Section III.

An Argument Founded Upon the Mental Phenomena of Memory.

That which remembers must be spirit and not matter. It is not possible for us to conceive how memory can be a property of; or be exercised by, matter. Memory lies at the foundation of all improvement-without it we could make no progress. If the ideas we derive through the medium of the senses, were to pass away with the objects that produce the sensation, the whole of life would be a mere succession of ideas, or mental states, without any accumulation of knowledge; to prevent which, we are endowed with the power of remembering-so that instead of leaving the past a blank, the mind can trace its own history, and view from any point of its journey, all the principal events that have transpired, the objects that it has viewed, the feelings it has experienced, and the thoughts it has entertained, from the twilight dawn of childhood to the present moment. Take, example, such minds as Bacon, Locke, and Newton, and how powerful must be memory, to treasure a knowledge of almost universal nature-surveying the highway of worlds, and gathering, retaining, and unfolding to the mental vision of others, the numberless laws by which their phenomena are produced, and their motions directed How vast must be the number of ideas which such minds are capable of retaining It is not possible to see how matter, in the shape and compass of the human brain, can gather, receive, and retain all these ideas, the originals of which, fill earth and heaven-wide space. Assume that the human mind is material, and there is no known principle of philosophy upon which the phenomena of memory can be explained.

1. According to all admitted principles of philosophy, matter can be operated upon or impressed, only by matter. That which is immaterial cannot impress that which is material. Ideas are immaterial, knowledge is immaterial, thoughts are immaterial, and how they can impress themselves upon matter, so as to be retained for fifty years, and be now and then called up and exhibited as occasion requires, cannot be explained by the known laws and properties of matter. Let us suppose a case :-A person hears his friend narrate the scenes and incidents of his travels in a foreign land-he describes the general face of the country, its productions, the size, complexion and habits of the people, together with all the principal mountains, lakes and rivers. The listener forms ideas in his mind of all these things, so that he is able to take a mental view of the whole country, and can even describe it to others. Now what is in his mind Not the country, not its people, mountains, lakes and rivers, they are not in the mind. Nor can there be even the figure or picture of the variegated scenery impressed upon the mind, if it be matter. There has been no contact to impress the brain with the outline of the country, He never saw it-he never saw a map or picture of it. He has only heard certain words, and there is no natural adaptation in those words to impress the mind with the various forms, colors and motions, which a view of the country presents. As matter can be impressed only by matter, to produce this result, the words must not only be material, but must have figure and color, and must be harder than the mind, as the softer always receives the impression of the harder, when material bodies come in contact. One word must have the form of a man, and another the form of a mountain, and another the form of a landscape, and another of a lake, and another of a river, for matter can only receive the form of the object by which it is impressed. But there is another difficulty; motion has no form which can be impressed, engraved, or painted upon matter. Motion cannot be represented by any image; it cannot be represented upon matter, but by the actual motion of the matter. But in the outline of the country impressed upon the mind, as supposed above, there must be a conception of a flowing river, which could never be impressed upon the mind, if it were a material substance, unless the words themselves have the motion of the river, or give to the mind such motion, neither of which can be true upon the supposition that mind is matter. The mind does receive ideas from various sources and through various mediums, and retains them through the whole period of life: and though they are not always in the mind, or, at least, are not always recognized by the mind as a present mental state, yet the mind can recall them at pleasure. The fact that a man having learned any art, or acquired any information, can afterwards occupy his mind with other matters, not even thinking of the same for years, and then recall the whole on a moment's notice, when occasion shall require, proves, beyond a doubt, that ideas do, in some way, impress themselves upon the mind, or, in some sense, remain in the mind; otherwise an idea, or an art learned, having once occupied the mind, then ceasing to occupy it as a subject of present thought, or a present mental state, could not be recalled with any more facility, than a new thought could be conceived, or a new art learned, which every rational mind knows is not true. To assert it, would be to assert that there is no such thing as memory. Thus the phenomena of memory proves, that the mind cannot be a material substance.

