OF ORGANIC NATURE 



19 



of digestion differ from those processes which are carried 

 on in the laboratory of the chemist ? Even if we take the 

 most recondite and most complex operations of animal 

 life those of the nervous system, these of late years have 

 been shown to be I do not say identical in any sense with 

 the electrical processes but this has been shown, that 

 they are in some way or other associated with them ; that 

 is to say, that every amount of nervous action is accom- 

 panied by a certain amount of electrical disturbance in the 

 particles of the nerves in which that nervous action is 

 carried on. In this way the nervous action is related to 

 electricity in the same way that heat is related to electricity ; 

 and the same sort of argument which demonstrates the 



INORGANIC WORLD. 

 Carbonic Acid. Water. Ammonia. Salines. 



VEGETABLE WORLD. 



ANIMAL WORLD. 



FIG. 3. 



two latter to be related to one another shows that the 

 nervous forces are correlated to electricity ; for the experi- 

 ments of M. Dubois Reymond and others have shown that 

 whenever a nerve is in a state of excitement, sending a 

 message to the muscles or conveying an impression to the 

 brain, there is a disturbance of the electrical condition of 

 that nerve which does not exist at other times ; and there 

 are a number of other facts and phenomena of that sort ; so 

 that we come to the broad conclusion that not only as to 

 living matter itself, but as to the forces that matter exerts, 

 there is a close relationship between the organic and the 

 inorganic world the difference between them arising from 

 the diverse combination and disposition of identical forces, 

 and not from any primary diversity, so far as we can see. 



I said just now that the Horse eventually died and 

 became converted into the same inorganic substances 



