served, will give a correct and perfect idea of man as he is,-not in his element merely, but as a whole-and will determine his nature and powers with accuracy. From these, reason can treat of his destiny. In an investigation of such a character, many of the occult truths of nature may be dragged from the dreamy regions of Transcendentalism, and the dim recesses of obscurity and uncertainty, into the light of open day, and in the presence of all.

The instrument of mind is the nervous system; it is the agent through which mind becomes cognizant of the external world, and is brought into relation with it. The peculiar functions of the nervous system throughout the whole animal kingdom, are to produce voluntary notion, and serve as an instrument for the manifestation of thought. This is known to be the fact, because, whenever a nervous system is found in a body in health, voluntary emotion alone, or combined with thought, is existent; whenever it is absent, neither the one or the other is ever observed.

What is the character of the connection between the mind and the body? The several tissues of the body have certain offices, and perform certain functions. The glandular system is the result of vital action, like all other organized structures; and it has its function, which it performs regularly, while in health. Through its operations secretion is performed. The absorbents, also, perform their functions and absorb; and so on of the several structures of a body. In some way they have a natural duty or function, which they perform. But each of these functions depending upon the existence of organized structures for their being,-having been brought into operation by them, and ceasing entirely with their death,-may be said to rely for existence upon those ultimate vital operations, which resulted in the organization of the organs upon which they depend. In other words, the ordinary functions of organs possess a very definite and close relation with the ultimate biological operations, which resulted in the construction of those organic compounds, from the consensual activity of all the parts of which, they flow. Now, through the instrumentality of the nervous system, we have the phenomena of the mind. Do these phenomena also occupy the relation of dependency to the primary formative actions of vitality, which resulted in the production of the nervous system? Is the manifestation of the mind also a function of the nervous system, growing with its development, strengthening with its increase and exercise, and perishing eternally with its destruction?

According to Liebig and Müller, there exists in the seed of the plant, as well as in the animal ovum, a certain remarkable force in a state of rest; the source of growth and increase of the mass. By the operation of certain external influences, the condition of static equilibrium in this force is disturbed, and it enters into activity. It has received the name of " vis vitæ ;” and life is nothing more than this force in action. This is all mysterious and incomprehensible, and really appears as though this indefinable "vis vita" might have some spiritual, uncontrollable unearthly power about it, suitable to impart to the microscopic operations of vitality some unusual and unknown property or other, which would be adequate to impress upon the structure which resulted from their operations the incomprehensible properties of mind!

The "vis vitæ," if it exists, cannot be the cause of vital actions; for life cannot exist till this ideal agency has been stimulated into activity by other sensible agencies; and its operations cease upon the withdrawal of those elements, the influence of which first afforded the conditions of its activity, Certainly those influences or conditions, which, being present, life is present,

being absent, life is absent, must be considered the cause of it; and the introduction of any such mysterious agency as the vital force, is introducing an element not necessary to the explanation of vitality.

The combined action of three elementary agencies, appears to afford the conditions requisite to a display of vital operations, and may, therefore, be regarded as the cause of life. 1st. A germ of organized matter. 2d. Stimuli to act upon it, and afford it the conditions of activity. 3d. An object or pabulum to secure the actions of the germ. These propositions suggest their own defences, and it is not, perhaps, necessary to enlarge upon them; but a boundary here is presented to human investigation: one of those barriers, which the imperfect organs of sense forever raises against the eager longings of an infinite mind for knowledge. What are the laws of the development of the first germs? They could not depend upon the “vis vitæ," for this force is only pretended to inhabit germs already organized; nor can they arise from any of the ordinary laws of life, for these are all founded upon the supposition of an organized germ to begin with. The Christian can easily see how much easier it would seem that the Almighty could create organic beings from inorganic matter; the maternal being already supplied with a power to perpetuate their kind from germs eliminated from their bodies, as His inspired revelations testify, than it would be to create inorganic matter itself "out of nothing." Those disposed to believe in the mysterious agency of the laws of Nature, in the production of every power and element, ponderable and unponderable, will still be obliged to admit, that there is no necessary connection between mental power and the ultimate vital actions of organization, or even the peculiar force in operation upon the formation of the ultimate and primary germs, from whose operations result the laws of vital action-when they reflect, as before, that Nature, (God,) would create a germ by a direct exercise of power, with more seeming facility than it could create inorganic matter originally;—and that there is a system of separate and distinct force in operation, constantly acting upon inorganic matter, and moulding it into a variety of forms and relations with itself—but few of which are yet understood by man. Would it not be easy for them to conceive that such a force might operate upon inorganic matter in the formation of the primary germs-inducing such matter to arrange itself in its ultimate particles, according to its peculiar laws-not the laws of a force belonging to a different system-chemistry-into tertiary and quatern compounds, a distinguishing characteristic of organic compounds, instead of binary, the characteristic of inorganic chemistry.

