ON BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 5 



nervine or molecular form of materio-dynamic activity 

 and metabolism ; and it is by the segmentation or karioki- 

 nesis of the uni-cellular organism that the multi-cellular 

 organism is built up and energised, innervated, or vital- 

 ised by the first rudiments of developed and differentiated 

 nervine structure, called, when fully differentiated and 

 evolved, the sympathetic nervous system a system which 

 governs all organic or vegetative life processes throughout 

 the total flora and fauna of the globe. Also, it is from 

 this latter that a further evolution and nervine develop- 

 ment takes place, in virtue of which is ultimately added 

 to the attributes of organised beings, the crowning qualities 

 of reason, will, and moral powers. 



Man is thus a double being or even a treble, if we 

 regard his uni-cellular life accordingly as we consider 

 his nervine history and development, and is equally 

 dependent for the enjoyment of his full manhood, material 

 and dynamic, on the two elements of his dual innervation. 

 His last developed nervous system, the systemic, brings 

 him into relationship with a higher series of conditions 

 than it was possible for him to reach with his sympathetic 

 nervous system alone, and hence into a psychological and 

 metaphysical sphere, where he is enabled to distinguish 

 between the ego and the non-ego, and to penetrate far 

 beyond the confines of his immediate surroundings and 

 personal experiences, and to enter, it may be, into com- 

 munion with kindred existences, and with far removed, 

 but undeniable, realities. 



It is a singular and striking embryonic developmental 

 truth that the great neurenteric canal, the first of the great 

 vascular arrangements to be evolved from the earliest 

 histological elements of the ovum, should become sub- 

 servient to the growth and maintenance of the two great 

 nervous systems, the anterior, or ventral, becoming the 

 alimentary canal, where the protoplasmic elements of 

 tissue are first elaborated, and the posterior, or dorsal, 

 becoming the cerebro-spinal canal, in which is laid down 

 and stored up the food for the systemic nervous system 

 the two, even after their differentiation, maintaining a 

 modified union, and ministering to each other's needs, as 

 material and functional wants mutually determine. As these 



