first, and then slightly curved, corresponding exactly with the simplicity of heart of insect life that of the snail, and other insects of the lowest Crustacea tribe, for example. And not the heart alone, but each and all of the several organs and systems of the body are brought to their perfection by periodic additions and superadditions of the simpler and more complex parts of the same organs and systems of the several orders of animals, from the least noble to the highest class of all-the MAMMALIA, of which Man is the head. Man, proud man, then commences his fœtal life in reality a worm!--and even when he has come into the world, and has breathed and cried, it is long before the child possesses the mental intelligence of many of the adult brutes; in this respect Man is for a period lower than the monkey-the monkey he so hates and despises for its caricature likeness of himself. Between the same Man in his maturity, and his animal fellow-creatures, we perceive many differences; the resemblances, being infinitely more numerous, as a matter of course escape our memory! Are not the higher order of animals, and most of the very lowest, propagated by sexes? Does not the female endure her period of travail like woman, and produce and suckle her young in a similar manner? Have not animals senses to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, and has not each its respective language of sounds and signs by which it conveys its meaning to the other individuals of its race? Nay, have not Animals many of Man's passions and emotions-most of his sympathies and antipathies-his power of choice and resistance the knowledge by Comparison who is their friend, and who their foe-Reflection, whom to conciliate, whom to attack; where to hide, and when to show themselves-the Memory of injury and kindnessImitation, and consequent docility-in some instances, Simulation and Dissimulation each pursuing its own mode of artifice? Do not their young, too, as in the instance of the child, gambol and play, and like it leave off both as they grow older, for other pleasures? And yet there are persons of a temper so unphilosophical as to deny them MIND! Does man possess a mental superiority of the dog greater, or as great, as the dog has over the oyster? Of mental as of physical power, there are gradations. If we have stupid and clever men, so have we stupid and clever animals, according to their respective races. But there are dogs that will observe, calculate, and act more rationally than some human fools you may see every day. When did you find the dog prostrating himself before a figure of his own making, asking it questions, supplicating it, and howling, and tearing his hair, because it answered him not? Which of all the Brutes quarrels with his fellow-brute for going his own road, whether circuitous or otherwise, to a town or village, that does not concern the other in the least? Or which of all the animal tribes manifests such a paucity of intellect as, more than once, to mistake the same false signs for real sense, imposture for integrity, gravity for wisdom, antiquity for desert? Never in my life, gentlemen, did I see the dog or monkey implicitly submitting himself to another of his race in matters that especially interested himself. The monkey, for example, instead of trusting to the authority of his fellow-monkey, in a spirit of laudable curiosity, always handles with his tiny fingers, and examines with his quick prying eyes, every thing that takes his fancy; in no single instance that I remember did I ever see him allow himself to be taken by the ears. Even in his language of chatter and gibber, he never seems to mistake the meaning of his comrades, never takes one sign in two or more senses,-senses the most opposite, so as to get confused and bewildered in his manner or his actions. Can you always say this of man? Have you never heard him, even in his discussions on this very subject, one moment charging everything of animal intellect to Mind, at another to Instinct,-instinct which, to have a meaning at all, must mean this--right action without experience,--such as the infant taking its mother's breast as soon as born, or the chick picking up grain the moment it leaves the shell. True, the chick may mistake a particle of chalk for a grain of wheat, even as the infant may mistake his nurse's finger for the nipple of his mother. Expe

rience corrects the error of both; and this correction of error is one of the first efforts of the three mental faculties, Observation, Comparison, and Reflection. It is with these identical faculties that both men and animals perceive a relationship betwixt two or more things, and act in regard to such things according to their respective interests, rightly in some instances, wrongly in others. The correction to-day of the errors of yesterday is the chief business of Man. As he grows in years, his experience of things enlarges, and his judgment as to their true value and relationship to himself becomes more and more matured. The Brutes, then, have the very same intellectual faculties variously developed, which, when stimulated to their utmost in MAN, and with the assistance of his higher moral faculties, become GENIUS,-if by genius is meant the discovery of relationships in nature hitherto undiscovered, and leading, as all such discoveries do, to practical results beyond cotemporary anticipation--Newton's system and Watt's steamengine for example.

