94. In conclusion, unless we adopt the opinion that Sensation—Consciousness—Sensibility, is something not belonging to the physiological properties of the nervous system in a vital organism (the opinion held by spiritualists), there seems no alternative but to adopt the opinion advocated in this volume, namely, that the physiological properties of the nervous system are inseparable from every segment of that system; and the functions are the manifestation of those properties as determined by the special organs with the co-operation of all.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Wordsworth.
[2] Crystals not only grow by assimilation, but even repair injuries, with a certain superficial resemblance to the repair of animal tissues. Thus, according to the experiments of Jordan cited by Sir James Paget (Lectures on Surgical Pathology, I. 153, and 2d ed. p. 115), an octohedral crystal of alum, if fractured and replaced in a motherlye will in a few days exhibit a complete restoration of the original form. The whole crystal increases, but the increase is greatest on the broken edge, and the octohedral form is completely renewed. (Comp. § [113].)
[3] Cited by Drysdale, Life and the Equivalence of Force, Part II. p. 149.
[4] Ranke, Die Lebensbedingungen der Nerven, 1868, p. 80.
[5] “Il n’y a peut être pas un seul phénomène chimique dans l’organisme qui se fasse par les procédés de la chimie de laboratoire; en particulier il n’y a peut être pas une oxydation qui s’accomplisse par fixation directe d’oxygène.”—Claude Bernard.
[6] Dr. Madden, in his essay On the Relation of Therapeutics to Medicine, 1871, p. 5, gives a remarkable illustration of what may be called the frustration of chemical affinity effected by mechanical conditions. “Before calico can be printed, every loose particle of cotton must be removed from the surface in order that the colored inks may not run. This removal is effected by passing the calico over and in contact with a red-hot iron cylinder, and by regulating the rapidity with which the cylinder revolves, the intense heat burns off the loose fibres, yet does no injury to the woven cloth. In other words, the changes in the relation of the high temperature and the cotton are too rapid to admit of the fibre combining with the oxygen. Let the rate of revolution be reduced but very little, and the calico would burst into flames.” Any one who has snuffed a candle with his fingers will understand this. Dr. Madden further instances certain fulminates which can be detonated in contact with gun-cotton without causing it to explode—the extreme rapidity with which the fulminates expand is too great to enable the gun-cotton to adjust its movements to this new motion. Precisely the same kind of thing occurs in organized matter. If the rate of its changes be reduced below a certain point, the ordinary chemical affinities will assert themselves.
[7] I am often reminded of the surprising movements of particles of carbonate of lime in water which my friend Professor Preyer showed me during a visit to Bonn. He had removed one of the concretions, usually found in connection with nerves along the spine of old frogs, and crushed it in water; under the microscope the seeming spontaneity and variety of the movements of the particles was such that had we not known their origin we should certainly have attributed them to vitality: no infusoria could have moved with more seeming spontaneity. It is hardly physiological to conclude that because fragments of tissue manifest ambœbiform movements therefore they are alive (Stricker, art. Die Zelle in his Handbuch der Lehre von den Geweben, 1868, p. 7), or that the heart removed from the body is alive because it still beats. Lieberkühn, Ueber Bewegungserschsinungen der Zellen, 1870, pp. 357–359, cites examples of such movements in undeniably dead substances. For Life, we demand not only Movement, but Functional Activity.
[8] Telesius, De Natura Rerum, 1586, V. 184. Telesio might have been saved from the mistake had he attended to what Niphus had said on the point in his Expositio subtilissima, 1559, p. 245. Comp. also Philelphus, Epist. Familiarum, 1502, p. 253, verso.