noticed during sleep. This makes it probable that the regular successive beats of the pulse are a sort of natural measure of time, and regulate, in a considerable degree, the quickness or slowness of the train of thought. Hence, during faints, when this measure is withdrawn, time is generally not perceived. We cannot, therefore, determine how long the mind might be suspended upon the last conception of the previous train, or on the bare conception of that vacancy of feeling, arising from the suspension of all the bodily faculties, or when the thoughts might be expected to resume their course, associated with the unwonted feeling of pure mental existence.

We have seen that memory is greatly dependent upon the feeling of life in the sensorial organ, but yet not so dependent as to preclude the existence of memory apart from bodily organization; since the mental feeling of existence may supply its place, and does actually acquire sufficient strength in the period of youth and manhood to supersede it partially in the declining years of old age. Judgment, being very much dependent on memory, will obviously require the same general uniformity of the feeling of life in order to its sound exercise. But the higher operations of judgment, which are the fruit of superior intellect, are also dependent on a circumstance which we now proceed to explain.

If that part of the sensorial organ which is

more directly employed in receiving the impression of external objects, should bear a very high proportion to that part which affords the feeling of life in its mildest and most uniform state,— then the mind will be more subject to the fleeting conceptions of these passing impressions, and less able to abstract itself from its present perceptions. In other words, if the nerves, and the spinal marrow, from which most of the nerves have their origin, and which is evidently designed for this special purpose, -if, I say, the nerves, spinal marrow, and cerebellum, bear a very high proportion to the brain, then the intellect will be of an inferior order, and incapable of the higher functions of judgment. hand, if the brain bear a high proportion to the nerves and spinal marrow, then the mild and uniform feeling of life will also bear a high proportion to the fleeting sensations caused by external objects; and, in the strength of this uniform feeling, the mind will be able to retire, as it were, within itself, and, from the privacy of its own consciousness, to view more at a distance the passing impressions which are made from without. We cannot form any proper judgment of a picture, unless the eye be so far removed from it, as to place the different parts of it at a sort of common distance, so that we can easily compare the different objects represented, and discern the

But, on the other

due keeping of the whole. In like manner the mind, in order to form a fair comparison of its perceptions, and to assign to each its due importance, must view them at a sort of common distance. For, if it be too much under the influence of the present perception, it will be unable to form a fair comparison between it and some other which is past. Now, what enables the mind to place its perceptions at a common distance, and thus accurately to balance them, except the strength of this mild and uniform feeling of life? For, in proportion to the strength of this feeling, it can retire within its own unvarying consciousness, and contemplate its transient perceptions, with such a degree of abstraction, as may prevent its being carried away by them. The mind, thus assisted by bodily constitution, may even withdraw itself altogether from present impressions, and may wrap itself up entirely in the contemplation of those conceptions, which have been associated with the feeling of life.

With regard to the general division of the brain into the anterior, middle, and posterior regions as influencing the intellectual, moral, and animal principles, I would observe, that, as the animal passions take their origin mainly from particular arrangements in the body, and not from the general feeling of life, it is to be expected that they should depend more on that

part of the brain, which is least removed from particular nervous impressions: whereas the higher intellectual attainments must depend more on that portion of it which is farthest removed from all particular impressions, and which yields the feeling of life in its purest and most uniform state. The moral principles, in a well regulated mind, form the union between the animal propensities and the intellectual powers. It is natural, therefore, that they should depend more on that portion of the brain which is intermediate between the other two; and which, being neither too much subject to sympathise with the particular nervous impressions, nor too far removed from such sympathy, affords a reason for the development of powers, neither too obedient to bodily appetite, nor too much sublimated into the region of abstract speculation, but holding a moderate level of human feeling, and thus tempering the intellectual with the animal, the animal with the intellectual. Now, although the posterior part of the brain be not directly subject to particular bodily impressions, more than the anterior, yet it stands more nearly in connection with the spinal marrow, and through it with the nerves which are directly subject to these organic affections. And it is undeniable that there exists in the nervous system a sympathetic influence of one part over another. Thus

pain arising from some local disorder, often produces pain also at some other place, which is not affected with that disorder. This, be it observed, is a doctrine totally different from that of the entire transmission of all impressions to the brain. For the latter supposes that there is no sensation whatever at the part affected, nor yet at the part sympathising, but all in the brain together; whereas nervous sympathy is consistent with the reality of the pain in both places, and is indeed nothing more than a known fact, which we are not obliged to account for by any hypothesis, because it is impossible to call it in question. We have, then, reason to believe that the posterior and lower part of the brain is more under sympathetic influence from the particular organic sensations, and that the anterior and upper part being more removed from such sympathy, is affected with the general feeling of life in a purer and more uniform state.

There is a degree of sympathy pervading the whole nervous system, so that, as a sacred writer observes, if one member suffer all the members suffer, if one member rejoice all the members rejoice with it. Pain is felt by one set of nerves, and expressed by another, for pain is indicated by muscular contraction, sometimes by involuntary shrinking of the part affected, sometimes by contortion of other parts. If all the nerves of