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a physical force, or that a physical force can be converted into them.

The following is a hypothesis which seems to combine a number of the facts established by recent science. Mind does not seem to me to be connected with rude matter, with the molecules of matter; but with the forces in matter, with the correlated forces. There is need of a concurrence of force in the brain in order to mental action. This is supplied by the alimentary and digestive organs, which may send it to the brain in the form of blood. They get it in the shape of food from vegetables or animals, which again get it, as every man of science knows, from the sun. The power which radiates from the sun enters the plant, which is eaten by the ox, which is eaten by us; and the organs of the body send it on to the brain, where it is laid up like water in a reservoir. One main function of the brain, especially of the gray matter, is to receive and distribute it. The brain is provided for this purpose; is partly formed, I believe, by this very force accumulating there from day to day and year to year. Here, then, we have force of some kind, and a brain to hold it, to direct it, and enable the mind to use it. But all this is not thinking, is not knowing or feeling or willing; in all this there is no discernment, no hope or fear or desire, or appreciation of the beautiful, or of good and evil. current of nerve force running through the cortical cells of the brain is one thing, the thought of Mayer in arguing out the doctrine of the corre

A

lation of the physical forces is an entirely different thing.

I am inclined to admit that God has so constituted our present compound nature, that, without physical force distributed in the brain, the mind will not work, just as a water-mill will not work if it has no water. And when the mind works, it uses and changes this power, which takes a new form. It is not thereby either increased or diminished it merely gets a new distribution; runs down, in fact, to the lower parts of the frame, and goes out in dregs, and is no longer available to the mind, which will act healthily only so far as it has a supply of this physical force. When this force is exhausted, the mind feels helpless for the time- the mill stops. If, by a disturbance in the brain, the force is improperly directed, there may be that most melancholy of all sights, a derangement in the mental operations. On the needful force being supplied, the mind is ready to work, and in doing so obeys its own laws the mill obeys the laws of its own machinery: the mind thinks according to logical laws, feels according to the laws of feeling, appreciates beauty according to the laws of æsthetics. If the force is supplied in proper measure, and in the proper channels, the mind acts freely and healthily. If not supplied in due order, the mind is arrested, disturbed, agitated, and its proper action interfered with; and gloomy thoughts and perverted feelings may arise. But all this, while the physical force is one thing, and mental action is another

MIND IS IMPERISHABLE.

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thing, —just as the mill machinery is one thing, and the water which it needs another thing. And though the one were to cease, it does not follow that the other must also cease. The water would flow on whether there be a mill or no. The mill might go by some other power, say steam, - supplying the needful conditions. As man is at present constituted, the mind needs the physical force and the brain-case to hold that force and direct it; but this does not show that in another state of things the mind might not without the body, and on other conditions being supplied, think and feel and act as it did before. When a blacksmith's stroke is stayed by striking on the anvil, we know where the power has gone: it has gone into the molecular motion or heat of the body struck. When the body of the animal dies, we know where the power has gone: it has gone into the soil to enrich it. When Newton died, where did the intellectual force go? I know where it went not down into the earth with the body, but up to God in heaven. When the Christian dies, where has his love gone? Not into the grave for worms to feed on it, but up to the bosom of the Saviour from which it has flowed. Yes: it is a universal law of nature and of grace that nothing dies, though every thing changes. "The dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

VIII.

OUR LORD'S LIFE A REALITY AND NOT A ROMANCE. CRITICISM OF RENAN'S LIFe of Jesus.

THE

HE points which I have been discussing in the previous lectures have a bearing both upon Natural and Revealed Religion. If we cannot know any thing except what passes under our sentient experience, we have no evidence of those great verities to which faith looks; and if the soul of man be material, it is not easy to see how we can rise to the conception of an immaterial God, or be justified in holding by the immortality of the soul. And it is to be borne in mind, that the Scriptures do not set about proving that there is a God: they assume that he exists, and claim to be a revelation of his will. There have been persons who sought to undermine our belief in natural religion, in order to shut us up into revealed religion, -a very perilous undertaking, inasmuch as in pulling down the -platform on which their opponents are placed, they pull down that on which they themselves stand. I can join heartily with all those who would establish in a logical manner the great truths of Natural Theology; and I confidently expect help at this

REVEALEd religION.

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point from the best Unitarians and Rationalists of America. It must now be clear to them that, if these foundations are destroyed by the rising Positive or Materialist schools, they have no religion left: and I am cherishing the hope that they will employ the literary and philosophical abilities which God has given them, in defending the great truths of the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the indelible distinction between good and evil; and in doing so, my hope is that they may be led into a higher religious position than that which they at present occupy. Standing on these fundamental truths, they will feel that what they know impels them to desire to know more. For the question will press itself upon them, How do I stand in relation to that God in whose existence I believe? to that holy God who hates sin? to that God to whom I must give an account? That law in the heart condemns the possessor of it: how am I to be reconciled to the Lawgiver? These questions carry us beyond natural to revealed religion.

With a special object before me in these Lectures, that is, to meet the wants of the times,-I am not to enter on the whole wide subject of the Evidences of Christianity. It is now felt on all hands that the question turns round the Life, the Character, and the Works of Jesus. This is the stronghold which has often been assailed and never been taken. With it secured, we can defend the whole territory,-Old Testament and New Testament, doctrine, history, and morality. An ingenious attempt