120 LIFE. 



certain circumstances at an early period of development, so 

 disposes the material which it governs, that mechanisms 

 result of most wonderful structure, at any rate admirably 

 adapted, if they have been actually designed, for the fulfilment 

 of definite purposes. These mechanisms were anticipated, 

 as it were, from the earliest period, and their formation 

 provided for by the preparatory changes through which the 

 structures had to pass before perfect development could be 

 attained. Can these phenomena be accounted for except 

 through the influence of some wonderful power or agency 

 such as we are now contemplating ? 



Of all organic mechanism, the most perfect, the most 

 exalted, and as regards mere structure the most elaborate, 

 is the nervous. Widely diffused, intimately concerned in 

 the actions going on in various tissues, and co-extensive 

 with most of these, it sends filaments to the very confines 

 of the organism. Through this mechanism alone, the very 

 last to be perfected, external changes affect the peculiar 

 form of living matter with which it is in the closest relation, 

 and are thus rendered evident to the living being. The 

 changes occurring in the central living matter of the 

 nervous apparatus may give rise to secondary, combined, 

 and complex actions, through which various ends may be 

 accomplished. These internal impulses are themselves the 

 movements of the particles of the living matter induced by 

 the supposed vital power or agency acting upon them. 



In animals yet higher in the scale of creation, the 

 nervous mechanism through which alone the vital power 

 influences other tissues, so as to give rise to associated and 

 combined acts, is still more perfect and elaborate ; but it is 



