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POSTSCRIPT.
When I had the honour of being appointed Professor of Anatomy and Surgery
is, how do these organs accomplish their respective functions? The opinion that the functions of life are the result of subtile principles commixed with the visible fabric of living beings, will, I believe, be soon generally admitted; and I contend that the liver and stomach prepare their respective fluids in consequence of their vital principles, and not merely as a result of their organization. Yet I cannot suppose .that the brain produces our sensations and thoughts in the same manner. Indeed, it is impossible to suppose, as a poetical writer has humorously suggested with regard to Milton,
That he from the glands of his brain
Secreted his Paradise Lost.
Also, from the equal absurdity of supposing that the soft medullary fibres of the brain feel and think, the common sense of mankind will for ever revolt. As we cannot either suppose sensation to result from any motion or arrangement of insensible atoms, as we have reason to believe that all the vital processes are carried on in many instances without sensation, and that when it is added that its district is limited to the brain, so we seem compelled to admit that life influences, through the means of its actions and organization, something having the properties of perception, &c. is acted on by it in return . As Mr. Lawrence’s late publication contains but a repetition of assertions which I have in general objected to, as he continues to harp upon words without attending to thoughts, and without even seeming to have noticed what I have said with relation to the subjects under discussion, I have nothing further to add to the foregoing lectures, except upon one point on which he has a little
