Wealth of the Intellect.

Man makes the matchless image man admires.
Say, then, shall man, his thoughts all sent abroad,
Superior wonders in himself forget,

His admiration waste on objects round.

When Heaven makes him the soul of all he sees?
Absurd! not rare! so great, so mean, is man.

What wealth in senses such as these! what wealth
In Fancy, fired to form a fairer scene

Than sense surveys! in Memory's firm record,
Which, should it perish, could this world recall
From the dark shadows of o'erwhelming years,
In colors fresh, originally bright,

Preserve its portrait, and report its fate!
What wealth in Intellect, that sovereign power
Which Sense and Fancy summons to the bar:
Interrogates, approves, or reprehends;
And from the mass those underlings,
From their materials sifted and refined,
And in Truth's balance accurately weighed,
Forms art and science, government and law,

The solid basis, and the beauteous frame,

The vitals and the grace of civil life!

What wealth in souls that soar, dive, range around, Disdaining limit or from place or time;

And hear at once, in thought extensive, hear

The Almighty Fiat, and the trumpet's sound!

Souls that can grasp whate'er the Almighty made,
And wander wild through things impossible!
What wealth in faculties of endless growth,
In quenchless passions violent to crave,
In liberty to choose, in power to reach,
And in duration (how thy riches rise!)
Duration to perpetuate-boundless bliss!

78

EDWARD YOUNG.

INTELLECTUAL LIFE.

HOW WE THINK.

(HE brain consists of distinct parts. The principal division is

the cerebrum, which occupies the upper and front portion of

the skull. The smaller division is the cerebellum, which lies back and beneath the cerebrum. The cerebrum is the seat of the sensations, and the organ by which we reason upon the ideas excited by such sensations, and by which we judge and decide upon our course of action, and then put that decision into practice by issuing a mandate which passes through the cerebellum down the spinal column to the muscles, exciting them to action.

From experiments upon all classes of vertebrated animals, according to Dr. Samuel Kinns, it has been found that, when the cerebellum was removed, the power of walking, springing, flying, standing, or maintaining the equilibrium of the body, was destroyed. The animal so operated upon retained voluntary power over individual muscles, but could not combine their action for any general movement of the body.

On the other hand, when the cerebrum is removed, voluntary power over the muscles is destroyed, but the muscular strength remains unimpaired. Dr. Carpenter relates a case where a pigeon was kept alive for a considerable period after the removal of the cerebrum. When pushed, it would run; when thrown into the air, it would fly; when food was placed into its mouth, it would swallow; but when not disturbed, it appeared like an animal in profound sleep.

The brain is the seat of the will-power, and the spinal column is the connecting link between the will-power and the muscles. Hugh Miller says that in birds the brain is three times greater than the

spinal cord, in mammals, four times, and in man twenty-three times. Birds and mammals are quick and strong in muscular action, but man is distinctively a thinking being.

The first approach to thought in the brain is the perception of objects through the eye and ear. The next step is to remember the names of objects, and the next to comprehend qualities of objects. A babe knows its mother before it can call her name, but can say "mamma" long before it realizes what a mother is. The continuous perception of new objects, the comprehension of their qualities and actions, the arrangement in the mind of their endless diversity of form and movement, are progressive steps in the expansion of intellectual life.

Just how the mind uses the brain in the exercises of thought is a problem no man can solve. Dr. Francis Wayland reasons upon the subject in this way: "The mind seems to be a spiritual essence, endowed with a variety of capacities, and connected with the body by the principle of life. These capacities are first called into exercise by the organs of sense. So far as I can discover, if a mind existed in a body incapable of receiving any impression from without, it would never think, and would, of course, be unconscious of its own existence. As soon, however, as it has been once awakened to action by impressions from without, all its various faculties in succession are called into exercise. Consciousness, original suggestion, memory, abstraction, and reason, begin at once to act. These various powers are developed and cultivated by subsequent exercise, until this congeries of capacities, once so blank and negative, may at last be endowed with all the energies of a Newton or a Milton."

