v] of Chemical Physiology. 143 



"truly and thinking correctly, we must say that there is no 

 " soul residing in plants and in brute beasts. These possess 

 " only a certain vital power, which we may perhaps regard as 

 " the forerunner of a soul. The sensitive soul as it exists in 

 " man takes to itself the reins of that forerunning governing 

 " vital power, which thus melting into the archaeus submits 

 "itself to the sensitive soul." 



The sensitive soul is the prime agent of all the acts of the 

 body, the archaeus being its servant, the minor archaei also its 

 servants, and the ferments the instruments in turn of the archaei.; 

 it is this which is, among its other services, the prime cause 

 of the vital spirit which in the heart vitalizes the blood. 

 Though it carries out the sensations and movements of the 

 body by means of the brain and nerves its actual throne is in 

 the pylorus ; it resides in the orifice of the stomach. He gives 

 various reasons for this conclusion; among others the facts 

 that a great emotion is always felt at the pit of the stomach, 

 and that a man may have his head blown off by a cannon-ball 

 and yet his heart will go on beating for some time, whereas a 

 severe blow at the pit of the stomach will stop his heart and 

 take away his consciousness at the same time. 



But the throne or temple of this sensitive soul is of a 

 peculiar nature. It is in the archaeus of the stomach that the 

 soul dwells; "there it sits and there it abides all life long." 

 " Not that the sensitive soul dwells in the stomach as in a sack, 

 " in a skin, in a membrane, in a bag, in a prison or in a shell. 

 " Nor is it confined to that seat after the fashion of things shut 

 " up in a purse. In a wholly peculiar manner is it present, in a 

 "point centrally, in an atom as it were, in the middle of the 

 "thickness of a mere membrane. Though it is placed in a 

 " locality, it is nevertheless not there in a local manner. For it 

 " is a light, and there is in the universe nothing so much like it 

 " as is the light of a candle; it is present in the stomach in some 

 " such way as light is present in a burning wick. But when I 

 " call it a light, I do not mean a burning, heating light, the cause 

 "of the heat of the body, for the heat of the body is merely 

 " the product of life, of vital actions, and is not life itself." 



This sensitive soul is mortal, and in man, in his present 



