Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/70

66 nothings, fly up and down in the region of the mind, just as vapours float about in the atmosphere; and that, by some means or other, perfectly unknown to them, he is able to catch them as they pass by or through him: never once suspecting, that the human mind is a real substance and form, and that all the varieties of affection and thought belonging to it, are nothing else but changes of it's state and form, while receiving the communicated life of love and wisdom from the Lord.

To form a just conception of what is understood by man's being an organ of life, both as to his internal and his external form, it will be sufficient to advert to the eye, the ear, the tongue, and the other organs of sense in the body. When the light of the sun flows in the eye, which is an organized form receptive of it, a certain change or modification is effected in it's different membranes, humours, vessels, and nerves, and natural sight is produced, not as a thing separate from the substance of the eye, but as it's proper function and exercise. When sound, which is a tremulous motion of the air, enters the ear, vibrations are communicated from one part of it's internal structure to another, and thus changes or modifications in the state and form of that organ take place, the sensation or perception of which is called hearing; a faculty not separate from the substances composing the ear, but constituting it's function and exercise. So again, when substances of different qualities, as sweet, sour, bitter, &c. are applied to the tongue, they stimulate the nervous papillæ, or small glandules, situated on it's apex and margin, and cause a change in their parts, which is perceived as the sensation of taste; a faculty, like the rest, not separate from the substance of it's proper organ, the tongue, but constituting its function and exercise. In each of these