Either mind is a mere phenomenon of matter, and religion a mere superstition or play of the imagination, assisted by exuberant enthusiasm, or, on the other hand, we must look into the spiritual life and destiny of man, here and hereafter.

We must frankly, directly, and honestly meet the question, whether our departed friends are or are not living-whether our departed fathers, brothers, friends, and children are still alive and conscious as we are now-capable of giving back thought for thought and love for love, or whether all spiritual doctrines belong to the superstitions of a darker age, which must disappear in the light of the 19th century. Either there is no spirit in man, or if there is, the spirit world is the sublimest subject of scientific investigation.

A rational solution of the questions now before us, requires a thorough understanding of the constitution of man, as illustrated by human and comparative physiology, and by experimental explorations of the brain. Without going into the details of these sciences, I would merely state the great results and principles which they give us, that have a decisive bearing upon our present inquiry.

In all departments of the animal kingdom we observe a vital power, possessing endowments of a higher or lower character, alike in kind, but differing vastly in degree. Perception, sensation, desire, and volition belong to all animals, and all have some portion of the various passions of man. They love and caress, they hate and fight, they seek their food, they build, they plan, they observe, recollect, infer, and understand. The difference between the higher and lower, especially between man and animals, is that the same powers are in the lower, but rudimentary-in the higher, fully developed. But the great characteristic difference between the lower and higher orders of being, is that in proportion as we ascend in the scale, the vital and mental endowments are more centralized and in proportion as we descend, they are more diffused.

In man and the manmalia, for example, the circulation is mainly carried on by a central organ, the heart. In fish and reptiles the circulation depends comparatively more upon the capillary bloodvessels. In all animals below the grade of fish, belonging to the two great divisions of Articulata and Radiata, the circulation depends upon bloodvessels alone, in other words, the power is diffused through all parts, and depends upon no central organ. The dorsal vessel of the Articulata, their substitute for a heart, does not possess the same muscular propulsive power.

Of the four great divisions of the animal kingdom, only the higher class, the Vertebrata, possesses a brain and spinal cord, the remainder having no brain their intelligent instincts and powers reside in their ganglia, or little groups of nervous fibre

in different parts of the body. In the lowest class of the Zoophytes no distinct nervous masses can be traced, and whatever nervous matter exists is diffused through the body. While thus the mental endowments at one end of the scale are equally diffused through the body, so that the animal can spare its head as well as any other part, at the other end of the scale, we find, as we ascend, the central organ, the brain, becomes relatively more and more developed, more and more controlling, more and more the centre and concentration of conscious life.

Even among the Vertebrata, or animals possessing a brain, a great portion of conscious vitality is diffused through the body (not concentrated in the brain), and consequently remains after the loss of the head. It is a familiar fact, that the body of an insect, after the loss of its head, moves about with apparent intelligence. But it has been shown by the experiments of Dr. Dowler, that even an animal with a brain may possess a diffused consciousness in its body. The body of an alligator, after the loss of its head, performs movements which show that it is still conscious, and has a species of understanding in its actions so as to avoid whatever inflicts pain.

As the animal kingdom thus presents a diffusion of conscious life through the body, an amalgamation of mind and matter, it is only in the higher orders that we find anything like separation or concentration of the conscious principle.

In man only do we find this concentration complete, so that we may say he lives in his brain, and not in all the subordinate structures of his body. Hence we are enabled to regard his spiritual principle as something definite and distinct, not subdivided and diffused through the matter of his body, but concentrated into a conscious entity.

As this great difference exists in the animal kingdom, a similar difference exists among mankind. We observe, on the one hand, powers of a lower order subdivided and diffused through the body; on the other, powers of a far higher order, concentrated and unitized in the governing brain. So in man we observe understanding of a higher and lower order of development, like the higher and lower orders of the animal king dom. The life of one man seems to descend into his spinal and ganglionic systems of nerves, and he lives in his body. He is incapable of anything much above animal life. He cannot sit still for an hour and occupy his mind in elevated contemplation. He is guided from day to day by impulses and instincts-he is the creature of blind passions, and of a destiny which he does not understand: he cannot lay down and pursue a plan of life, he cannot guide himself by intellect.

In another, we perceive the body under the absolute control of the mind, all power centralized in the brain, and the brain

guided by its central, conscious intelligence. Whatever he wills he does. He calmly surveys the panorama of life, and marks out his course. He lives to a certain end, and his end is wisely chosen. No passion misleads him, no bodily weakness checks his course.

This is the order of development which we all undergo, from childhood to manhood. As infants we live in the body rather than in the brain--when the brain is matured, our restless limbs become quiet, and we change from the turbulent boy to the calm, dignified man. We acquire perfect self-control and far-sighted views, but I may ask, does the mind, as it matures and increases in power and concentrates in the brain, leave its subordinate residence in the body? Does it manifest any tendency, when it has gradually risen from its low abiding places in the glands, blood vessels, and muscles, to a majestic residence at the summit of the body, to go on still farther in its career of progress-to neglect or abandon its humble original habitation to concentrate in the highest point of development, and after gazing far and wide over the landscape of destiny, to extend its wings and seek a still higher home!

To judge whether such a flight is at all probable, let us inquire into the habits and daily walk of this spiritual power in man, to ascertain whether it is confined to any particular locality or path in the body, and whether it always sustains the same relations to the organized matter of our bodies.

