Herein is a wide hiatus between man and the most sagacious of brutes. The brute gains all from personal experience; no generation can build upon the foundation left by a preceding generation—but man can; and it is no objection to allege, that some races remain in a savage state for ages; they possess the power, the capability, the mental constitution, which the brute does not. Besides, they do improve under favourable circumstances. What were the Anglo-Saxon marauders, our own ancestors? Savages. Is England now a savage country? What were the Celtic British in Cæsar's time? Savages. Were they savages when the Romans had held possession of the island for three hundred years? No; they had adopted the arts, the manners, the civilization of their conquerors. How this very fact of the capability of man to give and receive knowledge demonstrates his superiority in creation! It is true that the human intellect is limited, and that there are mysteries into which he cannot penetrate; nor is it needful for his welfare, his improvement, his happiness, his hopes of a joyful immortality, that he should be able to do so. Let him rely on the oracles of God. Mysteries, indeed, surround him. How fluently does he talk about matter, yet he knows nothing about it, excepting what he gains through his senses; and this knowledge is limited to certain qualities, which may be termed primary and secondary. The primary qualities of material bodies are in themselves essentials, namely, solidity and extension. We cannot conceive of matter, without an involvement of these two properties. The secondary qualities of matter are colour, texture, temperature, smell, taste, etc., properties which differ in different bodies, and which are fluctuating, changeable, uncertain. Of these, and other properties of matter, as motion, sound, lightness, or heaviness, etc., our senses are the external tests, though mind is, in reality, the discriminator.
"Our first knowledge of the existence and properties of the material world is evidently of a complex nature. It seems to arise from the combined action of several senses, conveying to us the general notion of certain essences, which are solid and extended, or possessed of those properties which characterize material things. Without this general knowledge previously acquired, our various senses, acting individually, could convey to us no definite notion of the properties of external things. A smell, that is a mere odour, for example, might be perceived by us, but would convey nothing more than the sensation simply. It could not communicate the impression of this being a property of an external body, until we had previously acquired a knowledge of the existence of that body, and had come by observation to associate the sensation with the body from which it proceeds. The same holds true of the other senses, and we are thus led at the very first step of our inquiries to a complicated process of mind, without which our mere sensations could convey to us no definite knowledge."[27]
[27] Abercrombie.
Here, then, we conclude. Let us give thanks and praise to that God who has made us what we are—instruments of countless strings, all in harmony, the music of which reaches the soul, and in the secret recesses of the mind is there analyzed, reflected upon, compared, and stored up as knowledge. We feel, we see, we hear, we smell, we taste, we resist; we are assured of our own individuality; we are conscious of our own existence, and we know that all around is external to our own individuality. That sense of individuality is in the mind, and we have within us the assurance of immortality. Let us look to Him, who is the Saviour from an immortality of despair, that at the day of judgment we may be found clothed in his robe of righteousness, the garment of salvation.
[CHAPTER IV.]
OBSERVATIONS ON THE AGENCY OF THE SENSES, RELATIVE TO THE UNION BETWEEN MIND AND MATTER; AND ON THE OCCASIONAL IMPERFECTION OF THE BODILY ORGANS OF THE SENSES, WITH THE RESULTS DEPENDING THEREUPON.
That the organs of the senses communicate with the mind, through the mediation of certain mysterious filaments, or thread-like bodies, termed nerves, cannot be denied; but the manner in which this communication takes place, the process by which mind receives information from matter, and the subtle operations which enable matter to transfer impressions to mind, are points around which, as it appears to us, the great Author of our being has thrown an impenetrable veil. It is true, that, in consequence of certain discoveries relative to what the older writers termed "the nervous fluid," discoveries which almost go to prove that the "fluid" is of an electric or electro-magnetic nature, a bold theory has been promulgated, namely, that these electro-magnetic currents not only give an impress to the mind or soul, but are in turn influenced by the agency of the immaterial principle, and that thus the communication between mind and matter is carried on; in fact, that the link which unites body to mind is a mysterious agent, which (its name is of little importance) cannot be recognised as belonging to the material world. Where revelation leaves a subject untouched, it is, we humbly think, allowable to theorize from facts which science has laid open; but let us remember that, however we may incline to a theory which seems consonant to science, a knowledge of the limitation of our intellectual powers should lead us to cultivate a spirit of humility and candour. It is something to approximate towards truth; let us, then, be content to leave much for a future revelation which science on this earth can never unfold before us.
The foregoing observations may be regarded as a slight introduction to a passage on the connexion between the mind and body, well worthy of especial consideration: "In considering the connexion between the mind and the body, it is of the highest importance always to remember that the mind, or rather the being which thinks and wills, is the active agent. The body, with all its beautiful and wondrous adaptations, only supplies the means of perception and of acting. Nerve-matter is the evident medium and instrument of the being that perceives and acts through it. Physiologists appear to have demonstrated that an imponderable principle, akin to electricity, is evolved in the nervous system, and that currents of this kind are constantly traversing the different sets of nerves, according to their office and function, either as the medium of sensation, volition, or of vegetative life. There is, in short, an action going forward in all the nerves and their centres similar to the electro-magnetic, and, consequently, every nerve is polarized. The soul appears to operate upon these electro-magnetic currents, and to be impressed by them. The imponderable energia passing in these currents, is apparently the medium between the soul and the more palpable materials forming the body. This may be inferred from the fact, that whatever alters the force of these currents, alters the condition of the mind in relation to the body. Thus, the arrest of the current in a nerve, subservient to voluntary muscular action, whether by chemical or mechanical means, prevents the mind from exercising will in the use of the muscle, with which the nerve experimented on is connected. The same occurs, also, in the like case with any nerve through which we obtain sensation of the presence of any body, which, in a natural state, would so affect the body as to produce feeling.
"Another evidence that the soul acts through this fluid is afforded in the circumstance, that by strongly directing the attention to any part, as, for instance, the eye, a new sensation is perceived in the organ; and if this kind of attention be persisted in, or frequently repeated, the eye becomes inflamed and painful. It is also evident, that those nerves which belong to parts, the natural functions of which latter are carried on without our consciousness, such as the stomach, may be rendered sensitive by a strong action of the will; and the operation of all the reflex, or ordinary involuntary system, is modified by mental emotion. In fact, every thought changes the nerve current. Moreover, the brain itself, and all the nerves connected with it, are so far influenced by the will of the individual, as to be not only directed into new modes, so as to effect an entire alteration in the habit of mental and muscular action, but also to such a degree, that the completely organized brain is partly a creation of self-directing and self-repeating mental activity. It is, so to say, developed by the habits of the soul. How necessary, then, is early training! as we bend the twig so is the tree inclined—a trite axiom, but, nevertheless, very true.