University of Virginia Library

Identity not lost

What is man? Brain, heart, blood, bones, etc., the material structure? If the real man is in the material body, you take away a portion of the man when you amputate a limb; the surgeon destroys manhood, and worms annihilate it. But the loss of a limb or injury to a tissue is sometimes the quickener of manli- ness; and the unfortunate cripple may present more no- bility than the statuesque athlete, - teaching us by his very deprivations, that "a man's a man, for a' that."