LIVING MATTER CONCERNED. 153 



served from damage for a long while, but when at last they 

 become involved, death succeeds, before time has elapsed 

 for any great degree of morbid change to have taken place; 

 while in other cases the germinal matter with the tissue may 

 have completely degenerated without the death of the indi- 

 vidual having been occasioned. 



The living matter concerned in mental operations is 

 that which is last formed, and is probably the highest con- 

 dition which living matter has yet assumed. Like other 

 forms taking part in the formation of the various tissues 

 and organs belonging to the organism, it has been derived 

 by direct descent from the original germinal matter of the 

 embryo. From the growth and subdivision of that primitive 

 mass have resulted, and in definite and prearranged order, 

 numerous forms endowed with marvellously different powers. 

 But the germinal matter which forms cuticle, that which 

 produces fibrous tissue, muscle, nerve or bone, the germinal 

 matter which gives rise to biliary secretion, to the saliva, 

 and to the gastric juice, as well as that which takes part in 

 mental nervous action have, so to say, one common parent- 

 age ; and if, as these several forms are evolving themselves, 

 or are being evolved, the conditions which alone render pos- 

 sible progress towards their highest state becomes modified, 

 the attainment of perfection is prevented. Such cases are 

 familiar to us under the term arrested development, in which, 

 up to a certain period of life, everything seems to have 

 proceeded correctly, but then in consequence of some dis- 

 turbing action modifying the process of nutrition and affect- 

 ing the division and subdivision of the germinal matter, 

 the structures which would at length have resulted in due 



