Chapter VII
Physiology
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BECAUSE science reverses the positions of personal
BECAUSE science reverses the positions of personal
sense, human reason acts slowly in accepting it, con-
testing every inch of ground it occupies, while error,
self-complacent and applauded, sneers at the slow
marches of Truth. Physiology is a name in our land.
Institutions honor it, and materia medica bows the
knee, but notwithstanding this, it has not improved
mankind. We shall yet open our eyes to this fact in
theodicy, that depending on matter for what Intelli-
gence is responsible, is a mistake with grave conse-
quences. The fundamental error of mortal man, is the
belief that man is matter, but theorizing from mush-
rooms up to brains, amounts to little in the right direc-
tion, and much in the wrong. Classifying the different
species of man, mineral, vegetable, and animal, an egg
is the author of the genus homo; but we perceive no
reason why man should begin thus sooner than in the
more primitive state of dust where Adam commenced.
Brains are beneath the craniums of animals; then to
admit brains are man, furnishes a pretext for saying he
was once a monkey, which is met with the reply, if
this be the case, he will again be one, according to nat-
ural history.
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What is man? brain, heart, or the entire human
What is man? brain, heart, or the entire human
structure? If he is one, or all of the component parts
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of his body, when you amputate a limb, you have taken
of his body, when you amputate a limb, you have taken
away a portion of man, and a surgeon destroys man-
hood, and worms are the annihilators of man. But
losing a limb or injuring structure, is sometimes the
quickener of manliness, and the unfortunate body pre-
sents more nobility than the statuesque outline, and
we find, "a man's a man, for a' that." Admitting
matter, blood, heart, brains, etc., and the five personal
senses, man, we fail to see how anatomy makes out the
different species of brute and human, or determines
when man rises above his progenitors, for both possess
these constituent parts, and must, to some extent, be
mortal man, if he is matter. According to accepted
theories, the genus homo ranges from dust to Deity, the
latter having its origin in matter, while the different
varieties of man are mineral, vegetable, and animal;
but the spiritual is not a link in this chain of so-called
being, and is seen only as it disappears. If man was first
dust, he has passed through every form of matter, until
he became man, and if the material body is man, he is
matter, and the dust that returns to dust. But this is
not man, the image and likeness of God, but a belief of
Soul in sense, and of Life in matter, that Wisdom con-
signed to annihilation. Anatomy makes man a struc-
tural thing; physiology continues this definition, meas-
uring his strength by bones, sinews, etc., and his Life
by material law. Phrenology makes him a thief or
Christian, according to the development of bumps on
the cranium; but not one of these define immortal
man. The tendency of all true education is to unfold
the infinite resources of being, but to measure our ca-
pacities by the size or weight of our brains, and limit