by other means, but bearing no relation to knowledge which comes by any other channel. We deny, for our part, having any interior consciousness which informs us of any spiritual existence antagonistic to, or apart from, matter. If we once fancied we had, we have learned that it was through an ignorant and irreverent misapprehension of the powers and functions of matter. We have a right to require evidence of their assertion from those who say that man is endowed with such a means of knowledge of his origin and constitution. Such evidence, however, can never be had. All declare it to be impossible; we, because we are confident that it does not exist; and its advocates because facts of consciousness are not provable. They pity us, as Mr. Newman does, in his book on "the Soul" and we are happy in having open before us (and in being free to follow. it) a single path which will surely lead us to what we want:-happy and satisfied to agree with Bacon that "all things are delivered in matter," and that 66 we must bring men to particulars.”

We agree that we know only conditions. We agree that we will not go a step beyond what we know. We abjure dreams, whether inbred or caught by infection. We must be sure of the assent of our understanding at every step of the inquiry.

Thus is our ground agreed upon. You must now, if you please, do as Bacon bids you, and "bring me to particulars." You must exhibit to me some of those conditions which are all we know. We must try to put away that shadow of ourselves which we

once took for a spirit, and which we now know we had no right so to pronounce upon. If we cannot set ourselves back to the beginning of our reflective existence, and trace the whole course of our ideas and experience, you can teach me much of that particular department of matter through which Mind is manifested.

At which end will you begin? Will you indicate to me what you conceive to be the powers of living beings, and trace them to their origin in the brain? Or will you lay open the brain before me first, and follow abroad the resulting mental actions, till we are stopped by the limitations of our knowledge,however well aware that there is the infinite field of the unknown lying beyond?

I am not a whit alarmed at that declaration of yours, "that all the systems of the whole world are wrong." Sweeping as it appears, and presumptuous as many might pronounce it, it only shows you to to have gone one step further than other people. Everybody thinks that all the systems but one of the whole world are wrong; that one being the system that he upholds. At the same time, I believe you are more modest than they, in as far as you have no system to propound, but only an inquiry to

propose.

IV.

H. G. A. To H. M.

I am glad to find that we agree so far. I will not make any comment on your last note, because I see you wish to proceed, at once, into the heart of the subject. Nor will I now detain you with observations on the nature of knowledge, or the facts of organic chemistry, and some other matters which appear to me to be fundamental to the subject. Exactness of method does not greatly signify, in a matter so interlaced; where it is impossible to speak on any one point without, in some measure, assuming an acquaintance with some other department of the subject, or with some general notions only to be abstracted from the whole.

What I wish to indicate in the first place, then, is this-that Man has his place in natural history: that his nature does not essentially differ from that of the lower animals: that he is but a fuller development and varied condition of the same fundamental nature or cause; of that which we contemplate as Matter, and its changes, relations, and properties. Mind is the consequence or product of the material man, its existence depending on the action of the brain. Mental Philosophy is, therefore, the physiology of the brain, as Gall termed it. Spurzheim called it Phrenology. Perhaps I might suggest

Phreno-physiology, as a more comprehensive term. The proof that mind holds the same relation to the body, that all other phenomena do to material conditions (light, for instance, or instinct in animals), and that it is not some sort of brilliant existence lodged in the body to be clogged and trammelled by earthly conditions, is to be found by all who will exert their senses and understanding, released from nursery prepossessions. It may be found in the whole circumstances of man's existence, his origin and growth: the faculties following the development of the body in man, and in other animals; the direction of the faculties being influenced by surrounding circumstances; the desires, the will, the hopes, the fears, the habits and the opinions being effects traceable to causes-to natural causes-and becoming the facts of History and Statistics. We observe the influence of climate,―of sunshine and damp,-of wine, and opium, and poisons, of health and disease-the circumstances of idiotcy and madness;-the differences between individuals and their likeness to the lower animals, and the different condition of the same individual at different times. But it is unnecessary to insist more to you on the evidence which is now generally admitted, of the relation between the body and mind. It is not so generally admitted, however, that mind is the consequence and phenomenon only of the brain. Mind is the product of the brain. It is not a thing having a seat or home in the brain; but it is the manifestation or expression of the brain in action; as heat and light are of fire,

and fragrance of the flower. The brain is not, as even some phrenologists have asserted, "the instrument of the mind." When a glass of wine turns a wise man into a fool, is it not clear that the result is the consequence of a change in the material conditions? The thoughts and will are changed. Another glass, and even consciousness is laid at restno longer exists;-and hence, such existence is clearly but a temporary and dependent condition;as much so, as light or heat, fragrance, beauty, or any electric or magnetic phenomena. The same reasoning which induces the conclusion that the brain is the instrument of the mind, must force a consistent man to conclude that the steam-engine is not the machine producing, but the instrument of that which is produced by its action; or that the galvanic apparatus is the instrument of a galvanic will or power. Men turn nature topsy-turvy,— take effects for causes, to suit their fancies;-in defiance of reason, and of all clear and true analogy. Shall we suppose that the music plays itself, and "uses the instrument to show forth its powers ?"— not the powers of the instrument, but its own powers? Shall we suppose a spirit not the growth of the body, but got there we know not how,-all manifest imperfections being only the imperfections of the instrument ?-that all spirit or mind is, in reality, pure and equal? and, by the same reasoning (or conclusion without reasoning), are we to imagine the "great spirit of the universe" all perfection? and that all evil, pain, blight, death, &c.,