Sensation, perception, consciousness, and reflection are the four grand functions brought into action by matter in the acquisition of human knowledge. Consequently, when metaphysicians name "experience" as the source whence all our knowledge is derived, nothing more is meant than the constant repetition of the process of sensation, perception, consciousness and reflection. Such is the mode exhibited in the acquisition of human knowledge, and its results show, when once the earthly veil, by the mysterious consequence of a contact with matter, is torn from the spirit, how rapid are the incomprehensible workings of that mysterious principle, and how triumphantly it exercises its lordly sway over the material world upon which it was once dependent for its develop ment. It will be remembered that the definition I give of the human mind, is, that it is the principle in man which is capable of thought, will, memory, and reason; and that this mind is dependent upon matter for the development of these capabilities. I am far from advocating the doctrine that the mind owes the faculties it possesses to an organization of matter. Such an admission would lead to inextricable absurdity. But if the human mind does not owe these faculties to an organization of matter, it must possess them independently of matter? Assuredly it does. Then, it may be said, that the conclusion will inevitably be that the mind acts and exerts these faculties independently of any medium connecting it with the external world. This by no means follows. The mind with all its glorious powers exists independently of matter; but those powers are not developed for the purposes for which it is imprisoned in the corporeal frame of man until a certain process of material organization takes place, and calls them into action. The frozen river, to the human eye, lies still, inert and motionless, but when the sun pours his heated radiance upon its frigid bosom, the ice chains are broken, and the freed waters foaming in eddying currents roll away, fertilizing the earth far and near, and increasing in breadth and depth and power, are at last engulfed in the vastness of the ocean. The steam engine, with all its pent up powers in full existence, lies inactive and motionless; the engineer touches a spring, and in an instant every part of that complicated machinery is brought into play, and the huge vessel, despite of wind or current, moves away in majesty beneath the wonderful impulse of that power thus suddenly and simply developed; the harp attuned to melody gives forth no sounds of harmony, till touched by the master hand; and the rose bud, with its beauties all enclosed and imprisoned, blooms not in the garden until the moment arrives when, as though by enchantment, it expands its beautiful leaflets, reveals its delicate colours, scents the air with its delightful fragrance, and blushes forth in full and radiant loveliness. So with the human mind. The powers it possesses are independent of the organization which merely developes them. God, for his own wise purposes, has not permitted this mind which he has embedded in the nature of man, to exert its powers, except in the manner best conducive to the grand design he contemplated when he created the universe. And in no case are these powers developed to the full extent of their capability during human life. For we are assured that we know nothing, we comprehend nothing, and we feel we can know nothing in comparison with that which this same mind is hereafter destined to comprehend. The ignorance of the wisest and most learned of mankind immeasurably transcends his knowledge, and renders it, by contrast, trifling and insignificant. The abstruse and wayward metaphysician, filled with the pompous idea of his own learning, can with truth exclaim in the words of Dr. Ried: "Admired Philosophy! Daughter of light! Parent of wisdom and knowledge! if thou art she, surely thou hast not yet risen upon the human mind, nor blest us with more of thy rays than are sufficient to shed a darkness visible upon the human faculties, and to disturb the repose and security which happier mortals enjoy who never approached thine altar nor felt thine influence. !" There are certain expressions in common use, which would seem to attribute infirmities to mind which we know to exist in matter, and to imply that it possesses a nearer relation to matter than is consistent with our convictions of its spirituality. For instance, the expression "an unsound mind," a "diseased mind," a "weak mind," and the like. Now if these expressions are intended to convey a literal meaning, they are incorrect. Such a thing as an unsound, diseased, weak or disordered mind, can have no existence. The mind is purely spiritual and immortal; it is totally distinct in its nature from matter, and possessing no qualities in common with matter, it cannot in itself possess the infirmities of material substances. If the fact were proved, that the human mind could be diseased, or weak, or unsound, then, indeed, would the hopes of the christian be crushed; then, indeed, would religion seem a mockery, and the idea of immortality the base coinage of designing priests, issued to delude and enslave the simple and the vulgar. But these expressions can properly mean nothing more than an imperfectly developed mind, or a mind acted upon by a diseased, imperfect or weak material organization. The unsoundness, the disease, or weakness spoken of rests not in the mind, but in the material organization or channels upon which the mind is dependent for the development of its faculties. Each individual sense may be diseased or imperfect, or the brain which may be termed the grand reservoir, through which flow all the sensations from the separate senses of man to the mind, may be diseased, and consequently unable to perform the healthy functions for which it is intended; or the brain may be weak or deformed, and consequently making but slight impression upon the mind, the powers of that principle will be but proportionally developed; or, again, the brain may be almost totally unfit for the performance of its functions, as in the case of the idiot, and make scarcely no impression upon the mind. But that the mind is capable of being unsound in itself, or that it can be deprived of its powers, the voice of nature, the voice of religion, and the hope of immortality, will not allow the thought to be harboured for an instant. The mind of the veriest idiot, that ever made the heart sick with his senseless jargon, is as pure, as powerful, and as worthy of immortality as that of the proudest philosopher who has ever thought. The only difference between them is, that the material organization of the one is better calculated to develope the powers of the mind than that of the other. Let not then the idiot be despised, for he has within him an immortal principle which, when the film of humanity that obscures it shall have been removed, will be enabled to comprehend mysteries which the proudest intellectual genius of the age attempts in vain to embrace within the narrow limits of his human vision. The human mind, then, not only possesses powers which are essentially different from any matter or the result of any material organization which it is impossible for us to conceive of, but it possesses these powers independently of matter. The mind, therefore, is dependent upon matter only for the development of these powers. Thus far, and only thus far, the dependence exists, and it exists only for the purposes designed by