N 



H. v.] SYSTEM OF THE FORCES OF ANIMAL LIFE. 351 



697. So soon as the connection of body and mind is abolished, 

 and, consequently, proper animal life ended, all these animal 

 operations cease to be sentient actions, although, in conse- 

 quence of the maintenance of mere animal life, they may still 

 be produced by the vis nervosa only. (Part II, Chap. IV, sect, i.) 

 They may be produced, however, in virtue of the natural co- 

 ordination of the forces of the mind and the nerves, by both 

 acting at the same time in parallel subordination. (Part II, 

 Chap. IV, sect, ii, iii.) But as the animal-sentient forces are 

 subordinate to the primary vital forces towards the close of 

 mere animal life, the animal functions cannot be produced by 

 the former, but all proper animal life must cease at the same 

 time (640). 



698. Thus then, in tbe perfect condition of the animal, all 

 its animal forces are both subordinate and co-ordinate in the 

 most wonderful manner ; whence in the system of all the forces 

 of the complete animal nature, the concurrence of merely 

 physical, mechanical, or organic forces come into consideration ; 

 as, for example, of the commingling of fluid elements, of rigidity 

 or flexibility, shock, compression, elasticity, &c., to which the 

 action of the animal forces is often incidentally, naturally, or 

 contra-naturally co-ordinate and subordinate. All animal 

 operations are naturally subordinate to impressions, through 

 which the primary vital forces are maintained in activity, but 

 only so long as animal life remains (678, 679). It depends on 

 these forces whether an animal life can exist and continue in 

 perfection, be the animal endowed with mind or not, and that 

 a thousand impressions on every part of the nervous system 

 (which act with them in a co-ordination, partly fixed by nature 

 and naturally necessary, and partly incidental) can develop at 

 one time whole series of natural and subordinate animal pro- 

 cesses, from distinct centres of animal forces (673, 687 — 689); 

 at another one such process only, but all subservient to the 

 preservation of the animal and the attainment of the ends 

 designed by nature (674,681 — 686). In animals endowed with 

 mind, the animal- sentient forces are subordinate to the primary 

 vital forces, the former being, in fact, impressions of a peculiar 

 kind (356) which act through the brain, (the centre of the 

 animal-sentient forces,) by means of the production or operation 

 of conceptions and material ideas, and which can thereby 



