It was purely a mental cause that acted upon his brain, and the brain acted upon the nervous system, and the man died because the letter contained some fearful or disastrous tidings." Or, again, the sudden knowledge of some great calamity, or even of some great good fortune, has often affected all the senses, and even palsied the whole system. Now, here was a moral fact, addressed, first, to the intelligence, and resulting in physical effects; a thing clearly impossible on the supposition that mind is the mere result or force produced by the organization of matter. Nay, how often has the soul absolutely triumphed over all that was terrible to nerve and sense!

The history of Christian martyrdom presents us instances almost innumerable, any one of which convincingly demonstrates the dominion of the soul over the body. Thus we hear Lambert, while consuming by a slow fire, exclaiming, "None but Christ! none but Christ!" Thus also does Cranmer the soul triumphing over all that was terrible in bodily suffering steadily hold his hand in the flame, and exclaim, while it is being consumed, "This hand! this wicked hand!" So also Mrs. Cecily Ormes, who was added to the noble host of martyrs at the early age of twentytwo. Approaching the stake, already charred by the fires that had consumed two martyrs before her, she clasped it with her hands, exclaiming, "Welcome! welcome, Cross of Christ!" But a still more striking instance of the triumph of soul over the body is the case of James Bainham. When his legs and his arms were half-consumed, and his body scorched and seething in the flame, he cried out to the bystanders, "Ye look for miracles! Here, now, ye may see one. This fire is to me a bed of roses." Before being led to the stake, Mr. Hawkes agreed with his friends upon a signal by which to express his feelings when he should be no longer capable of speech. When he was so near

consumed that all thought him dead, and when his whole body was crisped with the fire, the skin of his arms drawn up, and his fingers literally consumed, suddenly seeming to recollect the appointed signal, he raised his fingerless hands above his head and clapped them three times in token of triumph.

We have quoted these instances, not with reference to their religious significance, but to show the mysterious energy of the soul which makes its abode in these earthly bodies; and especially to show that its life is distinct from, and its power superior to, the material tabernacle it inhabits.

IV. THE POWer of the Soul is often DISPROPORTIONED

TO THAT OF The Body, and THEREFORE CAN NOT BE THE RESULT OF BODILY ORGANIZATION.

The theory we are combating represents the soul of man as the "final result and efflorescence of a continually-refined life of the nerves, so that reason and will are nothing but the organic life of matter, which by a refined process attains the power of thinking and willing." In what this "refined process" consists these sage philosophers have failed to tell us.

But if the soul is thus dependent upon the bodily organization, it must follow that, as the body becomes enfeebled by disease, or age, the mind will suffer a corresponding debility. But this is so far from being the case, that a large number of those distinguished for intellectual power have possessed but feeble and emaciated frames. The history of all men and of all ages confirms the general statement, that the vigor and force of intellect depend in but a slight degree upon the corresponding qualities of body. The deep mysteries of science have been penetrated with long-continued and devoted toil, even while the body was

bowed beneath the pressure of infirmity and disease. The Genius of Poetry, even when consumption's pallid hues overspread the dying frame, has tuned those celestial notes and strung those heavenly lays that will never cease to touch for high and holy purpose the chords of human sympathy.

Read the works of Richard Watson; trace the footsteps of his giant intellect on every page. Then tell me, would you have expected to find such a radiant, godlike intellect incased in so sickly and feeble a house of clay! Instances have occurred in which paralysis has unnerved the whole system, and yet the mind has remained unscathed. We will quote a single case; that of the celebrated, the witty, and the clever diplomatist, Talleyrand. His body was in the most wretched, diseased, and distressed condition one can conceive, and yet the subtilty, and the wisdom, and the skill, and the talent, and the penetration of that diplomatist are allowed to have remained to his last moments unequaled. Notice, also, the case of the celebrated Dean Swift. It is said that before he died his body was a moving tomb, and yet his mind was as vigorous as in his earlier years. How often when the body is prostrated by disease and enfeebled in all its energies has the mind-instead of partaking of the body's weaknessretained all its energy and power! The function of memory has been unaffected; the perceptions have been clear and distinct; and reason has retained undoubted supremacy upon its throne. How often while the body was in the last stages of dissolution-when it possessed not a single capability entire has the mind blazed up with unwonted luster, and put forth unaccustomed energy! The pious and eloquent Dr. Fisk, while in a dying state, exclaimed, "I now feel a strength of soul and an energy of mind which this *Bible Evidence, Dr. Cumming.

body, though afflicted and pained, can not impair. The soul has an energy of its own. And so far from my body pressing my soul down to the dust, I feel as if my soul had almost power to raise the body upward and bear it away."*

It was by examples such as this that Bishop Butler was led to notice that a mortal disease, which, by degrees, consumes and prostrates the body, and finally destroys it, does not necessarily affect our powers of thought and reflection. While the body is being wasted and consumed, and up to the very instant of death, we can exert those powers as fully as ever. From this the Bishop reaches the just conclusion that the soul, which was unaffected through all the process of dying, could not be supposed at the last moment and suddenly to be destroyed. The same fact must lead us, with still stronger force of conviction, to the conclusion that soul has an independent and superior existence.

V. THE HUMAN BRAIN MAY BE DISEASED AND THE MIND REMAIN UNAFFECTED; THEREFORE, THE LATTER IS NOT A FUNCTION OF THE FORMER.

At the very outset, in this line of thought, we are met with well-attested facts, showing that the brain has actually been extensively diseased, while the intellectual capability remained unaffected. The annals of medical experience furnish such cases almost without number. Dr. Moore says of the experiments of M. Flouren, that "they prove that the brain may be destroyed, to a large extent, in any direction, without destroying any of the functions of mind." Morgagni and Haller, distinguished anatomists, claim to have ascertained, by a wide induction of facts, that every part of the brain has been found to be destroyed or disorganized, in one instance or another, while yet the indi

Life, by Dr. Holdich.

viduals have not been deprived of mind, or even affected in their intellectual powers.

We do not mean that the whole brain has been destroyed in any one individual, intellectual life still remaining, but that a portion of the brain in one instance, and another portion of it in another instance, and so on till the aggregate would comprehend every organic portion. As an illustration, Dr. Abercrombie mentions the case of a lady, one entire half of whose brain was reduced to a mass of suppuration by disease; and yet she retained her faculties to the last, and had been enjoying herself at a convivial party only a few hours before her sudden death. A man is also mentioned by Dr. Fezrier, who died suddenly, retaining all his faculties till the very moment of dissolution; but, upon examining his head, the whole right hemisphere of the brain was found destroyed by suppuration.

Numerous examples might be brought forward from the mournful catalogue of human accidents and infirmities, but these are sufficient to show us, in the clear light of demonstration, that, though the brain and nervous system generally are the appointed organs through which the mind communicates with the material world, yet that mind possesses an existence and a power of action independent of, and superior to, its earthly habitation.

There is still another absurdity in which this physical theory of mind would involve us. If the brain constitutes the mind, then when a man has lost half of his brain he has lost half of his mind. Is it objected to this that "the brain is a double organ," and that each part is possessed of full and separate power of action? If the objector admits that the brain is an organ or instrument, then he must also concede that it is an organ or instrument made for something else—that is, for the soul-to use, or he must fall back upon the position that the organ uses itself. But