THE NERVE SPIRIT. 49 



and distinct beyond measure, for on the one hand they are the lines 

 of thought and will, sensation and action; and on the other, the 

 fibrillation of the brain is exquisitely minute and separate even to 

 the naked eye. We gather from these reasons, that if the nervous 

 current be in any analogy with electricity, galvanism, or other im- 

 ponderable, it must itself still be regarded as an incarnate imponder- 

 able; as might be anticipated from its domestication in the human 

 body. But an incarnate imponderable, preserving its velocity on 

 the one hand, and being embodied on the other, is only conceivable 

 as an animal fluid or a fluid animal, whose speed and other attributes 

 are life-like, thought-like, will-like, and sense-like. 



II. The analogies of the grosser parts point to the tubular struc- 

 ture of the nerves. In the body, where there is an organ as a bed, 

 and trunks, branches and twigs proceed from it, the derivations are 

 hollow, and carry a fluid. This is the case with the heart, the lungs, 

 the stomach, the liver, the kidneys, the pancreas, &c. On this ground 

 we understand their functions; in their produce we recognize their 

 use in the economy. Again, what reason can we give for the quantity 

 of blood which is applied to the brain, and which is more in pro- 

 portion than is sent to other organs, if it be only required for its 

 nutrition, and not for supplying a large quantity of fluid. How also 

 can we account for the physical debility consequent upon certain 

 effects, unless by a waste and spending of a fluid? And recurring 

 to analogy, does it not seem to be in the order of things, that the 

 living principle should act through the fluid upon the solid, when we 

 find that the more living parts of the body, as the brain and nerves, 

 are the softest; and the less living, as the tendons, ligaments, and 

 bones, are the harder and the hardest : also that in the earliest stages 

 of formation all things are fluid, and at the very beginning, a fluid, 

 and that hardness grows up by degrees, and plasticity ceases; old 

 age consisting physically in stiffness, unyieldingness and ossification. 

 Further, that the change of pervious canals into solid ligaments, 

 fibres or threads, which takes place often in the body, is always a 

 change from vitality towards the contrary; showing that the solid 

 form is a degradation of the previous fluid, and not vice versa, It 

 seems then a prepared belief, that the nearest thing to life is the 

 most life-like, the most movable, the most quick, in short, the most 

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