function of volition, and the effort made by the mind, according to its moral consciousness, to struggle with temptation. I merely add this remark, that I may not seem to any cursory reader to be offering an apology for moral pravity.

5. My last observation naturally leads to another; namely, that while we pity the infirmity of our neighbour, our scrutiny of ourselves ought to be rigid; for we should exercise a constant and uncompromising hostility to the influence of these sources of irritation. We must learn to excuse others, but we must not excuse ourselves because we ought to resist every tendency to irritation; to watch over the first symptom of morbid manifestation; to seek support and guidance from on high; and in the strength of the Lord our God to come off more than conquerors. If the organ of mind be liable to irritation from a great number of bodily sources, God has also graciously given us a principle by which we are called upon to contend with these morbid tendencies; and it is our duty to strive against and overcome them.

6. But if this varied irritation should be so intense, or continue so long, as that the integrity of the brain should be destroyed, it will

then escape from the control of the presiding mind, and will continue to act without guidance and direction, producing the morbid manifestations of cerebral disorder, the next point to be noticed.

CHAPTER V.

Phenomena of disordered brainular function, and its influence on the manifestations of mind.-Sensorial feebleness or perversion; great susceptibility;-hallucination;-unconquerable wakefulness;-change of intellectual and moral manifestations.

THE next step of our investigation is to consider the phenomena of disordered brainular function.

A great error has arisen, and has been perpetuated even to the present day, in considering cerebral disorder as mental; requiring, and indeed admitting, only of moral remedies, instead of these forming only one class of curative agents; whereas the brain is the mere organ of mind, not the mind itself; and its disorder of function arises from its ceasing to be a proper medium for the manifestation of the varied action and passion of the presiding spirit. And,

strange as it may seem, this error has been consecrated by a desire to escape from the fallacies of materialism.

Yet it is manifest that they alone are guilty of the charge of attachment to materialism, who consider the disorders of the cerebral function as mental; for then, indeed, the brain must be mind itself, and not simply its organ. When the stomach, or the liver, or the lungs, are affected with disease, some term is employed which at once leads the attention to the suffering viscus, and to the mode of its sufferings. But when we speak of disorder of the cerebral function, persons currently employ the terms mental alienation, fatuity, and various others which describe the symptoms of cerebral disease; but which do not lead the mind on to the affection of the organ which occasions them. This cause is generally very little understood, and often mistaken. But we must recollect, that the spiritual principle is not susceptible of diseaseexcept speaking metaphorically; and therefore, we must refer the symptoms of morbid mental manifestation to their organic cause.

And if these mental manifestations always become disordered in a morbid condition of the brain, it is not too much to ask that other analogous phenomena should be referred to this

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cause, which have sometimes been ascribed to spiritual agency, because the altered manifestations have not been contemplated as a consequence of disease of the manifesting organ: and, if this be granted, it will not be too much to ask further, that those morbid manifestations of mind, which can be traced to disease of the material organ, should be permitted to guide us into the same route of explanation as respects other deviations from healthy mental agency, which may not so clearly be associated with disease of structure.

Cerebral disorder is characterized by certain symptoms, which, in prosecuting this inquiry, it is important to consider. We will first take an example of the simplest form of disturbance; namely, slight tendency to congestion in the vessels of the brain. The patient wakens with difficulty; he is desirous of sleeping beyond his usual time; he dresses with an oppression upon his brow, which constitutes that operation a burden; he remains languid and feeble all the morning; there is a sense of weight in his head, which he cannot shake off; he is still drowsy and indisposed for exertion: the hour of dinner arrives-and the stimulus occasioned by this meal drives the blood through the congested vessels; re-action is produced;