Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/259

RhPROP. VIII.———— ego, as a fine or subtle species of matter, is obviously no conception of it at all. Not in this way is the idea of intelligence to be approached. The conception of the most gossamer and ghostlike tissue that ever floated in the dreams of fancy, is not one whit nearer to the conception of spirit than is the conception of the most solid lead that ever acted as ballast to a seventy-four-gun ship. The mind of man is certainly adamant, just as much as it is ether. This conception, therefore, may be dismissed as unworthy of further consideration.

7. The other form of materialism—that which pronounces the mind to be the result of physical organisation, (phrenology, in short)—is more plausible, and more difficult to overcome. The particles of matter assume a certain configuration or arrangement called the human brain, and intelligence is manifested in consequence, the degrees of which are found generally to be in proportion to the size of the organ, and the depth and number of its convolutions. Why, asks the materialist, ought this plain fact to cause more astonishment, or meet with less acquiescence, than any other effect resulting from the various combinations of matter? All that we know of causation is uniform sequence. When certain conditions concur, certain results follow. When the material conditions requisite to the development of mind are fulfilled, why should not intelligence