I shall not be so illogical as to beg the question, by assuming that there is a spirit in man entirely distinct from matter, but shall merely inquire into the natural history of that something which is called mind or spirit, whether it be a mere affection of matter, or phenomenon, or a distinct and permanent entity.

We have ascertained, by the hasty survey of the constitution of man as compared with animals, that his mind concentrates and centralizes his being in the anterior and interior region of the brain. From this commanding position it holds its communication with the body by means of an extensive nervous system, of which the most conspicuous portion is the spinal cord, and its ramifications of motor and sensitive nerves, which fill all parts of the body in which any distinct vital action or sensibility is perceived. In this picture, you perceive the position and relations of the spinal nervous system, by means of which all voluntary movements are accomplished, as every muscle which we are capable of controlling is connected through filaments of nerves with this spinal cord, which connects, as you perceive, with the basis of the brain, receiving at the place of connection the name of medulla ablongata. Lying in the trunk just anterior to the spinal cord, and parallel to its course are the series of ganglia, or small bodies of grey nervous matter, which govern all those internal operations and chemical

changes which are independent of our will, and which proceed unconsciously in the usual course of nature, although not to be affected or materially changed by the action of the mind. These ganglia, although involuntary in their action, are in intimate communication with the spinal cord, and receive from it the various impressions produced by the action of the mind. By these means the appetite, digestion, nutrition, circulation, and animal temperature are placed under the control of the mental power, whenever it is sufficiently intense to extend beyond its ordinary sphere in the spinal system, and modify the vital processes controlled through the ganglia.

In all invertebrate animals these ganglia exercise all the powers of life with no superintending power. In the lower classes of vertebrate animals the ganglia are controlled by the spinal system. In the higher classes the brain more and more decidedly controls the spinal system, and in the matured man the brain itself not only governs all subordinate portions of the nervous apparatus, but is itself governed by the central region in which its functions culminate to their highest spiritual perfec

tion.

In proportion to the predominence of the higher over the lower portions of the nervous system, the mind becomes more absolute and pervading in its power over the body, and capable of causing or curing diseases by its physiological influence. No one will question this physiological power of the mind. The most stubborn skeptics in reference to mesmeric phenomena will credit the most wonderful stories of the power of the nind over the body. Dr. Warren, late President of the National Medical Association, and a decided disbeliever of the most imporiant discoveries in anthropology, does not hesitate to tell the story of a female patient who applied to him with a tumor requiring amputation, and who effected a cure of the difficulty without surgical assistance. She was advised by some friend to pass the hand of a dead man over the tumor. She did so, and when she called again upon the doctor, he declared that the tremor was removed by this post mortem Mesmerism, which was nothing more, in reality, than the power of her own imagination excited by the process, and concentrated upon the morbid growth.

It is this imagination or mental power which is now mainly relied upon by the Mesmeric operators of our country. The numerous cures effected by Keely, Spencer, and others, during a few years past, have been effected simply by reducing the patient to a passive condition, and exalting the predominence of the higher portion of his nervous system over the subordinate apparatus. After he has been reduced to a passively impressible state, in which he will believe whatever his operator ap proves, he is told that a glass of water contains a certain medicine,

and when he drinks it he realizes the effects characteristic of the drug. He is told that he has a pain in his shoulder, and at once the pain exists. He is told that he will fall asleep at a certain time, and he does so. He is told that his disease will undergo a certain favorable change, and the change begins as he anticipates.

These phenomena can occur only when the higher part of the nervous system has attained a certain degree of development and predominance, which elevates mind from the condition of a diffused and feeble attendant upon the physical operations of life to the rank of a controlling and partly independent power.

In order to ascertain more definitely the exact nature and locality of the link between mind and matter, let us trace, as far as practicable, the channels of their intercommunication. The spinal and ganglionic nervous systems, which are the channels of reciprocal influence between the brain and body, communicate with the brain by a continuation of fibrous nervous matter, which we trace upwards, passing through these transverse fibres of the pons Varolii, (or bridge of Varolius) and continuing onward, at the basis of the brain, in the structures which are called the thalami and striated bodies, or corpora striata. The nervous fibres which pursue this course may be traced onward to the basilar, internal, and anterior portions of the front lobe, in which they appear to have their final or highest developement. These intellectual organs we know are the true origins of our various acts, as the idea of an act necessarily precedes the volition and the muscular action. We are thus enabled by anatomy to trace the exact channels, in the basis of the brain, along which the incessant intercommunication of mind and matter is effected. When we descend from the cerebrum to the medulla oblongata, we find that the nervous fibres which are the channels of volition and sensation cross from right to left, and from left to right, so as to bring each half of the body into communication with the opposite half of the brain, and in consequence of this anatomical arrangement each hemisphere of the brain controls the muscles of the opposite side of the body, and a paralysis of either side may therefore be traced with certainty to its cerebral source.

When we have thus ascertained by anatomical research that the true locality of the mind, from which it governs or transmits its commands to the body, is in the internal anterior region of the brain, we may obtain additional evidence of the fact by appealing to the demonstrations of embryology.

We learn from the survey of the animal kingdom, which is all formed in accordance with a single plan of consecutive development, that the evolution of the nervous system commences, in the lower orders, in its most inferior portions (the nervous filaments and ganglia), and gradually progresses by super