Page images
PDF
EPUB

that all the materials of which it is composed, are necessarily concerned in that purpose. There is reason to believe that every substance which exists in the earth, is in some state, appropriated by vegetation, and by it presented as food to the animal kingdom. It appears probable that the bodies of animals are made up of certain proportions of all the different substances of the earth, after having been rendered fit for their nourishment, by changes and combinations which take place in their passage through the vegetable state. I do not, however, imagine that all the materials of the earth, in any state of combination, enter into the formation of every animal, but it appears probable that they all contribute, or ought to contribute, to that of the human body.

The earth to common observation appears to be composed of a vast number of different kinds of matter, but that is in great part owing to the various forms under which the matters of the earth are capable of existing. We see that the substances of the earth are constantly undergoing changes of form, between which there is the utmost dissimilarity, by means of combinations and decompositions, the commencements and terminations of which are involved in an obscurity impenetrable to human understanding. We know nothing of elementary

matter.

We see that vegetables derive their nourishment directly from the earth, and that nature employs vegetation in the business of the elaboration of the earth, into a state fitted for the nourishment of animals. And as certain vegetables have been

created as food for certain animals, we see clearly that those vegetables take from the earth, such substances in such proportion as is required for the nourishment of the bodies of such animals.

caused

by earthly

stances

It has been by deviations from this law of nature Diseases that diseases have arisen. It appears that no part of the earth, which has not passed through the subvegetable state, ought to be ingested, and that no taken as fossil substance, taken from the earth in its ori- food. ginal crude and raw state, or after any process of refinement which man is capable of operating upon it, can be used as food without engendering disease, by such flagrant departure from the intentions of

nature.

The vegetable kingdom thus constitutes a step between the earth and the animal world. The former clearly having been created, principally, for the purpose of the transmutation of earth into food, and as a vehicle for its conveyance and presentation, in a suitable form, to a more completely organized and higher class of beings.

Functions

CHAPTER II.

OF THE MIND, AND THE MANNER IN WHICH IT
COLLECTS KNOWLEDGE, AND GENERATES IDEAS.

MIND is that reflective intelligent power, with which man has been so highly endowed, in order to enable him to obtain knowledge of the conditions, and circumstances of the world, and to make use of that knowledge as he may be able to render it subservient to his necessities or pleasures.

Every living thing necessarily possesses such a mind, suited to its state of organization, in order to enable it to administer to the exigencies of its own existence. Mind appears to be indissolubly connected with, or an essential part of life, and wherever there is organized life, there must be intelligent power or mind, in some state of developement, which power existing in its less perfect or extensive, and less reflective state, as it does in brutes, is commonly called instinct.

The senses of vision, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling, furnish knowledge of surrounding objects and circumstances; thus all knowledge is the result of sensation, or impressions, which, falling upon the nervous extremities, are conveyed to the brain, their common centre.

The eye enables the body to feel everything of the eye. within the field of vision, the object to which the eye is directed sends, by reflection, rays of light, which, proceeding from every part of such object, and passing through the transparent parts of the

eye, are, by convergence, made to cast a minute representation of that object on the black opake part of the eye, called the retina, so that if a bystander could peep into the eye of another who was looking at a ship, for example, he would see a minute figure of the ship resting on the retina of his eye. The retina, or part of the eye on which the ship rests, consisting of an expansion of nervous radicles covered only with the thinnest possible membrane, feels the impression which the rays of light thus make upon it; which sensation being conveyed to the brain, the mind is enabled to ascertain the form, size, and, if sufficiently near, the colour of the object regarded. Thus vision is an extension of what is commonly called the feeling power.

Hearing is the effect of vibrations which sound occasions, operating upon the ear, so as to enable the mind to collect intelligence, by an acquaintance with the different sounds which proceed from various causes. The other senses perform their functions by the actual contact of the solid, fluid, or aerial substances examined.

The ideas thus communicated to the mind do not perish when its attention is withdrawn from them, but remain impressed upon it. The mind, in the progress of life, in this way goes on storing up knowledge of external things and circumstances, which is to constitute the matter for the supply of its future operations.

The mind is enabled, at any time, to recal the impressions thus received, and to exhibit them to itself anew, and to examine and contemplate them ; so that, by comparison, arrangement, and connec

tion of the ideas, which the senses have furnished it from without, it is enabled to raise symmetrical structures within itself, and to vary them accordingly as it is pleased to select and associate the ideas which it may be inclined, or necessitated, to call forth. This constitutes the business or function of the mind, which is more or less brilliant in proportion to the extent of the fund of its ideas, and the skill and judgment with which it employs them.

The mind, more particularly in early life, like the body, requires aliment, and therefore, searches for fresh ideas from without, whereby it may be enabled to raise new structures for its internal contemplation. It cannot act independently of the body or produce any thing of itself, except by elaboration out of the materials with which the body, by means of the senses, has furnished it. In like manner, the body produces nothing whatever except by the transmutation of matter which it has received from without; although, like the mind, it is capable of moulding matter into one formation, and of destroying that, and out of its ruins constructing something different.

There is a remarkable resemblance between the Generation of system of the body and that of the mind. The body ideas by the mind. is naturally furnished with different substances out of which it wonderfully elaborates and builds up its own inimitable fabric. The mind is, by the body, in like manner, by means of the senses, naturally furnished with original ideas, or materials from which it is enabled by its own operations to derive an endless succession of new ideas, and by their association and connection to form structures within

« PreviousContinue »