Evolution of Mind. 267 



This chemical action generates energy which 

 charges all the muscular and nervous machinery of 

 the body with what is virtually life. Then, assuming 

 that the nervous system is the special electrical system 

 of the body, the nerves are at the same time charged 

 with natural or human electricity, just as a voltaic cell 

 charges all the telegraph wires in connection with it. 



Further, as man (after years of strenuous endeavour 

 and numberless failures) forms a number of magnetic 

 cells into a telegraph system and conveys all the 

 connecting wires into an office, where, by a break in 

 the circuit and so forming poles, he can read the 

 messages sent along the wires ; so incessant selection 

 and development has, through centuries of failures, 

 automatically arranged the human brain into such 

 an electric stop-office for the use of the body, so 

 that news from the outside world is automatically 

 conveyed to us. Nerves from all the organs of the 

 body are concentrated dually in special parts on each 

 side of the brain. The brain is divided into two 

 cerebral hemispheres which are the poles of the 

 electrical system, the necessary break in the circuit 

 being formed by the separation of the two hemis- 

 pheres themselves. Each cerebral hemisphere con- 

 tains millions of cells, each probably with its counter 

 or reciprocating cell or pole in the opposed hemisphere. 

 Hence, if the nerves are continuously charged with 

 energy or electricity from the chemical action in our 

 stomach, there must be a continuous discharge of 

 electricity in the brain, and a consequent continuous 



