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sages as to the precise meaning of which many of us may require a little 
enlightenment. I shall be glad to hear any remarks from those present, 
not only the members of the Institute, but also the strangers who have been 
invited here. The paper certainly opens up a wide field, but I do not sup- 
pose any one in this society will assert that the spiritual nature of man 
ought to be excluded from true anthropology, nor have I heard that the 
anthropologists of London, or, so far as I am acquainted with them, of Paris, 
deny this. 
Rev. C. A. Row.-^-I wish you would interpret some portions of the paper 
which I find very great difficulty in understanding. 
The Chairman. — I think it ought to be for you to state where the diffi- 
culties lie, and we shall be able to see what they are. 
Dr. Dendy— As you have invited those who are here as visitors as well as 
members of the society to join in the discussion, and as time is valuable, I rise 
in order to break silence and in the hope that I may induce some one else to 
follow. I believe that the reason discussion has been a little suspended is 
because the paper is so comprehensive that it is almost impossible to take 
hold of one single sentence among so many. If I understand the author 
aright— for with all due praise for the beauty of his paper I must confess that 
it is almost impossible to understand whether he is a true anthropologist or a 
false one— his idea is that there is an endowment superadded to structure, 
an endowment which he calls spirit, or soul, which is manifested to our senses, 
communicated through one individual to another, and without the interme- 
diate matter of which the brain is composed. Now this appears to me to be an 
utter impossibility, unless we are to say that all human intellect is inspiration 
special inspiration from the Deity, — and that, I think, neither you, Sir, 
nor the false anthropologists who are alluded to by the author of the paper, 
would agree to. That the brain is the organ of the mind there cannot, in 
my opinion, be the slightest question. Then we must ask whether the 
mind is an immortal spirit, whether the soul is mind unfettered by matter, 
.ind the mind soul combined with matter ? There is the great question. 
Now, if you ask me whether mind can be manifested without matter I 
should decidedly say, “no.” What do we see in the senses ? Probably this 
is a little material, for I am about to refer to the organ of vision. The eye 
does not see : it is not the eye itself that sees. The truth is that a ray of 
light passes through the cornea to the retina, where it is inverted, but we 
know that if we divide the optic nerve just behind the retina, and all the 
rays of light in the world were to be concentrated upon the retina, there would 
be no sensation such as we call vision ; and therefore it is not the organ of 
vision —it is not the eye— that sees, but it is something else. Well, what is that 
something else ? Here is an impression of the object upon the retina, and 
that impression is carried into the brain by the nerve which performs that 
function, and then we have the sensation of sight. Now, I believe that 
the sensation of sight, the faculty of vision, is one of the elements of the 
mind, and therefore we can scarcely admit that any immortal spirit is con- 
cerned in producing the impression. In my opinion there is an endowment, 
