Vestiges of the Natural History of CreationChambers, Robert
Science
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Chambers, Robert
Creation; Evolution (Biology)
The unity and simplicity which characterize nature give great antecedent
probability to what observation seems about to establish, that, as the
brain of the vertebrata generally is just an advanced condition of a
particular ganglion in the mollusca and crustacea, so are the brains of
the higher and more intelligent mammalia only farther developments of the
brains of the inferior orders of the same class. Or, to the same
purpose, it may be said, that each species has certain superior
developments, according to its needs, while others are in a rudimental or
repressed state. This will more clearly appear after some inquiry has
been made into the various powers comprehended under the term mind.
One of the first and simplest functions of mind is to give
consciousness—consciousness of our identity and of our existence. This,
apparently, is independent of the _senses_, which are simply media, and,
as Locke has shewn, the only media, through which ideas respecting the
external world reach the brain. The access of such ideas to the brain is
the act to which the metaphysicians have given the name of perception.
Gall, however, has shewn, by induction from a vast number of actual
cases, that there is a part of the brain devoted to perception, and that
even this is subdivided into portions which are respectively dedicated to
the reception of different sets of ideas, as those of form, size, colour,
weight, objects in their totality, events in their progress or
occurrence, time, musical sounds, &c. The system of mind invented by
this philosopher—the only one founded upon nature, or which even pretends
to or admits of that necessary basis—shews a portion of the brain acting
as a faculty of comic ideas, another of imitation, another of wonder, one
for discriminating or observing differences, and another in which resides
the power of tracing effects to causes. There are also parts of the
brain for the sentimental part of our nature, or the affections, at the
head of which stand the moral feelings of benevolence, conscientiousness,
and veneration. Through these, man stands in relation to himself, his
fellow-men, the external world, and his God; and through these comes most
of the happiness of man’s life, as well as that which he derives from the
contemplation of the world to come, and the cultivation of his relation
to it, (pure religion.) The other sentiments may be briefly enumerated,
their names being sufficient in general to denote their
functions—firmness, hope, cautiousness, self-esteem, love of approbation,
secretiveness, marvellousness, constructiveness, imitation,
combativeness, destructiveness, concentrativeness, adhesiveness, love of
the opposite sex, love of offspring, alimentiveness, and love of life.
Through these faculties, man is connected with the external world, and
supplied with active impulses to maintain his place in it as an
individual and as a species. There is also a faculty, (language) for
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