speak intelligibly, have not much better succeeded in defining simple ideas, whether by explaining their causes, or otherwise. The atomists, who define motion to be a passage from one place to another, what do they more than put one synonymous word for another? For is it not at least as proper and significant to say, ‘passage is a motion from one place to another,' as to say, motion is a passage?' this is to translate, and not to define." The impossibility of defining or describing an idea, therefore, is no argument against the existence, either of the idea, or of the thing to which it corresponds, or against our having a distinct knowledge of it as a reality. Personality, or self, is as fully known, and as distinctly conceived, as motion or light. No analogy between the qualities of matter and the acts of mind. There is another reason for denying this parallel between mind and matter, in which it is assumed, that our knowledge of each is merely relative. Material substance, it is true, is known to me only as something which is extended, figured, colored, hard, etc., these qualities being all conceived to exist together, or at the same moment; and the conception of these qualities being taken away, nothing remains, at any rate, nothing which is distinct and conceivable. Now mind or person may be described in a parallel manner, as something which thinks, feels, wills, judges, etc.; but these are not qualities, not attributes, but acts; and they are not conceived to exist together, or to be performed all at the same moment; they are done successively, and what is really attributed to the person at any one moment is, not the acts themselves, but the capacity of performing those acts. Of course, I can conceive of the person when this capacity is latent, or not exerted, ― that is, of mind in the intervals both of thought and action. But I cannot conceive of any particular body except as the seat of all its attributes, and as continually manifesting these attributes. Imagine, if you can, a lump of matter, which has no extension, no figure, no solidity, no color, none of its usual qualities. It is impossible. But you can conceive of yourself both as thinking, or as resting from thought; as sentient, or with all the senses closed; as exerting a volition, or as entirely passive. Stating the same argument in other terms, I say that reasoning from attributes or qualities to the substance which supports them, is a proper inference, that being inferred which is not directly known or perceived; but from actions to an agent is no inference at all, but a mere descent from an abstraction to a reality, the object of immediate knowledge or perception being, not the act, but the person acting. It is no inference from my perception of a triangle, to say that it has three angles; this is a part of the perception, a part of the meaning or definition of the word. But the existence of a luminous body somewhere, though it be not directly seen, is an inference from the light which it diffuses, and which is seen. Self is one and indivisible. I have dwelt at some length on this point, at the risk of seeming tedious and abstruse, because it is one of cardinal importance, and this doctrine respecting it has not been clearly set forth and defended, so far as I know, by any English writer on the philosophy of mind. It is the only view which seems to me to afford positive proof of the immateriality of the soul, or the person. Matter is essentially complex and divisible; the smallest particle of it has still an upper and an under-side, and we can conceive of these two being separated from each other. Mind, or person, as already remarked, is essentially indivisible. The being which I call self, or, to use the modern jargon, the me, is an absolute unit. For a person to speak of himself in the plural number, except as a figure of speech, is instantly perceived to be an absurdity, as much so, as to speak of a round square. The doctrine of atoms, or ultimate particles in matter, however convenient it may be as an hypothesis, for representing the supposed groundwork of certain facts in chemistry, must always remain a hypothesis, alike incapable of proof, and even of distinct conception. "If the atomic theory be put forward," says Dr. Whewell, "as asserting that chemical elements are really composed of atoms, that is, of such particles not further divisible, we cannot avoid remarking, that, for such a conclusion chemical research has not afforded, nor can afford, any satisfactory evidence whatever." As a matter - of fact, no one will assert that we can arrive at ultimate particles in matter, or have sensible evidence that they exist. The body is extraneous to the man himself. — Matter, then, is necessarily divisible, or complex, in all cases; mind, or person, is necessarily indivisible; for a denial of the proposition "7 am one," is not merely false, but absurd, this being a truth of intuition. An inevitable corollary from this doctrine is, that the complex material frame, with its numberless adaptations and arrangements, in which this being is lodged, is truly foreign from the man himself, having a kind of connection with him, in reality, but one degree more intimate than that of his clothes. The body is the curiously contrived machine through which the man communicates with the material world. It needs but little reflection to convince one, that his corporeal limbs and organs are but mechanical means and tools constantly within his reach, controlled by his single intelligence, and executing the behests of his undivided will, which is sovereign in its own domain. The eye is but his instrument to see with, the ear is his trumpet