92 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



so reestablished and inter-related that mental expressions began 

 to appear. 



Guided in part by such a human indication, the writer has 

 perused with interest many text-books and papers on nervous 

 diseases and abnormal states. He has in many cases succeeded 

 in giving these a fair or even perfect biological interpretation. 

 But to such return will be made later. 



If the evolutionary stages or platforms that we have at- 

 tempted to lay down for the human organism are correct, it 

 might well be expected that in the transition from a state where 

 all the bodily faculties are in action but have commenced to 

 degenerate, and on to the period of death, a reverse relation 

 in the organism would manifest itself. Such is the testimony 

 of all human physiologists. Thus Ribot (54.' 122) says: "The 

 functions acquired last are the first to degenerate." And again 

 more exactly he says (p. 1 14) : " Since dissolution always follows 

 the inverse order of evolution, it results that the more complex 

 manifestations of will must disappear before the simpler ones, 

 and the more simple before the automatic activity. In order 

 to give to the statement of the law its exact form, treating 

 volition, not as a singular event, but as the highest manifesta- 

 tion of activity, we will say: Dissolution pursues a regressive 

 course from the more voluntary and more comi)lex toward the 

 less voluntary and simpler, that is to say, toward the auto- 

 matic." 



When finally we compare the normal human subject with 

 one who has been subjected to various drugs or chemical agents, 

 like biological relations are traceable. Thus in an acute al- 

 coholic attack mental impressions — that at first are slightly 

 quickened through general stimulation of the biotic and reflexly 

 of the other two energy flows — and the power for high mental 

 correlation first become lost; though the subject can still rec- 

 ognize and pass from a darkened to a lighted room, will rec- 

 ognize musical and other sounds, will retain for a time the 

 use of voluntary muscles, etc. Thus, the cogitic state having 

 become inert, the cognitic state is for some time retained but 

 gradually becomes reduced. This, however, in turn is almost 



