155 
— so says the physician who writes, — can act in a body.* * * § He 
farther writes : f — “ The doctrine of materialism, and also the 
doctrine of immaterialism, being investigated, it must end in 
the acknowledgment of our ignorance. The nature of the 
mind never can be ascertained by man. When a man says 
that mind is material, he assumes that he knows the properties 
of matter; and it is certain that no man possesses any such 
information. We see the properties of matter, and we see the 
operations of the mind, and as they are evidently different, 
we conclude that the essence of each is different ; but we are 
not certain of this. If any man assume that the mind is 
material, and that it is annihilated with the body, he assumes 
what he has no right to do. There may be senses and capaci- 
ties suited to the perception of the powers, proportions, and 
substance of spirits / 5 But such senses and capacities pertain 
not yet to man. 
Seventy years ago, it was observed by an eminent member 
of the medical profession J that “ the wisest and best of us 
are apt to fall under the domination of some fixed idea — 
that when the mind is fixed upon some particular dogma, its 
capacity of judging of the doctrine in which that dogma is 
included in relation to others is impaired / 5 The remark refers 
to certain controversies of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 
turies. But is it inapplicable to those of the present time ? 
For my part, I believe that it is not. 
Another author writes : — “ The vital forces are a class of 
agencies extremely difficult to investigate, from their acting 
in living bodies side by side with the forces found solely ope- 
rating in dead matter, and from the impossibility of subjecting 
living beings to experiment without risking the destruction or 
derangement of the vital forces, by the unavoidable inter- 
ference with their normal action which experiment necessi- 
tates . 55 § 
“ All the materials of our knowledge , 55 says a very eminent 
writer, || “ we share with animals. Like them, we begin with 
sensuous impressions; and then, like ourselves, and like our- 
selves only, proceed to the general, the ideal, the eternal. In 
many things, indeed, we are like the beasts of the field ; but, 
like ourselves, and like ourselves only, we can rise superior to 
our bestial self, and strive after what is unselfish and good ” 
* Armstrong's Lectures. Baldwin & Cradock, London, 1834, p. 717. 
t Ibid., p. 724. 
t Meryon, Hist, of Med., vol. i. pp. 229, 230. 
§ Dr. George Wilson's Life of Dr. John Reid, p. 51. 
|| Max Muller. See Evolution of the Human Race from Apes. By 
T. W. Jones, F.K.S. 1874, p. 66. 
