produce thought and feeling. I must begin by combating this
error.

What is meant by one substance producing another? A metal is produced
from an ore; alcohol is produced from saccharine matter; the bones and
sinews of an animal are produced from its food. Production, in the only
intelligible sense of the word, means the conversion of one substance
into another, weight for weight, agreeably with, or under mechanical,
chemical, and vital laws. But to suppose that in order to produce
consciousness, the brain is converted, weight for weight, into thought
and feeling, is absurd.

But what, then, is the true relation between consciousness and the
living brain, in connexion with which it is manifested?

To elucidate the question, let us consider the parallel relation of
other imponderable forces to matter. Take, for instance, electricity. A
galvanic battery is set in action. Chemical decomposition is in
progress; one or more new compounds are produced; the quantitative
differences are exactly accounted for. But there is something further
to be observed. The chemical action has disturbed the omnipresent force
of electricity, and a vigorous electric current is in motion.

The principle of consciousness is another imponderable force which
pervades the universe. The brain and nerves are framed of such materials
and in such arrangements, that the chemical changes constantly in
progress under the control of life, determine in them currents of
thought and feeling.

We must be satisfied with having got thus far by help of the analogy,
nor try to push it further; for beyond the fact of both being
imponderable forces, electricity and consciousness have nothing in
common. They are otherwise violently unlike; or resemble each other as
little as a tooth-pick and a headach. Their further relations to the
material arrangements through which they may be excited or disturbed,
are subjects of separate and dissimilar studies, and resolvable into
laws which have no affinity, and admit of no comparison.

But upon the step which we have gained, it stands to reason, that the
individual consciousness or mind, habitually energizing in and through a
given living brain, may, for any thing we know to the contrary, and very
conceivably, be drawn, under circumstances favourable to the event, into
direct communication with consciousness, individualised or diffused
elsewhere.

Accordingly, there is no intrinsic absurdity in supposing that
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