Gentlemen, you now clearly see that in the power of gaining knowledge by experience, call it Mind, Reason, Intellect, or what you please,—the Beast of the field partakes in common with man, though not in the same degree; yet both partake of it in a degree equal to the particular condition and exigencies in which they are individually or socially placed. For animals, like men, have their cities and sentinels their watchwords of battle, siege and defence: nature, too, has given them all their respective weapons of offence and defence. Man, less gifted in either of these respects, first fashioned his sword, and his shield, and his armour of proof. It was only after the experience of centuries, he reached, by higher mental efforts, to the knowledge necessary for the construction of the musket, the cannon, and the other munitions of modern warfare. Necessity was the mother of his invention here, as, indeed, in every other instance; but by this also the lower animals profit. What but necessity enables our domestic animals to change their habits so as to live in peace, harmony, or slavery with man? even as necessity obliges man enslaved to do and bear for his fellow-man things the most repugnant to his nature. How different the habits of the domestic dog from the dog or wolf of the prairie, from which he originally sprang! In the wilderness, the one would all but perish for want, till stern necessity should teach him to hunt down his prey; the other would require stripes and blows through successive generations, before he could be taught, like the shepherd's dog, to come at his name, and to drive the sheep at his master's call, or arithmetically to single out from the herd two, three, or more, and watch or urge them on at his bidding. To deny animals mind is to deny them design, without which, putting mere instinct apart, neither men nor animals act in any manner or matter. The great DESIGNER of the UNIVERSE, in the creation of the first crystal, showed this. He proclaimed it when he made the sexes of the vegetable kingdom;-when, by the Zeophyte or plant-animal, he united the vegetable to the lowest link of the animal world, he made his design still more manifest. When he further progressively developed his plan of insect, fish, and reptile life, and added the higher animals last of all, before he completed the chain with Man their master, he showed not only design, but Unity of Design; and when to men and animals he gave a power neither the crystal nor the vegetable possesses, the power of following out designs of their own making, he imbued them both with a portion of His Spirit; varying in degree, but to each he gave it in a measure equal to their respective wants and necessities. Deny this, and you deny God,-you deny God's works and words; words upon which the question of interpolation can never arise: for every leaf of every plant is a letter of His alphabet; every tree a combination of the letters composing it, and every hill, valley and stream-every tribe of men and animals, so many sentences by which we may perceive His will, and deduce His law. The stars, and constellations of stars, and their periodic motions, teach, even to our frail senses, the analogies which subsist

in this respect between the motions of man's body and all the movements of Nature. In their harmony of design, they give us an insight into the UNITY of the ETERNAL. And we find embodied in them a principle by which we not only may know the past and present, but to a certain extent read the future, in its dim outline of twilight and shadow. In all humility, then, let us inwardly prostrate ourselves before the Omnipotent: but let us at the same time beware of that outward mock humility which too often leads to religious pride, and engenders anything but Christian charity; and let it rather be our delight to trace resemblances and harmonies, than to see in Nature only discords and differences. The world-the universe, is a UNITY; and in no single instance do we find a perfect independence in any one thing pertaining to it. Betwixt man and the lower animals, we have traced link by link the chain of contiguity-mental as well as corporeal. Like them, he comes into the world, and like them, his body periodically grows, decays, and dies. When injured in any of its parts, it has similar powers of repair and reproduction. I know not why such powers should be greater the further we descend the scale; but in the crab and lobster, whole limbs may be severed and reproduced; in the worm, the regeneration of half the body may take place; while in man, the highest of the chain, only limited portions of a tissue can be materially injured and recover. Disease, like death, is the destiny of all. To understand either aright, we must first know what Health is. In the state of

HEALTH,

an equable and medium temperature prevails throughout the frame. The voluntary and other muscles obey with the requisite alacrity the several necessities that periodically call them into action. The mind neither sinks nor rises but upon great emergencies; the respiration, easy and continuous, requires no hurried effort-no lengthened sigh. The heart is equal in its beats, and not easily disturbed; the appetite moderate and uniform. At their appointed periods, the various secreting organs perform their office. The structures of the body, so far as bulk is concerned, remain, to appearance, though not in reality, unchanged; their possessor being neither encumbered with obesity, nor wasted to a shadow. His sensorium is neither painfully acute nor morbidly apathetic; ho preserves in this instance, as in every other, a happy moderation. His sleep is tranquil, dreamless.

