the dependence of the soul
on the body. For the Materialism is essentially the same, whether the
faculties of the mind be said to depend on the whole body, on the whole
brain, or individual powers on particular parts of the brain; the
faculties still depend on organization for their exhibition."[157] We
conclude, therefore, that Phrenology, even supposing it to be fully
established, could not materially affect the state of the question
respecting the radical distinction between Mind and Matter.

Similar remarks apply to the case of Mesmerism or Animal Magnetism. It
had always been known and admitted that the soul is liable, by reason of
its connection with the body in the present state, to be affected by
_certain influences_,--from light, from heat, from electricity, from the
atmosphere, and from other sources. Mesmerism appears, and professes to
have discovered _another influence_ by which the nervous system is
peculiarly affected; in other words, it merely adds a new influence to
the number of those which were universally acknowledged before, it
matters little whether it be the Magnetism of Mesmer, or the Odyle of
Reichenbach, or the Dia-magnetism of Faraday. But how could this
discovery, even supposing it to be fully established, affect the state
of the question respecting the radical distinction between Mind and
Matter? If we were Immaterialists before, while we acknowledged the
influence of the atmosphere, of light, of heat, and of electricity, may
we not be Immaterialists still, notwithstanding the addition of Odyle to
the class of _dynamides_? May we not admit the stranger, with the
strange name, if suitably attested, without the slightest apprehension
of thereby weakening the grounds on which we hold Mind to be
essentially different from Matter, and incapable of being identified
with it? It were a foolish and dangerous expedient, and one to which no
enlightened advocate of Immaterialism will have recourse, to denounce
the professed discoveries either of Phrenology or of Mesmerism, on the
ground of their supposed tendency to obliterate the distinction between
Mind and Matter. For the fact, that certain "organs" exist, by means of
which the mind acquires a large portion of its knowledge, and that
certain "influences" are known to affect it from without, is too well
established to be called in question; and the mere extension of that
fact by the discovery of _other organs and other influences_, hitherto
unknown, c