Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/107

 answer to the question than that there is a substance superior to the visible matter, tissue, and organism, that impels the brain to action.

A little thought about the function of the brain will disclose what it is that causes it to act. It is well known that affection and thought are associated with the brain; but that the activities of the particles of the brain, or that the modes of motion of its organism, can produce what is experienced as affection and thought appears upon reflection impossible. The brain, however highly organized, is of itself naught but matter, particles of dust, which intuition and observation show have no element of affection or thought in them. The sensations and capacities of human life are not attributes of matter, nor therefore can they be of a merely material organism. They so transcend in their qualities and abilities all the attributes of matter as to reveal clearly that affection and thought are distinctly above and superior to material potency; as much so as a telegraphic dispatch transcends the inherent ability of a copper wire. The wire may produce dots and dashes, but it can not arrange them into a message of love. The theory that brain action produces affection and thought is the reverse of the truth. It is affection and thought, or more accurately speaking, the activity of a