If we analyze these various phenomena, we shall find that they all consist of a series of periodic repetitions, each separate organ having its own particular period for the proper performance of its function; some of these phenomena are diurnal, some recur in a greater or less number of hours, while others exhibit a minutary or momentary succession. At morn, man rises to his labour; at night, he returns to the repose of sleep; again he wakes and labours; at the appointed period he "steeps his senses in forgetfulness" once more. His lungs now inspire air, now expel it; his heart successively contracts and dilates his blood brightens into crimson in the arterial circle of its vessels-again to darken and assume the hue of modena in the veins. The female partner of his lot-she who shares with him the succession of petty joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, which make up the day-dream of life, has yet another revolution, the Catamenial; and Parturition, or the process by which she brings their mutual offspring into the world, is a series of periodic pains

and remissions.

Every atom of the material body is constantly undergoing a revolution or alternation; liquid or aëriform one hour, it becomes solid the next-again to pass into the liquid or aëriform state: and ever and anon varying its properties, colours, and combinations, as, in brief, but regular PERIODIC succession it assumes the nature of every organ, tissue, and secretion, entering into, or proceeding from, the corporeal frame. "It is every thing by turns, and nothing long."

The phenomena of the human body, like every other phenomenon in nature, have all a relation to MATTER, SPACE, and TIME; and there is another word, MOTION, which may be said to bring all three to a unity; for without matter and space, there can be no motion, and motion being either quick or slow, must also express time or PERIOD.

Morever, there can be no motion in matter without change of temperature, and no change of temperature without motion in matter. This is so indisputable an axiom in physics, that Bacon and others supposed motion and change of temperature to be one and the same. You cannot, for example, rotate a wheel for a few seconds, without heat being produced, and the iron that binds it becomes expanded; in other words, it exhibits a motion outwards: when the same wheel is allowed to stand still, the temperature falls, and the iron hoop decreases in size. There is in that case motion inwards. By the same law, if, even in the middle of winter, you run for any length of time, you will become heated and bloated; and you again shrink in size when you stand still to cool yourself. To the mind's eye, extremis probatis media presumuntur. Having shown the truth in extremes, we presume the rest; for as there are motions both of quickness and slowness that elude the eye, so are there changes of temperature that the thermometer may not reach. Those, then, who ascribe the source of animal heat exclusively to the lungs, seem to have forgotten these facts; they have forgotten that, in the constant mutation of its atoms, every organ, nay, every atom of that organ being ever in motion, must equally contribute to this end; for to this common law of ALL matter, every change in the body is subjected. The powers by which the corporeal motions are influenced, are the same that influence the motions of every kind of matter, namely, the electric, mechanical, and chemical forces, and the force of gravitation. When rightly considered, the whole of these powers resolve themselves into ATTRACTION and REPULSION. It is by attraction that the fluid matter of the blood first assumes the solid consistence of an organ; again to pass by repulsion into the fluidity of secretion. From the earth and to the earth, the matter composing our bodies comes and goes many times even in the brief space of our mortal existence. In this, the human system resembles a great city, the inhabitants of which, in the course of years, are constantly changing, while the same city, like the body, betrays no other outward appearance of change than what naturally belongs to the PERIODS of its rise, progress, maturity, or tendency to decay.

The last, and one of the most important of the revolutions of the healthy state, is

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SLEEP.

