PURPOSE OF THE HUMAN BODY.

ALTHOUGH there are no two things more widely different than matter and spirit, yet it is manifest that this world of matter has been framed as a residence for beings with souls. If, in journeying across a desert, you came upon a Building which had doors, windows, chimneys, and numerous rooms furnished with chairs, tables, and bedsteads, you would not believe, even if told so, that it was designed to be merely a stable for horses, or a kennel for dogs; you would confidently infer that it was a human habitation. The same inference is suggested by the peculiar structure and aecommodations of this Fabric which we call the earth. Sunsets, such as nature paints on the western sky, cannot have been intended for "the brute unconscious gaze" of sheep and Veins of metal and beds of marble are as far beyond the requirements of a mere animal abode as the bullion in the cellars of the Bank of England is beyond the requirements of a cow-house. And what of the vast subterranean beds of coal? Do not they foretoken the human uses of our planet as surely as a well-stored coal-cellar would foretoken the human uses of the house to which it pertained? In truth, look where we may, we observe spectacles which mind alone can enjoy-phenomena which mind alone can appreciate―raw materials which mind alone can work up into serviceable products.

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But it is equally manifest that beings with souls alonemere spiritual essences-would be quite unfit for such a material abode as this. Suppose the earth to be peopled with ghosts, what possible provision could it furnish for their convenience and comfort? Could the finest sunsets yield any delight to beings who had no eyes to see them? All the coals deposited in the vaults of the carboniferous era would be thrown away upon personages who could neither feel heat nor catch cold. Fruits would hang idly on the trees, for ghosts have no hands to pull apples. Horses would roam at large over the earth, for ghosts have no legs to bestride them.

In order, then, to fit human intelligences for the earthly home prepared and garnished for them, it is indispensable that they should be provided with some apparatus to bridge over the gulf between mind and matter-some go-between to bring their spiritual nature into communication with their physical abode-but what sort of apparatus?

As a first step towards bringing a human spirit into communication with the material world, he must be clothed with matter--furnished with a corporeal suit. One hundred and fifty pounds of dust must be taken from the soil and fashioned into an envelope for his soul. Accordingly we read in Holy Scripture, that "the Lord God formed" the first man "of the dust of the ground."

As a second step, it is necessary that this dust-body be endued with that mysterious something which we call life. And experience shows that, the moment this is done, the fabric of dust acquires properties which not only difference it from other material substances, but raise it immeasurably above them. The contrast between a corpse and a living body may suggest some idea of the wondrous change which the infusion of life makes on the matter of which the human body is composed. Endued with life, it ceases to be inert and torpid; it becomes sensitive and active; it becomes susceptible alike to the influences which address it from without, and to the bidding of the spirit which is to rule it within.

Nor is a body composed of terrene matter and saturated with life all that a human spirit needs to equip him for his earthly home. He also needs a sensory apparatus-a brain, nerves, and organs of sense. It is within "the ivory palace of the skull" that the Soul holds his court; and that pulpy mass, the Brain, is the chamberlain who alone has the privilege of giving the entrée. To the Brain, then, all messages from the outer world must come, if they would reach the Soul, and by the Brain alone can they be communicated to the Soul. But how are such messages to get to the Brain? For this end there is a ramification of fine white chords called nerves, which extend, like so many telegraphic wires, from the surface of the body to the Brain; and at their points

of insertion in the surface of the body, there are, as it were, telegraphic stations,—that is, organs of sense, to receive the messages which outward objects may have to send within. So that the method of communication between the external world and the Soul is just this:-An outward object-say a tree, a thunder-peal, a floating perfume-brings its message to the organ of sense, situated at the surface of the body; the message is then intrusted by that organ of sense to the telegraphic wire or nerve; and by that wire or nerve it is transmitted to the terminus in the Brain, which in its turn communicates it to the Soul.

