Of a plurality of organs in the brain, I have been convinced, even from my own knowledge and dissections. I have seen that very considerable portions of the _cerebrum_ may be removed, the individual still existing. The _vital_ functions may continue, the _animal_ functions are deranged or lost. The most extensive injuries of the brain, too, are often discovered, which were not even suspected; and the converse of this is often observed,—the diseases of the brain being commonly found in an _inverse ratio_ to the severity of the symptoms. When chronic tumours and _cysts_ of water are _gradually_ formed, the extreme danger is averted by the balancing power of the circulation of the brain’s blood; without which its incompressibility would subject it to constant injury.
In _tubercles_ of the brain, it is curious that _memory_ is the faculty chiefly influenced; it is sometimes rendered dull, while the fancy is vivid,—often more perfect and retentive.
Brain, however, can no more be considered as mind itself, than _retina_ sight, or than the sealing-wax can be identical with the electricity residing in it. For if we look at the brain of a brute, we see how closely it resembles our own; then, if we reflect on human intellect and brute instinct, we must all believe at once that there is some diviner thing breathed into us than the _anima brutorum_ of Aristotle, something more than the mere vitality,—
“Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem.”
Brain is therefore the _habitat_ of mind, the workings of which cannot be indicated without it; for, as the material world would be intact without a sense, so there can be no mortal evidence of mind without a brain, which is indeed the sense of the spirit. Thus, without adopting the creed of the _Hyloist_, the _moderate_ materialist,—that the mind cannot have, during the life of the body, even a momentary existence independent of matter,—I believe, that when this matter is in a state of repose, mind is perfectly passive to _our cognizance_.
IDA. It is with diffidence, Evelyn, that I enter this arena with a physician, learned in the body; but is there no danger in this doctrine? does it not imply the office of a _gland_,—that brain is the _origin_ of soul, and that its function was the _secretion of thought_.