48 BORDER LINES OF KNOWLEDGE 



nervous system may be an inorganic force ; and if 

 there be reason for supposing that magnetism is a 

 higher relation of force than electricity, so it may 

 well be imagined that the nervous power may be of 

 a still more exalted character, and yet within the reach 

 of experiment." 



In connection with this statement, it is interesting to 

 refer to the experiments of Helmholtz on the rapidity 

 of transmission of the nervous actions. The rate is 

 given differently in Valentin's report of these experi- 

 ments and in that found in the Scientific Annual for 

 1858. One hundred and eighty to three hundred feet 

 per second is the rate of movement assigned for sen- 

 sation, but all such results must be very vaguely 

 approximative. Boxers, fencers, players at the Italian 

 game of mora^ " prestidigitators," and all who depend 

 for their success on rapidity of motion, know what dif- 

 ferences there are in the personal equation of move- 

 ment. 



Reflex action, the mechanical sympathy, if I may so 

 call it, of distant parts ; Instinct, which is crystallized 

 inteUigence, — an absolute law with its invariable planes 

 and angles introduced into the sphere of conscious- 

 ness, as r aphides are enclosed in the living cells of 

 plants ; Intellect, — the operation of the thinking prin- 

 ciple through material organs, with an appreciable 

 waste of tissue in every act of thought, so that our 

 clergymen's blood has more phosphates to get rid of 

 on Monday than on any other day of the week; 