Locke compares the mind to a sheet of blank paper; Professor Upham, to a stringed instrument, which is silent until the hand of the artist sweeps over its chords. Both of these illustrations convey to us truth in respect to the relation existing between the mind and the material system which it inhabits. The mind is possessed of no innate ideas; its first ideas must come from without. In this respect it resembles a sheet of blank paper. In its present state it can originate no knowledge until called into action by impressions made upon the senses. In this respect it resembles a stringed instrument. Here, however, the resemblance ceases. Were the

paper capable not only of receiving the form of the letters written upon it, but also of combining them at will into magnificent literary productions, like a Shakesperian drama or a Milton epic; or, were the instrument capable not only of giving forth a scale of notes when it was struck, but also of combining them by its own. power into the Messiah of Handel, then would they both more nearly resemble the spiritual essence which we call mind. It is in the power of combining, generalizing, and reasoning, that the great differences of intellectual character consist. All men open their eyes upon the same world, but all men do not look upon the world to the same purpose.

CONSCIOUSNESS.

Consciousness is knowledge of the mind's exercises, or, in a somewhat different sense, it is a capability of being impressed. The impressions may be from external sources, or internally from the creations of the mind itself. The action of the mind, by reason of its connection with the body and the reciprocal influence between them, is largely affected by the condition of the bodily powers, especially the brain. Infants and idiots are proof of this. In the infant the brain is not yet developed; in the idiot it never reaches a normal size. When the brain is capable of strong action, there is powerful mental manifestation. Hence we say that one individual is greater or wiser, that is, mentally stronger, than another; not that mind in him is different from mind in others, but the manifestations of mind in him are mightier because of the stronger and more perfect material organs and the better trained intellectual forces.

Consciousness is a spiritual condition, or a soul-faculty, influenced in its operations by the physical state. If its media of exercises be arrested in their action by disease or accident, consciousness is impaired or perhaps entirely suspended. It is the business of consciousness, says Professor Upham, to connect the acts of the mind with the mind itself; to consolidate them, as it were, into one. But if, in our full belief, our mind is destroyed; if self or personality is obliterated, then it is clearly no longer within the power of consciousness to recognize our various acts of perception and reasoning

as having a home and agency in our bosoms. Self is destroyed; and the mental acts which are appropriate to self are mere entities, floating about, as it were, in the vacuities of space, without the possibility of being assigned to any locality or ascribed to any cause. In sleep, consciousness is stayed. The acts of the mind are at random, and but in part remembered when wakefulness returns. Dreams sometimes create impressions that are clearly recalled, but generally in proportion as they tend to rouse the intellectual functions from repose. This is indicated by the fact that if the dream be of a very startling or pleasing nature the dreamer is entirely awakened.

ABSTRACTION AND ABSENT-MINDEDNESS.

Abstraction is that faculty of the mind by which we pass from the perception of objects, and the suggestion of individual ideas, to general and abstract ideas. Retaining our notions of the qualities of external objects, and of the qualities of different objects as related to and compared with each other, we get simple abstract ideas, which we can use in the processes of thought, as we use the letters of the alphabet in writing, when far away from the object themselves, or indeed without recurring to them. This is a mature power of the intellect. Having acquired simple abstract ideas of color, form, quality, and the like, we have the power to unite them together in just such compound conceptions as we please. In this way Milton presents to our minds the beautiful intellectual picture of the Garden of Eden. "It is thus the sculptor, from several specimens of the human form, selects those features which seem best suited to his purpose, and unites them in one conception more perfect than any which he has seen in actual existence." The faculty so employed is called the imagination.

The mind, enabled to dwell, as it were, apart by itself, to fasten upon ideas at will and elaborate them into strong and beautiful creations, is in a state of the highest usefulness and enjoyment. The power of concentration is perhaps the most valuable of intellectual attainments. Great men possess it in an extraordinary degree, and sometimes its freaks are ludicrous. Thus, Sir Isaac Newton, finding himself extremely cold one evening in winter, drew his chair very