There is no reason, then, for believing that there is any extraordinary inappreciable spiritual power operating upon the primary formation of germs, such as might be supposed would give to its products the power of exhibiting mental phenonema, as functions peculiar to their structure.

Life in its perfect condition is nothing more than the process of reproduction in the germ, the selection of crude material, and assimilating it into organized structure, and placing its ultimate element in new relations with each other. Accordingly those elements which disappear and become assimilated from the pabulum, during the process of organization, are found again in the organized body which results, and they form its whole mass. Consequently nothing is produced by the agency of vital processes. There is no creative power attached to them; but through their influence merely, a change takes place among the ultimate particles of the same thing, causing it to present different sensible qualities, and adapting it to assume different natural relations. Indeed, this substitution-change—is all that man

can perceive in nature, and all that he can know about her, or study in the laws of change as they operate in physics, in chemistry, or in vitality. There is nothing added, nothing subtracted; no annihilation, no creation. Surely there is nothing in the operations of vitality upon which can be rationally based any presumption of their imparting to organic structure any of the intricate but stupendously exalted properties of mind. But if it should appear that organic structures-those structures, too, in which mind resides, and upon which it depends for existence, if upon any, are inadequate to fully represent the known powers of mind, they cannot of course be considered the representatives of mental power, nor of the origin or bounds of its

existence.

Nothing is more evident than when a force in physics is dependent for its manifestation upon the structure and action of a machine or engine, that such force can never exceed the utmost power of the machine itself; that it cannot show evidence of an ability to operate with more power than the engine is capable of imparting to it. Neither in the exercise of a particular function can the exercise of such function be more powerful than the capacity of the structure which is the agent in the operation. The secretion cannot be greater than it is possible in the nature of things for the gland to secrete; neither can there be more absorded in a given time than the absorbents can take up. Such propositions are self-evident.

When phenomena arise, and it is found the causes to which their occurrence have been attributed are not adequate to their production, such causes must be relinquished and some other sought after.

Now the nervous system is not adequate to produce all the phenomena of which the mind is capable of being the instrument. We see evidence of the power of the mind while in connection with the body to perceive and comprehend more than can be presented to it through the nervous system. If this is true, mind is greater than the nervous system, and must consequently be different from it, and independent, for its existence, of it.

It is known from experiment that the mind is capable of receiving impressions, while in connection with the body, which cannot be presented through the naked and unassisted powers of the nervous system.

The unassisted eye can present to the mind in a drop of vinegar nothing but the round glistening drop of homogeneous liquid; but bring to the ⚫assistance of the nervous system artificial aid; view the same liquid through the microscope, and the mind will then perceive it to foam with the restless activity of numberless animated bodies. The mind of man, acting through the nervous system alone, could never have perceived the hidden glories of the heavenly worlds; but assisted by the aid of the telescope, it is enabled in some measure to appreciate the grandeur of the universe, and its own power. All the other senses may doubtless be assisted in a similar artificial manner-smelling, feeling, hearing and tasting.

Not only is the mind capable thus of perceiving more than its unaided instrument, the nervous system, can present to it, but after such perception of things, hidden, and beyond its utmost ken, as operating through its natural earthly instrument, in its utmost perfection, it can retire within itself, and conceive of all its impressions thus artificially received, and reason about them. This indicates that it is by no violent or straining effort that it grasps knowledge, which apparently is beyond its natural powers of comprehension. So far as experiment has gone, it has seized readily the sublimest and most intricate facts; and the more distant the knowledge-the more disconnected and removed from the power of the human body, the

more sublime and expansive has it appeared, and more congenial to the powers of mind. And when at length the boundings to human knowledge do appear, and the instruments of the human mind have been taxed to their utmost, and all the devices and ingenuity of man's cunning have been exhausted, the immortal mind, spurred on by the impulses of the soul, so far from being sated or wearied by the knowledge it has attained, sends up its longing cry for still more.

Mind, then, is not the result, nor the instrument of the nervous system; but the nervous system is the imperfect instrument of its manifestations. It is not less than the nervous system but greater. From such facts as these, it may be concluded that the nervous system is not adequate to the production of all the phenomena of mind in the human body. Mind cannot, consequently, depend upon it for existence; it can act independently of it, and in more perfection without it. It may, therefore, exist independent of the body, and does not perish with it. The nervous system is therefore merely the agent, or engine through which mind manifests itself.

