CHAPTER VIII.

The Independence of the Understanding upon the Bodily Organs further established by the Phanomena of Death.-Bodily and intellectual Life terminate not at the same Time.

IF then we are warranted in concluding, that the understanding is not dependent on the brain, we shall have no reason for supposing, that the life or the inherent activity of these two distinct substances will terminate together, or that the dissolution of their connection will be the destruction of both. We know upon what our external life depends, and we know when the organization of certain parts of our body is disturbed, that the life which depends upon it will cease. But we do not know upon what our intellectual life depends, we only know that it does not depend upon the same. We have no reason therefore to suppose, that when organization is disturbed, our intellectual life will be annihilated. All that we can conclude from the destruction of the external organ is, that the thinking principle will then be separated from all communi

cation with the external world, when the link of its connection is thus dissolved. But it does not follow because a being is incapable of expressing its thoughts, that it therefore ceases to think.

Our observations upon the phænomena of death may, perhaps, throw a light upon this part of our subject. With the effects of death upon the external part of our system, we are all but too well acquainted. When the inherent activity, or life of the body has ceased, it becomes immediately subject to all those chemical agencies, which act upon inert matter, Putrefaction and decomposition, which the vital powers had so long resisted, rapidly ensue : and if exposed to the outward air, the softer parts are quickly dissolved, and flying off in vapour, are mingled with the substances of other bodies; the whole frame loses its character and identity; the heavier parts are converted into a species of mould, and in process of time the bones themselves will crumble into dust.

Now certainly no such changes as these can take place in our thinking principle, which as I have shewn, is essentially indivisible.--But if it cannot be decomposed, it may perhaps finally be extinguished, together with the life which animates the material frame. In answer to this, we must first observe that the external life, and the intellectual life are two very different things; the first is only a power, which requires a substance in which it should reside, the latter is an independent principle, capable of a separate existence.

They are therefore affected by death in two different ways, the life of vegetation cannot exist without its body, it ceases therefore to act, when the substance in which it resides, by a disturbance in its organization, is incapable of being acted upon; the intellectual life, as it has an independent existence, so it must suffer an independent extinction. As then the two lives are so different in their nature, we have no reason to conclude that they will terminate together.

That the mind should often be affected by the maladies of the body, is the necessary result of their close connection. But there are diseases, many in number, and different in species, which even in their utmost violence, will cause no disorder in the intellectual faculties. Even under the acutest agonies of which our frame is capable, the mind is often tranquil and undisturbed. If we pursue the progress of disease to the very hour of death, we shall see this in a still stronger point of view. Cases daily occur, where the strength is gone, the vital powers are rapidly retreating, and the patient is lying helpless, hopeless, waiting for the very moment of impending dissolution yet his mind shall be as vigorous, his judgment as sound, his imagination as ardent as in the days of his health and strength. Even in the very convulsion of bodily death, the life of his understanding and his affections shall be unimpaired. Here then we have the strongest possible presumption that the thinking principle shall survive the frail and perish

able system of organs with which it was connected. On the other hand examples may be adduced, where bodily pain or languor produce a corresponding effect upon the mind, and when the patient expires in a state either of delirium or of ideotry. But this disorder or alienation of the thinking principle, does not at all presume its extinction with the life of the body, it only proves the intimacy of their present connection.

It was a favourite doctrine of the ancient Epicureans, that as the mind and the body increased together in youth, and flourished in maturity, so they decayed together in age, and at the same instant were finally annihilated. A similar notion appears to have been adopted by the physiologists of the French school. The following account of the gradual extinction of the mind and of the body in the old man, is to be found in the Encyclopædia of Dr. Rees. Article DEATH. The reader, however, ought to be apprized that every sentence of it is a literal translation (though without the slightest acknowledgment) from the French of M. Bichat. Recherches sur la vie et la mort. P. 143.

"The man who dies at the conclusion of an ad"vanced age, expires in detail. His external "functions gradually cease; the senses are lost in "succession, the ordinary stimuli no longer pro"ducing any effect on the organs. The sight be"comes obscure and imperfect, and soon ceases

altogether, to transmit objects to the sensorium ;

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"the hearing, feeling, and smelling, are lost in the same way. The taste still remains awhile, as the "situation of its organ connects it with the organic as well as the animal life. Thus, when every

agreeable sensation is lost, and the ties which con"nected the old man to external objects, are nearly "all destroyed, this alone remains, and is the last "thread upon which the enjoyment of existence is "suspended. The inactive state of the organs of

sense is quickly succeeded by a loss of the functions "of the brain. Perception soon decays, when the "senses supply no matter for its exertion, and the power of imagination follows. The memory of "recent circumstances is lost, because the senses "weakened, and almost dead, transmit them im"perfectly to the brain.. Past transactions are still "often remembered with tolerable exactness. Hence "the old man judges only according to the sensa

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tions, which he has experienced heretofore, while "the child is influenced solely by his present feel

ings; and the judgment in either case must be equally uncertain. As the interruption of the "functions of the brain is a necessary consequence "of the nearly total annihilation of external sensa"tions, so it affects, in its turn, the powers of loco"motion and speech. The brain, being acted upon

by the senses, re-acts upon the muscles in a pro"portionate degree. The motions of the old man "are few and slow; it is with difficulty that he quits