the Creator when he connected corruptibility with incorruptibility, and married the immortal principle to mortality! He placed man, for a time, to act in a narrow sphere, and made the grand intelligence capable of being developed during that time only so far as was suited to that narrow sphere and the great purposes of creation. The consequence is, we know nothing of mind except as it is thus developed. We know nothing or it, and can know nothing of it, except through the exercise of these partially developed faculties. Of its essence we are wofully ignorant. In all ages the question: "What is it?" has been asked. Aristotle and the sages of eld, Solomon in the plenitude of his wisdom, the Pythagorian bewildered amidst the wild absurdities of Metempsychosis, the Platonist, the Stoic, and the Epicurian, Confucius standing in the twilight of his own genius amidst the darkness of the celestial empire, the Persian Ghubers pondering the rude fictions of the Zandavesta, the philosophers whose intellects glorified the Augustan age, the fathers of the church amidst the turmoil and gloom of the middle ages, Des Cartes toiling to dissipate his methodical doubt, the Mohammedan, the Brahmin, the Pantheist, the Egoist, the Deist and the Atheist, men cf all nations and of all time, have endeavoured to solve this great problem of their own existence, but in vain! The solution is still sought, and men turn inward on themselves, and from the deep caverns of their own nature send up the question, but it is heeded not, a silence like that which slumbers with the dead is the only response. That mysterious principle which guides us in the investigation of the physical world, which enables us to perceive, to reason upon, to analize and solve the great problems in the material universe, and which is ever active and ready to answer our calls for knowledge, is striken dum, and appears spellbound and powerless when asked for its own nature and essence, and the unanswered question dies sadly away, like the breath of night through a sepulchre! The dread secret will never be revealed until the mind shall have broken from the bars of humanity, until time shall have died, and the material world shall have melted away in the radiance of immortality. And why should we wish to know that which Omnipotence for his own wise purposes has made us incapable of comprehending in this life? Let us rest content with the knowledge within our reach; let us work out our destiny with the means which are placed within the range of our faculties, and when we reach that barrier over which it is folly to step, and beyond which the deity has spread clouds and darkness impervious to human vision, let us bend down in awful submission, grateful for the favors already bestowed, and while in wonder we gaze upon the dark realms of divine mystery, let us rest content with the glad assurance that the film of human corruptibility will one day be removed from the mental vision, and reveal to its gaze all the glories and all the hidden wisdom of Him, who "maketh darkness his secret place, and whose pavilion round about Him are dark waters and thick clouds of the sky," who "Light Himself, in uncreated light From the positions assumed and the views I have endeavoured to illustrate, it will be readily conceived how great must be the influence of the external world of matter in the development and formation of the intellectual character of man. But it exerts also an influence scarcely less powerful indirectly through the mind upon the character of man as a moral, social and physical being. From this partial dependence of the spiritual upon the material world, spring the moral feelings of our nature, the play and exercise of which make up the eventful history of human life. How rich and beautiful the theme which here presents itself to my mind! It is filled with wonders! But were I now to attempt to do more than to glance at this branch of my subject, I feel that it would prove unsatisfactory, if not irksome. In entering this world of abstract feeling," food for reflection and room for deducing holy truths applicable to the conduct of human life, are presented in such rich abundance, that each individual feeling to be fairly considered would require a separate essay. Who can analyze the gush of thought and feeling which whelms the soul when the thinker ponders amidst the world of matter, the sublime and beautiful works of God!-the silent wood, the howling storm, the glorious firmament, the tempest maddened ocean, or when he listens to the moan of the night wind, through the broken arches of some vast and ancient ruin? If you would learn the extent of the influence which the material world exercises upon the thoughts and feelings of man, go out and gaze upon the universe; penetrate, alone, the depths of a wilderness where is heard no sound save that of the breeze, as in organ tones it swells upon the ear and dies away in the distance; go, stand upon the fields of Marathon or Platea where erst the battles of ancient liberty were fought; go, ponder amidst the vestiges of the empires which have been wrecked in the rush of ages, the ruined temple, the broken column, the crumbling arch, and the prostrate dome, darkling in their own desolation the last relics from the ravages of time-the silent ghosts of departed glory; go, where you will with the proper mind, and thoughts will arise and feelings will bubble up from the deep wells of the human heart so exquisite in their nature that feeble would be the attempt to describe them by words or to trace them to their mysterious sources. In a social and physical point of view, the effects of this partial dependence of mind upon matter, are no less striking. Were I not compelled to be brief, I could here dwell upon the differences in the dispositions of men reared in different climates and in the midst of different material circumstances. I might oppose the plodding and phlegmatic German or Russian to the enthusiastic Italian, whose nature seems to have borrowed all the sunny richness of that clime where the sky is always radiant and the rose always in bloom. I might contrast the calculating and energetic Briton with the enervated and indolent Spaniard, and the mercurial native of sunny France or sweet Savoy, with the plain matter of fact Scotchman, whose nature presents as rugged a front as his country's bleak and barren hills. Again, I might direct attention to the spots where poetry and the arts have found a home, and where they have been neglected, and where philosophy has flourished, and where it is despised. Nay, even the different forms of government adapted to the different dispositions of men, might also be here displayed, and all dwelt upon as the evident effects of this mysterious principle of mental dependence upon matter. And here let me add, that we can justly attribute to the same source the free and independent spirit which has always characterized the Anglo-American race, and which carried the patriots of our revolution through their arduous struggle. For, separated from Europe, aloof from the spirit crushing influence of a domineering aristocracy, reared beneath the skies of a land the beauty and bold grandeur of whose scenery spoke to the mind a language of liberty, how could man live and not feel free, how breathe the air which slavery had never breathed! how tread the land which despotism had never defiled without feeling the noble influence in his breast. How could he behold liberty breathing even in the beasts around him, or follow |