256 R. F. LICORISH [october 



It seems to me that biologists look on the nervous system in the 

 same light as they do other parts and organs of the system. Now, 

 while this may be true in relation, e.g., to the special senses, it must 

 be remembered that the nervous system has also a general function, 

 and must be looked at as belonging to and ministering to all other 

 parts of the organism, so that the unity of all may be secured. Thus Dr. 

 Gadow (in " The Last Link ") says : " It is the physiological momentum 

 which models the organism, and, by causing its adaptation, has pro- 

 duced its organs by change of function " ; and again, " Each cell has a 

 function, the more specialised the more intense it is." He attributes 

 adaptation to the disturbance of the equilibrium of the cell, and its 

 efforts to return to the status quo through increased activity. But 

 whilst this may be true, so far as it goes, yet it is plain that Dr. 

 Gadow ignores the influence of the nervous system, and attributes the 

 sole power of adaptation to the cells themselves, while the foregoing 

 remarks on the nervous system, and other facts which I shall advance 

 farther on, go to show that the power of adaptation does not belong 

 to the cells themselves, but to the correlative influence of the nervous 

 system. If we restrict ourselves to the view suggested by Dr. Gadow's 

 remarks, as in fact all Neo-Lamarckians seem to do, there is little 

 wonder that the origin of correlative adaptations, as on the neck and 

 other parts of the giraffe, presents a formidable difficulty, and appears 

 almost inscrutable. The idea that life is due to some unknown and 

 indefinable principle inherent in the cells themselves, pervades the 

 whole of Mr. Herbert Spencer's work on " Biology," and finds its highest 

 presentation in the writings of Virchow, so prominently brought to our 

 notice in his recent Huxley lecture. In his chapter on the dynamic 

 elements of life (in the " Principles of Biology "), Mr. Spencer men- 

 tions the fact that an excised liver, and in a more forcible way the 

 excised heart, of a cold-blooded animal continues to function after 

 detachment from the organism, but does not attribute such action to 

 the nervous ganglia connected therewith. It must be remembered 

 that such a continuation of function occurs, as regards the heart in 

 particular, only in the lower organisms, 1 i.e. animals in which the 

 nervous system and hence power is not so thoroughly centralised 

 in the brain as in higher forms. In fact, there are more semi- 

 independent ganglia dispersed through the organism. In the vegetable 

 world we see a somewhat analogous distribution of independent centres, 

 e.g. in the Begonia. Prof. Waller (" Text-Book of Physiology ") thus 

 writes : " Protoplasm is excitable. When any part of a lump of proto- 

 plasm is excited, the lump moves. When many lumps of protoplasm 

 are gathered together into a homogeneous mass, excitations and move- 

 ments may be transmitted from lump to lump in all directions. With 

 higher organisation of the mass, differences of function and structure 



1 With proper precautions the excised heart of a mammal may continue beating for 

 some time. — En. 



