The Senses and the Mind

NOTE.--The American Sunday-school Union have made an arrangement with the London Religious Tract Society, to publish, concurrently with them, such of their valuable works as are best suited to our circulation. In making the selection, reference will be had to the general utility of the volumes, and their sound moral tendency. They will occupy a distinct place on our catalogue, and will constitute a valuable addition to our stock of books for family and general reading.

As they will be, substantially, reprints of the London edition, the credit of their general character will belong to our English brethren and not to us; and we may add, that the republication of them, under our joint imprint, involves us in no responsibility beyond that of a judicious selection. We cheerfully avail ourselves of this arrangement for giving wider influence and value to the labours of a sister institution so catholic in its character and so efficient in its operations as the London Religious Tract Society.

☞ The present volume is issued under the above arrangement.

CONTENTS.

Page CHAPTER I. 5

ON THE GENERAL RELATIONSHIP OF MAN TO THE WORLD AROUND HIM, AND HIS ADAPTATION TO THE PLANET HE TENANTS

CHAPTER II. 45

MAN'S KNOWLEDGE OF THE QUALITIES OF MATTER OBTAINED THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF THE SENSES

CHAPTER III. 69

THE SENSES, AS THE INLETS TO KNOWLEDGE--SIGHT AND HEARING

CHAPTER IV. 153

OBSERVATIONS ON THE AGENCY OF THE SENSES, RELATIVE TO THE UNION BETWEEN MIND AND MATTER; AND ON THE OCCASIONAL IMPERFECTION OF THE BODILY ORGANS OF THE SENSES, WITH THE RESULTS DEPENDING THEREUPON

THE SENSES AND THE MIND.

CHAPTER I.

ON THE GENERAL RELATIONSHIP OF MAN TO THE WORLD AROUND HIM, AND HIS ADAPTATION TO THE PLANET HE TENANTS.

There are few, at least among the reflecting portion of society, who have not either mentally or verbally asked the question: Is the sun--is the moon--are the planets, with their satellites--are the stars, those suns of other systems, tenanted, as is our planet, the earth, by living beings, which declare the omnipotence of God? This is one of many questions which cannot be answered. The probability, to judge from analogy, is, that some, if not all, are inhabited; that some are in a course of preparation for beings which God will, in his own time, call into existence; and that in all, changes have taken place more or less similar to those which have occurred on the globe we tenant, and which have been connected with the extinction of races, and the creation of others adapted and organized for an altered condition of the earth's surface, and of the circumambient atmosphere. But, granting these suppositions, it must be evident, that the living beings in the sun, the planets, and the asteroids, must not only be differently constructed from those which inhabit our planet, the earth; but, also, that in different worlds, the living inhabitants must be very diversely constituted, not only as regards their senses, but also their organization and their powers of locomotion.