116 PHYSIOLOGY OF ORGANIC LIFE. 



the nerves lo the brain, it is conceivable that 

 we might be so constituted as to perceive, with 

 the same facility, in what part of the brain the 

 impression ends. This, however, experience 

 convinces us, we are not able to determine. 

 The skill of the anatomist has demonstrated 

 every process, explored every cavity, and 

 would, if possible, have traced every filament 

 of this inexplicable mass, of that wonderful and 

 anomalous organ placed on the doubtful con- 

 fines of the material and spiritual worlds ! nor 

 have the physiologist or metaphysician been 

 less eager to discover or to assign to each part 

 its peculiar office ; whatever may be due to the 

 former for accuracy, and to the latter for inge- 

 nuity and zeal, we must lament that little know- 

 ledge has resulted from their labours. At this 

 advanced period of science, when almost every 

 subject has been illuminated by the experi- 

 ments, the deductions, and even by the conjec- 

 tures of the learned, we are not able to proceed 

 a single step beyond the fathers of medicine, 

 xvho, in the very infancy of our art, pronounced 

 this inscrutable mass of organised matter to be 

 the fountain and the reservoir, the beginning 

 and the end of the whole nervous system, where 

 every idea originates, and to which every sensa- 

 tion is referred.'' 



Having investigated the subject of fecunda- 

 tion, the result of which 1 have detailed at 