The differences, therefore, abound in the manifestations of intellectual power, which are the subjects of daily observation, and are not necessarily the result of differences in mental capacity, but may depend upon secondary and adventitious circumstances. This, it is true, does not prove mind to be everywhere equal, but it exemplifies the fact that the character of its manifestations through the human body is not a just criterion of its power, either abstractly or in specialities, and this is one step toward such proof. For a manifestation of power is always effected through the agency of instrumentalities, and it will always be in accordance with the capacity of such instruments as become its agents. The instruments of the human mind vary in perfectibility in different cases; consequently the powers of mind would be represented differently; yet the actual power of mind, abstractly considered, may be the same; or, if it does differ in different instances, such difference may be very distinct from that which appears in its manifestation through human agencies. It is easy to conceive that, though a mind may be of very moderate capacity, as manifested through the human body, it may derive its character from a very inferior instrument, while it may in fact be superior to another, which, by reason of superiority of instrumentality, may appear more powerful in its human manifestations.

Perhaps there are no two human bodies alike in all those particulars of construction, which have a bearing on their capacity as instruments of the mind. They may differ in the quantity and development, and outward as well as internal conformation of the brain. Bodies may also differ in the construction and arrangement of those parts more remote from an immediate bearing upon the mind, but which still indirectly exert an important influence upon its manifestations, by means of their action on the brain in the way of nutrition and stimulation. Such is the system of blood vessels, and those parts of the structure which preside over the general nutrition of the blood, and through it all the tissues of the body.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that these manifest differences in the mind's instrument, and the modifying circumstances attending its condition, might cause all the apparent diversity in mental phenomena and power. As a general principle, it is known that the indications of mental power increase with a fullness and perfection of its instrument, the brain; and this is just what a rational judgment would suppose; the power becomes more competent to display its real energy as the perfection of the agent through which it is to exert itself is increased. The presumption, therefore, is

strong, that indications of superior mental vigor and quickness depend upon the perfection and strength of the instrument of the mind, and not upon su perior original and disconnected power in the mind itself. The regular manifestation of the force of steam depends upon the instrument through which it is to be employed; such manifestation cannot exceed the strength of the engine, though the power operating upon it may be much greater.

So much in refutation of the propriety of the usual method of judging the relative capacity of mental power, and incidentally, of the principle of distinguishing between the actual powers of mind upon the data of differences in the perfection of their manifestations, all of which, if the refutation be real, tends to establish the probability of the converse proposition,—that mind is everywhere equal in absolute capacity, and is prima facie evidence of it. The hardest task in all investigation is to unmask error.

There are two propositions, either of which established, will prove the radical equality of mental power. The first is, that mind everywhere, in all situations (where there is no question of its existence) in the human body, may be brought to an equality of comprehension. This, if true, fairly evinces that its intrinsic and natural powers are the same. All knowledge is obtained though the senses, by means of perception. Perception is the impression which the nervous system conveys to the mind of an object; and it is the commencement and fountain of all human knowledge; indeed, the whole use of the animal senses to the mind, the whole object of the nervous system, is to act as the medium between mind in connection with the human body and matter; and it serves as this medium by conveying to the mind impressions of external objects, which are called perceptions. It is obvious, then, that what have inaptly been termed the perceptive faculties of the mind, depend upon the character of the nervous system, and are referred ultimately to a perfection or imperfection, as the case may be, of the organization and development of the instruments of the mind, and have nothing to do with original mental capacity.

Conception is effected when the mind retires within itself and calls up a perception, or parts or varieties of perceptions, through the assistance of other powers, as Memory, Judgment, and Imagination. It is evident that as conception is merely the contemplation of perception, it must depend for clearness, correctness, and truth, upon the same qualities in perception, and they depend upon the qualities of the organized instruments of mind, and not upon the power of mind itself-which can perceive, not only more than its instruments can present, but more than they, assisted by art, can offer Although there may be differences in original conception in different minds-in some, conceptions being more magnificent than in others. yet as conception depends for its perfection upon perception, and this depends upon the brain and organs of sense,-the mind's instruments-original conception does not depend for its character upon the abstract power of the mind, but upon the character of its instruments. Consequently, greatness of conception does not depend upon a peculiar greatness in the innate power of mind itself, but upon the perfection of its instruments.

COMPREHENSION is the element in which mind displays its unity of character and power. Let time, pains, and explanation be employed in every instance, corresponding with the differences which will be evinced in the character of the instruments of mind, and the comprehension of an idea or conception which may take place in one, will be found to obtain in each. This is a truth proven by the universal teachings of experience. There is a difference in the power of conception in the human mind, because there are