352 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



respectively, sympathetic, and systemic, and these two 

 systems comprise all the nervous, and so-called non-nervous, 

 living tissues, systems, and organs, of the body, i.e. they 

 not only, vitalise, innervate, and co-ordinate, these tissues, 

 and organs, but, in the true sense, constitute them, those 

 belonging to the lower organic, or vegetative, department, 

 of the organism, constituting the sympathetic nervous 

 system, and those belonging to the higher organic, or 

 voluntary, and psychic, constituting the systemic nervous 

 system. The whole living structures of the body, there- 

 fore, are claimed, as nervous, and belong to one, or the 

 other, of the two nervous systems, the only exception, if 

 exception it can be called, being where the two systems 

 intermingle, or overlap, in which cases, there is structural 

 provision for dual control in the performance of common 

 functions, the two possessing the power of acting con- 

 jointly, while able, at the same time, to do the work indi- 

 vidually, and independently, when called upon, from any 

 cause, physiological, or pathological, to do so. 



Life, therefore, with all that it implies, is the product of 

 the nervous system, and the outcome of its vital action, 

 and the play of its energy, on the raw materials, or inert 

 matter, on which its organic continuance is dependent, and 

 the supply of which, constitutes the living organism s great 

 daily necessity. 



The nervous system being, thus, responsible for the 

 maintenance of life, and the fashioning of the material 

 structures by which the functions of life are performed, 

 must, necessarily, be in the most direct union and sym- 

 pathy, structurally and functionally, with the whole living 

 organism ; what then more essential than, that it should 

 actually constitute that organism, supplying the pabulum on 

 which it exists, and keeping in functional, oneness, and 

 mutual dependence, both the material, and the dynamic, 

 results, of its entire organic work, vegetative, and 

 voluntary ? 



The central organic work of nutrition, therefore, is 

 effected by the nervous system, by itself, for itself, through 

 the co-working, for communal purposes, of that vast array 

 of structural arrangements, and adaptations, of cell, and 

 fibre, canal, and vessel, tissue, and organ, nerve, muscle, 