Philosophers of all ages have made this an object of their most anxious study, its relation to death, perhaps, being their chief inducement to do so. Half our days," says Sir Thomas Browne, "we pass in the shadow of the earth, and Sleep, the brother of Death, extracteth a third part of our lives." In the state of perfect sleep, the pupil of the eye will not contract on the ap proach of light; the skin has no feeling; the ear no sense of hearing: the taste and smell are not to be roused by any of the ordinary stimuli. What is this (figuratively speaking) but a periodic half-death: speaking truly, but a periodic palsy or cessation of internal motion of the nerves by which we maintain a consciousness of existence, and perceive our relationship to the world around us? Broken sleep consists either in brief remissions of the whole sleeping state, or in a wakefulness of one or more of the five senses. There are individuals, for example, who always sleep with their eyes open, and who would see you, were you to enter their chamber with the most noiseless tread. These tell you they are always half awake. In the condition of body teemed nightmare, there is a consciousness of existence with a wakefulness of the nerves of sight or feeling; but with a total inability to influence the voluntary muscles by any efforts of the will. The subject of it can neither

sleep nor turn himself. The dreamer, portions of whose brain think, and therefore act or move, is partially awake. The somnambulist and sleep-taiker are dreamers, who, having portions of the brain in a state of action, and others torpid, perform exploits of deed or word, that bring you a mind of the maniac and the drunkard, whose powers of judging are defective. A man may be entirely awake with the exception of a single member; and this we still refer to a torpid state of some portion of the brain. Such a man will tell you that his arm or leg is asleep or dead. But as this is a soporific subject, and may have a soporific influence on some of you, I may as well wake you up with an anecdote a brother medical officer of the army once told me of himself: While serving in the East Indies, Dr. C— one night awoke, or I should rather say half-awoke suddenly, when his hand at the instant came in contact with a cold animal body. His fears magnifying this into a cobra capel, he called out most lustily, "A snake, a snake!" But before his drowsy domestics had time to appear, he found he had mistaken his own sleeping arm for this most unwelcome of oriental intruders!

Gentlemen, the human body in health is never asleep throughout, for when volition is paralysed-when we are all but dead to everything that connects us with the external world, the heart still continues to beat, the lungs perform their office, and the other internal organs, over which volition has no control, keep on their usual harmony of motion; in other words, the digestion of the food, the circulation of the blood, and the other lesser motions of organic life, proceed as in the waking state. The more important motions of the heart and lungs could not cease for many minutes without endangering the entire life in the higher animals; though these organs in the bat, dormouse, and snake, appear to be inactive for months. Nevertheless, even in those animals, they are not entirely so; the wasted state of their bodies, when they wake, proving the movement that had been going on in all the atoms of their various organs during the period of hybernation. The state termed a fainting fit, it is true, comprehends, even in man, a temporary palsy or death of the whole body; but such state prolonged to a very brief period passes into death perpetual. Catalepsy, or trance, being a sleep of ALL the organs, internal as well as external, though not of their atoms, has so great a resem blance to death, as to have been frequently mistaken for it. The subject of this condition of body, by something like the same inexplicable power which enables the dormouse to hybernate, may remain apparently dead for days, and yet recover. More inexplicable, still, if what travellers tell us be true, the recovery to life of fish, that have been completely frozen for months. We now pass to the consideration of those alterations of the temperature, and periodic movements of the body, termed

DISEASE OR DISORDER.

Till the hour of sickness comes, how few non-medical persons ever think of a subject which ought to be of interest to all! The same men who discuss with becoming gravity, the artificial inflections of a Greek or Latin verb, neglect to inform themselves of the natural laws that govern the motions of their own bodies! No wonder that the world should be so long kept in darkness on medicine and its mode of action,-no wonder that even educated persons should still know so little of the proper study of mankind— MAN! In the throes of disease, the early priests, as I have already told you, imagined they detected the workings of demons. Medical theorists, on the contrary, attribute them to morbid ingredients in the blood or bowels. One age bowed the knee to an "acrimony" or "putridity;" another acknowledged no cause but a humour." The moderns hold the notion that a mysterious process, which they term "inflammation," is the head and front of all offending. How absurd each and all of these doctrines will appear in the sequel! Disease, Gentlemen, is neither a devil to "cast out," an acrimony

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