2. Should we go back to the old theory of memory, found in the exploded philosophy of a departed age, we should not be able to reconcile memory with the idea of the materiality of the mind. The theory to which we allude is, that ideas are images of things which are presented to the mind in perception, and that these images are recalled in the act of memory. This would render it necessary to have some place to store them between the primary act of perception, and the subsequent act of memory. This must convert the mind, yea, the brain, if the brain be the mind, into a vast lumber-room, where are stored images of more things than Noah had creatures in the ark. These must be packed away in boxes, laid away upon shelves, or hung up as maps upon a wall; and from among the millions, one after another must come forward from its concealment, and then retire into its hiding place, as one thing after another is recalled by memory. It appears to us, that this philosophy must be adopted by those who hold that the mind is matter, that the brain is the mind; for it is not possible to conceive how forms of material thing; and ideas of things in general, can be impressed upon the brain, or any material substance, though it be called mind, so as to be retained and viewed at pleasure. But if this philosophy be once adopted by the materialist, another difficulty will arise which must utterly confound his whole theory. It is this: Images sketched in any manner upon a material substance, must occupy space; and, as we cannot conceive that the brain is divided into as many apartments as there are ideas, each occupying a distinct place by itself; they must be piled one upon the other, thousands upon thousands, on precisely the same portion of matter, if the mind be matter. This is absolutely impossible, according to all the known laws of matter; matter must fill its own space, can fill no more than its space, and nothing else can occupy the same space at the same time, which any given portion of matter does fill. If, then, the mind be matter, you can only cover its surface with the impressions or images of ideas; and, of course, the number of ideas which the mind is capable of receiving and retaining, must be limited according to the proportion of space which each occupies, compared with the dimensions of the whole mind. This, every reflecting mind knows cannot be true; for no person ever knew so much that he could learn no more-no person ever found his mind so full, or so entirely occupied, with ideas, that there was no room for more. Keeping in view the fact, that every portion of matter presents a surface of limited and definite extent, we remark that, no more ideas can be impressed upon the mind, if it be matter, than will cover its surface; for a number of impressions, or images, cannot occupy the same apace upon the surface of any material body, without defacing each other. If the mind be matter, then each idea must occupy a definite portion of its surface, which must sustain a proportion to the whole mind, or else each idea must occupy the whole mind. If each idea occupies a part of the mind, which sustains a proportion to the whole, then it follows that the mind can receive and retain but a definite number of ideas, according to the size of each compared with the size of the whole mind. This, no one will pretend. But on the other hand, if each idea occupies the whole mind, there must be as many impressions, one upon the other, as the mind receives and retains ideas, a thing absolutely impossible, upon the surface of matter. This has great force in connection with the phenomenon of memory, for, if the mind be matter, all the ideas of a whole life must be impressed upon it, one upon the other, so as to be called up as occasions require, which is impossible; for, in making a second impression upon matter, you necessarily obliterate the first.

3. In materializing the mind, and then storing it with the impressions, or images of things, or ideas, of half a century's accumulation, another difficulty is involved. Keeping in view the fact that, every portion of matter possesses form and fills space, these images, or ideas, adhering to the mind in any form or manner, must also, each for itself, occupy a portion of the physical dimensions of the mind, as shown above; and if these thoughts, ideas, images of things, occupy space, their size, compared with each other, must necessarily be proportioned to the relative size of the things they represent. Assuming this, it follows that the idea of a mountain must, necessarily, occupy more space in the mind than a pebble, and the thought of an elephant must fill more space in the mind than the thought of an ant. This, our own consciousness contradicts, and, of course, it cannot be true, and, per consequence, the mind cannot be material.

We believe these difficulties cannot be obviated, only by a process of reasoning, applicable alone to spirit and not to matter; and this will be to abandon the whole ground of the mind's materiality, for it will not do to assume that the mind is matter and then reason as though it were spirit. Those who assert that the mind is matter, are bound to admit that it possesses all the known and essential properties of matter, and that it is governed by all the essential laws known to govern matter; and, admitting these, the above reasoning stands in full force against the materiality of the human mind. But only admit the common theory, that the mind is spirit and not matter, and the above reasoning becomes totally inapplicable, and all the difficulties disappear. Suppose that the mind is immaterial, a spirit, constituting no part of the body; that it is that which thinks and remembers, being a living soul, without figure, form, color, impenetrability, extension- divisibility, gravitation, attraction or repulsion, and not one of the arguments, urged above, against the materiality of the mind can be brought to bear on the subject.