Energies of the Organic World 93 



wholly subdued and the inert passive biotic state succeeds. 

 If the alcoholic indulgence has been excessive, then, after a 

 longer or shorter period, disintegration of the complex energy- 

 conducting protoplasmic molecules takes place and death 

 ensues. 



The action of poisons on the cells both of plants and animals 

 seems also to fall under the three categories of biotic or proto- 

 plasmic poisons, of cognitic or nuclear-chromatin poisons, and 

 of cogitic or nerve cell — ^Nissl-substance — ^poisons. As all are 

 aware, our knowledge of poison or of drug action has been 

 most fully studied, alike experimentally and observationally 

 on animals and especially man. And, in shortly naming a few 

 apparent cases out of many, we desire it to be understood that 

 each group scarcely can restrict its action to one of the three 

 living substances named, since all three substances are so 

 intimately and organically inter-related. But mineral acids 

 like arsenious or antimony, and glucosides like digitalin or 

 strophanthin, seem to act mainly on the first; chloroform, 

 ether, etc., on the second; and organic acids or their allied 

 compounds such as prussic acid and potassium cyanide, oxalic 

 acid and oxalate of potash, also many organic alkaloids, on 

 the nerve-cell substance. 



In closing this chapter it may not be inappropriate to com- 

 pare the above phenomena in the human subject, and to learn 

 how far they conform to, or seem contradictory to, the possible 

 presence and interaction of biotic, cognitic, and cogitic grades 

 of energy. At least on first consideration it might be asserted 

 that all human energy merely varies according to its amount 

 or degree of concentration in each cell, or in each chemical 

 constituent of that cell. From the manner in which the various 

 physiological responses, of increasing complexity, seem often 

 to grade into each other, such a view looks at first feasible. 

 But it in no way explains the striking and often sharply demar- 

 cated triple stages or platforms of advance indicated above, 

 and which have been more or less recognized as stages or degrees 

 by various writers, amongst others by Ribot and Romanes 

 (55: 152), already quoted. Again it might be considered that 



