upon organization for its continuance, we must consider whether we mean the simple principle of life' as we discover it in the vegetable creation, or the compound principle as we recognize it in the animal and in man. We have seen that in the three great classes of the living creation, the principle of inherent activity displays itself in three different points of view; first, in the vegetation, or involuntary motion of plants, secondly, in the volition of animals, and thirdly, in the understanding of man. Thus the principle of life is single in the first, double in the second, triple in the third.

But though the distinction between the volition of an animal, and the understanding of man, is considerable as between themselves, yet as they both imply absolute power, they may be considered as branches of the same stem, when compared with motion wholly involuntary. For our present purpose, therefore, we may fairly consider them as united under the general term of thought, i. e. of the power of thinking especially as in a subsequent section, I shall consider the only difficulties which attend their union. Taking then the life of vegetation on the one side, and the life of the understanding on the other, let us consider in what manner either of these two inherent activities are dependent upon organization for their continuance.

Daily experience teaches us that the life of vegetation depends entirely upon the organization of the body in which it resides. Whether the body be that

of a plant, of an animal, or of man, when a disturbance or a demolition takes place in certain parts of its structure, we know that the loss of its active existence will follow. These parts of the organized structure upon which the existence of life depends, are those of the highest importance in our frame. The apparent causes of death in the human subject are many, the real ones but few, and as the best physiologists have shewn, may be all ultimately referred to a stoppage in the functions either of the heart, the lungs, or the brain. When the structure of any one of these three is so affected that its action ceases, the vegetating activity of the whole body eeases with it. But what reason have we to suppose that the activity of the understanding will be destroyed at the same time? The French school of physiology, and their English followers will tell us, that thought is the result of organization, and that it will therefore cease when the organized substance. which produces it shall be destroyed.

If their premises are true, their conclusion must be admitted. But it is upon this important point that we take our stand, and utterly deny the possibility of thought being the result of any organization, or the produce of any material substance. We deny the assertion of Mr. Lawrence, that medullary matter thinks."

Before then we can prove that the inherent activity or life of the understanding perishes with the organization of the body, we must first prove that

there is an identity in their existence. So far, however, from there being any identity in their existence that there is an essential dissimilarity. Thought and 'matter have no one point of resemblance, nor a single quality in common.

1.

Comparison of the Properties of Thought and Matter― Matter incapable of Thought—Mutual Connection and Independence of the Understanding and the Brain.

If we consider the various qualities of matter with which experiment has made us acquainted, we shall find that every one of them is inconsistent with the powers and properties of thought.

Extension is an universal quality of matter; being that cohesion and continuity of its parts by which a body occupies space. The idea of extension is gained by our external senses of sight and of touch. But thought is neither visible nor tangible, it occupies no external space, it has no contiguous nor cohering parts. A mind enlarged by education and science, a memory stored with the richest treasures of varied knowledge, occupies no more space than that of the meanest and most illiterate rustic.

In body again we find a vis inertiæ, that is, a certain quality by which it resists any change in its

present state. We know by experiment, that a body, when it has received an impulse, will persevere in a direct course and an uniform velocity, until its motion shall be either disturbed or retarded by some external power; and again, that, being at rest, it will remain so for ever, unless motion shall have been communicated to it from without. Since matter therefore necessarily resists all change of its present state, its motion and its rest are purely passive; spontaneous motion, therefore, must have some other origin. Nor is this spontaneous motion to be attributed to the simple powers of life, for we have seen that in the life of vegetation there is no spontaneous motion; the plant has no power either to remove itself out of the position in which it is fixed, or even to accelerate or retard the motion which takes place within it. Nor has man himself, in a sleep perfectly sound, the power of locomotion any more than a plant, nor any command over the various active processes which are going on within his own body. But when he is awake, he will rise from his resting-place-if mere matter, whether living or dead were concerned, he would have remained there like a plant or a stone for ever. He will walk forward-he will change his course he will stop. Can matter, even though endowed with the life of vegetation, perform any such acts as these. Here is motion fairly begun without any external impulse, and stopped without any ex; ternal obstacle. The activity of a plant, on the contrary, is neither spontaneous, nor locomotive; it