for communicating sound to him, the leg is his steed, and the arm his soldier. These outward organs and implements may tire in their uses, like willing servants that are yet overtasked; they may be worn out, become palsied, and decay; many of them may even be severed from the conscious agent whose property they are, yet the loss does not impair the sovereignty of his reason or the unity of his intelligence. The windows through which we look out upon the material world may be darkened, but the memory and the imagination are busy within, and the scenes which delighted our youth still pass before us in rapid and perpetual succession. Sleep relaxes the strained muscles, gives repose to the tired limbs, and shuts the wearied sense, the actual and material world to our apprehension ceasing to exist; but the mind, the man, claims no rest from his appropriate toil, but pursues his task in the world of dreams. All the proper and exclusive functions of the soul are then discharged as readily and continuously as in our waking hours. Reason and recollection, judgment, fancy, the desires and the affections, still exercise their office; and the will, though it has lost control for a time of its actual servants through their fatigue, still governs an ideal kingdom, and spurs its fancied ministers. There is no good reason to believe, that sleep ever extends beyond the body, or suspends the exercise of a single function of purely intellectual life. This view of the body as something extraneous to the man, as alike his covering and his instrument, the house which he lives in, and the nicely fashioned apparatus that executes his will and gratifies his passions, appears to me so natural and obvious, that it seems difficult to account for the practical materialism of common opinion on the subject. Even the respect which is paid to the remains of the dead, so far as it goes beyond the pleasing association which invests with a kind of sacredness every article or ornament once used by the loved and lost,and in ordinary cases it goes much further,- seems alike irrational and unchristian. Many portions of the body may be removed, many of the organs become unfit for use, without impairing, in the slightest degree, the sufferer's conscious personality and intelligence. The particles of the whole are in a state of constant flux and renovation, so that man changes his body only a little less frequently than he does his coat. Closeness of the temporary union of mind with body. And viewed at any one moment, however close and intimate the union may appear, the body still seems to show its ministerial character, and to acknowledge in every part the sovereignty of one undivided and separate will. Sensation extends to every part of it, every fibre is instinct with life, and the dominion of the will is absolute and immediate over every muscle and joint, as if the whole fabric and its tenant were one homogeneous system. The mind tires not of its supremacy, and is not wearied with the number of volitions required to keep every joint in action, and every organ performing its proper function. It would not delegate the control of the fingers to an inferior power, nor contrive mechanical or automatic means for moving the extremities. Within its sphere, it is sole sovereign, and is not perplexed with the variety and constant succession of its duties, -- extending to every part of the complex structure of which it is the animating and directing spirit. Sensation is not cumbered with the multitude of impressions it receives, nor is the fineness of perception dulled by repeated exercise. The sharpness of its edge rather improves by use, and we become more heedful of its lightest intimations. This improvement, however, is wholly of the inner sense, the man's capacity being enlarged, while the external organ which is his instrument - the eye, for instance is often injured and sometimes destroyed by excessive or unguarded use. "It does not appear," says Bishop Butler, "that the relation of this gross body to the reflecting being is in any degree necessary to thinking; to our intellectual enjoyments or sufferings; nor, consequently, that the dissolution or alienation of the former by death will be the destruction of those present powers which render us capable of this state of reflection." This consideration, indeed, affords no proof, properly so called, that the mind is immortal; but it rebuts the presumption, otherwise inevitable, that the death of the body is also the death of the soul. These rags of mortality, in which we are clothed, may fall off from us, and be mingled with their kindred dust; but this proves only that we have no further use for them, and and it leaves unimpaired the probability, that death, like sleep, may be only the portal to a spirit land. I have heard of a recent case, in a town not far off, in which a young man, when just entering upon active life and the full duties of manhood, was attacked by the terrible disease which physicians call anchylosis, or stiffening of the joints. First one knee refused its office; and as this was accompanied with great pain, and perhaps the nature of the complaint was mistaken, the leg was amputated, in the hope that the evil would stop there. But the disease soon passed into the other limb, stiffened the remaining knee, and then crept on slowly from joint to joint, making each inflexible as it passed, till the whole lower portion of the body was nearly as rigid as iron, and the muscles had no longer any office to perform. Gradually, then, it moved upward, leaving the vertebral column inflexible; the arms and hands, which, in anticipation of its approach, had been bent into |