pe 
1872.] 385 [Price. 
tion and the excluded part is killed. Sir T. C. Morgan, M. D., says: ‘If 
the supply of blood be cut off from a limb, by means of ligatures made 
upon its arteries, sensibility of all kinds is in a very short time extin- 
guished ; and the part dies, and undergoes the same changes, as supervene 
on the death of the whole body.” ‘‘ If, on the contrary, the circulation 
continue uninterrupted, and the ligature be cast round the nerves of the 
limb, so as to cut off its communication with the cerebral centre, the other 
tissues will continue their functions uninterrupted by the accident.’’ 
““These counter-experiments clearly demonstrate that the nervous system 
is not the fountain of life to the rest of the economy ; but receives its ani- 
mation, in common with all other tissues, from the action between its own 
vessels and the circulating fluids.”’ (Philosophy of Life, 217.) Thus the 
incomprehensible life requires matter as the vehicle of its manifestations; 
and the incomprehensible mind requires matter, including brain and 
nerves, as well as the life, for its manifestations ; but the distinctly mani- 
fested actions of both are full of diversities and contrarieties. As life 
sannot account for and produce matter, nor matter life ; so do neither, or 
both together, account for, or produce mind, but only subserve it. For 
each the Cause can only be logically sought in a Creator; and for their 
wonderful combination, and concurring, or counter-actions, in the being 
man, we can, in reason, only refer ourselves to Him who transcends all 
and knows all, even the thoughts and mind of man. That mind that is not 
matter nor the life, but is above these; that has no likeness on earth ; 
proves itself of all we know the most like unto God who is a spirit. It 
alone in nature reviews its own consciousness, as under an inevitable 
sense of moral and religious duty and accountability, and asks and an- 
swers the question, ‘‘ My soul, is it well with thee?” If there be another 
such being in the universe, it can only be an angel in heaven. ‘ 
Xavier Bichat, who studied and wrote at the end of the last century, 
and until the second year of this, and had much experience in surgical 
practice during the French Revolution, was certainly the profoundest 
physiologist of his day. He did not fail to perceive that the human mind 
was something different and higher than the brain and the nerves, which 
he regarded as but material instruments of the mind. He considered a 
want of harmony in the two superior hemispheres of the brain as cause 
of imperfect perception, not by the brain, but by the mind or soul, say- 
ing, ‘‘for the brain is to the soul what the senses are to the brain; it 
transmits to the soul the impressions conveyed to it by the senses, as the 
senses convey to the brain the impressions made upon them by external 
objects.” (On Life and Death, 80-31.) ‘If both (the hemispheres) do 
not act alike, the perception of the mind, which ought to be the result of 
the two sensations united, will be inexact and irregular.’’ (p. 31.) He 
inquires, whence arises the facility which our sensations have of under-— 
going so many modifications, and answers: ‘‘ To conceive of it, let us first 
remark that the centre of these revolutions of pleasure, of pain, and in- 
difference, is by no means seated in the organs, which receive or transmit 
the sensation, but in the soul.’’ (Ib. 49.) Thus imperfect perception and 
A. P. 8.— VOL. XII.—2W 