But a human spirit requires not only to hold converse with the world of matter, but also to act upon it; and to enable him to do so, he needs a further apparatus of bones and muscles and motor-nerves. His Maker, accordingly, has endowed him with a muscular as well as with a nervous system. And so admirably are these systems adapted to each other and to their respective functions, that the Soul has only to name his behests to his chamberlain in order to have them forthwith performed. By means of the motornerves, the Brain conveys the orders to the muscles; the muscles, by their contractile power, move the bones to which they are attached; and the bones are so richly furnished with joints and hinges, and other mechanical appliances, that they instantly set in motion the hands, or whatever else is requisite, to execute the orders.

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THE SENSES.

Seeing.-WHAT would be the first act of Adam in Eden when he became a living soul? Would it not be to look around him? The first thing, then, which is needed to fit a human spirit for communication with the external world is, that he should be able to see. Accordingly, a special organ, the Eye, has been contrived for this end.

The eye is a hollow globe, partitioned into three chambers. In front, facing us, is the window on which the light from external objects first impinges. This window, called the

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cornea, resembles the glass of a watch, and admits the light to the first chamber, which is filled with water, and named the aqueous humour. Immediately behind this chamber, and partitioning it from the second, is a circular screen, called the iris, beautifully coloured, and perforated in the centre by a hole, called the pupil, which can be made larger or smaller by the contraction or relaxation of the iris, thus regulating the quantity of light to be admitted. Through this little hole or pupil the light passes into the second chamber, where it strikes upon the crystalline lens; through which lens, again, it passes-suffering refraction in its transit-into the third, or back chamber, where it comes in contact with the vitreous humour; and, having made its way through this, it at last reaches that fine membrane, the retina, on which it instantly photographs an exact picture of the external object.

Thus far the eye is just a highly-finished camera for taking likenesses. But it has various appendages, possessed by no camera, and peculiar to itself. That it may see on all sides, it is furnished with muscles to move it horizontally, vertically, and obliquely. That it may widen or narrow the pupil according to the state of the light, it is furnished with the sensitive contractile iris; and it has an arrangement to enable it to accommodate its focus to the varying distance of objects. Nor is this all. To protect it from injury, it is lodged in a socket of strong bones, and lies cushioned upon soft fat. It is still further sheltered by the eye-brows,-an arch of hair which prevents the sweat of the forehead from running down into it. And, still better to defend it, as well as to close it in sleep and keep it clean by day, it is furnished with those soft, elastic, and finely-fringed curtains,

the eyelids, which alternately rise and fall in the process of winking. "An outside window," as Dr George Wilson remarks, "soon gets soiled and dirty, and a careful shopkeeper cleans his windows every morning. But our eye-windows must never have so much as a speck upon them, and the winking eyelid is the busy apprentice who, not once a-day, but all the day, keeps the living glass clean." Nay, as if even this were not enough to keep the eyes clean and bright, a gland is situated at the upper and outer corner of the socket, which constantly pours a watery secretion across the eyeball; and, lest too much should be supplied, there is a perforation through the bone, by which the superfluous fluid is conveyed away to the nostrils and there evaporated;-a contrivance this last, which may well lead us to ask with Paley, "Can any pipe for carrying off the waste liquor from a dye-house be more mechanical ?"

But, in order to vision, more is needed than all the apparatus yet described. Before external objects can be seen, the copies of them painted on the retina must be conveyed to the mind. How is this accomplished? The retina, which is in shape like the cup of a water-lily, ends like that cup in a stem; and this stem, called the optic nerve, passes from the retina through the back part of the eye, and then pursues its way till it enters the brain. The optic nerve is thus the telegraphic wire which connects the retina (itself an expansion of the nerve) with the brain; and along it the successive pictures photographed on the retina travel on to the headquarters of the soul. But here we tread the region of mystery. The optic nerve is but a fagot of minute tubular filaments of the same substance with the brain :-can we understand how such a fagot of threadlike nerves should be able to forward likenesses of outward things to the brain? What would you think if, placing a portrait of Queen Victoria at the London end of the Magnetic Telegraph, you were to find an exact copy instantly taken, and conveyed along the wires, and reproduced at the Edinburgh station? Yet this were nothing to what is done by the optic nerve. For that nerve not only copies, so to speak, all the pictures photographed on the retina, but reduces or contracts them so