EXTRACT XXXII. c. 



ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE COMMON NERVOUS 

 SYSTEM SYMPATHETIC AND SYSTEMIC. 



THE sympathetic nervous system, we contend, is syn- 

 chronous in origin, and in production, with the whole 

 living structures of all creatures not supplied with a 

 systemic nervous system ; that is, it is, or represents, the 

 sum of the vital principle, the organic units, and every- 

 thing that goes to make up the sum total of merely organic 

 life, be it vegetable, or animal apart, therefore, in such 

 particular organism from the sympathetic nervous system, 

 nothing lives, and with its death, the life of that organism, 

 as an organic unit, ceases. The sympathetic nervous 

 system, thus, represents the vital principle, or life, and, 

 therefore, has vitalised, and continues to vitalise, every 

 living thing, since the " dawn of organic life " on the 

 globe, perpetuating life, or vitality, in continual succession, 

 along the lines of life ^ throughout both the animal, and the 

 vegetable kingdoms, meting out the span of existence of 

 every living unit, and organism, and maintaining the 

 perennial continuity of the life forms, which have peopled, 

 do people, and will people it. Hence, apart from it, so 

 far as the organic life of this planet is concerned, nothing 

 lives, or can live, and to it all life is due, the everlasting^ 

 yet ever-varying, forms of life, evolving themselves 

 according to its intrinsic methods of progress, and pro- 

 cedure, and taking their appropriate position, as links in 

 the great chain of life, and individual organic destiny. 



The germ, and sperm, protoplasm, or the primary 

 parental elements, vitalised with the sympathetic dynamic 



