are about to enter, 
their outward senses seem to them still to have served them, and they 
wonder that their surrounding friends have not seen and heard all that 
they have so intensely enjoyed ; but no outward sense had seen or heard 
allthat the mind had directly perceived. The appropriate nerve always 
ministers to the mind according to its original appointment, and responds 
as the faithful sentinel, only from the assigned post of duty, and there itis 
that report is made to perception. Sensation and perception appear to 
be synonymous and simultaneous, and at the same point ; but the cencep- 
tion of ideas, and the mental processes of thinking, comparing, imagin- 
