10 HORSE-BACK RIDING. 



tions from the moment it no longer receives the vivi- 

 fying and animating ether. 



The nervous fluid is to Hoffman, then, nothing else 

 but the sensitive soul presiding over the organism and 

 constituting the mere life of man. 



Essentially material, that sensitive soul is entirely 

 different from the spiritual soul which is momentarily 

 united to the living body. The seat of the conscience 

 and source of reasoning, that spiritual soul elevates 

 the man from a mere animal to an intellectual, re- 

 sponsible being. 



That idea of a sensitive and perishable soul, dis- 

 tinct from the thinking and immortal soul, is but a 

 tradition of antiquity. It goes back to Cicero, Plato, 

 Pythagorus ; to the Persian, Indian, and Chinese 

 philosophy. It reaches the origin of man. 



Frederick Hoffman, then, makes life dependent on 

 the organization, and not at all on the spiritual prin- 

 ciple of which it is the home. Life, then, is the circu- 

 lating movement of the blood, and the humors pro- 

 duced and kept up by the impulse of the heart and 

 arteries, by» the contractions of the dura mater, and 

 the vibrations of the meninges which, sending the 

 ether or nervous fluid to all parts of the body, pene- 

 trate them with regular movements. Life is the pro- 

 duct of the organization set in motion by the laws 

 assigned to organized matter. 



Embryonic, man is but an organized and focun- 

 dated molecule living his life by the life of his 



