1.D 07. How to Study Human Nature

How to Study Human Nature. With this general statement of the necessity of the study of the human nature and mind in its structure and functions, I will pass on to the next point, which is the way in which this study is to be prosecuted. How are we going about it? In the first place, you must study facts, scientifically. I think that such works as Bain s, while criticizable in many directions, are nevertheless works of very great interest, as showing a wise tendency in the investigation of the mind of man, the founding of mental philosophy upon physiology.

I do not commend the system in all its particulars, but I speak of its tendency, which is in the right direction. I would say the same, also, of Herbert Spencer’s works. There is much in him that I believe will be found sovereign and noble in the final account of truth, when our knowledge of it is rounded up. There was never a field of wheat that ripened which did not have a good deal of straw and husk with it. I doubt not but Herbert Spencer will have much straw and husk that will need to be burned. Nevertheless, the direction he is moving in is a wise one, which is the study of human nature, of the totality of man.

It was believed once that man did not think by the brain, I believe that notion has gone by. Most men now admit that the brain is the organ of the mind. It is held that it cannot be partitioned off into provinces, and that there are no external indications of its various functions. I shall not dispute that question with you. It is now generally conceded that there is an organization which we call the nervous system in the human body, to which belong the functions of emotion, intelligence, and sensation, and that that is connected intimately with the whole circulation of the blood, with the condition of the blood as affected by the liver and by aeration in the lungs; that the manufacture, of the blood is dependent upon the stomach. So a man is what he is, not in one part or another, but all over. One part is intimately connected with the other, from the animal stomach to the throbbing brain; and when a man thinks, lie thinks the whole trunk through. Man’s power comes from the generating forces that are in him, -namely, the digestion of nutritious food into vitalized blood, made fine by oxygenation; an organization by which that blood has free course to run and be glorified; a neck that will allow the blood to now up and down easily; a brain properly organized and balanced; the whole system so compounded as to have susceptibilities and recuperative force; immense energy to generate resources, and facility to give them out; all these elements go to determine what a man’s working power is. And shall a man undertake to study human nature, everything depending upon his know ledge of it, and not study the prime conditions under which human nature must exist?

I have often seen young ministers sit at the table, and even those of sixty years of age, eating out of all proportion, beyond the necessities of their systems; and I have seen, on the other hand, ministers who ate below the necessities of their systems, under a vague impression that sanctifying grace wrought better on an empty stomach than on a full one. It seems to me that all divine grace and divine in struments honour God’s laws everywhere; and that the best condition, for grace in the mental system is that in which the human body is in a perfect state of health. That is a question which every man can best settle for himself. Some men under-sleep, and some over-sleep; some eat too much, and some too little. Some men use stimulants who do not need them, while others avoid them who need them, and would be better for their use. There is a vast amount of truth relative to the individual that is not studied by the minister, though it ought to be, as to the incoming and the outflow of force. Some clergymen prepare themselves to preach on Sunday by sitting up very late on Saturday night, and exhausting their vitality, thus compelling them selves to force their overtasked powers to extra ordinary exertion to perform their Sabbath duties; which entails upon them the horrors of Blue Mon day, the result of a spasmodic and drastic excitement. It is, and it ought to be, a purgatory to them. You must study yourselves as men. Is there no self-knowledge that can be acquired, so that a man shall know how to be merciful to his beast?

You see that whatever relates to the whole organization of the human body and its relations to health and to perfect symmetry must be studied; for all these relations are intimate, and concern both your own working powers and the material among men that you will have to work on.