SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM 411 



within our present " range of vision," but to take the 

 required step forward into the dimness of the unexplored. 



In taking this step, and peering round us for a glimpse 

 of any definite structure, or structures, which can or may 

 perchance be utilised by this sympathetic, or life main- 

 taining, nervous system, for carrying out its fundamentally 

 important vital work, we have been struck with one out- 

 standing universally present fact, viz. the presence, in 

 overwhelming profusion, of a minute "structural ele- 

 ment," the cell, and its contained nucleus and nucleolus 

 inter-penetrating, in fact, constituting the structure of all 

 organised structures, including the systemic nervous 

 system, and variously known, according to the particular 

 texture in which it is observed, as " proper organic " 

 cell, connective tissue cell, and in fact every special cell, 

 apart from systemic nerve cell wherever cell develop- 

 ments occur throughout the manifold textures and viscera 

 of the organised body ; it may, by the processes of 

 elimination and combination, therefore, be claimed that 

 herein, and hereby, the problems of living matter are being 

 exhibited and exemplified or wrought out. This univer- 

 sally distributed minute structural element, we cannot 

 help thinking, is the required structural medium through 

 which sympathetic nerve force or vital energy is generated 

 and distributed to living tissue, or organic matter ; and 

 that, while it no doubt is inextricably bound up with the 

 more highly developed and functioned systemic nervous 

 system, it is alone responsible for the maintenance of 

 life and the supervision of the great functions of nutrition, 

 growth, and the " continuance of the species." Thus, all 

 involuntary movement, much of the so-called automatic 

 action of the more highly developed textural elements of 

 animal life, and all the purely vital activities of the animal 

 and vegetable worlds, may be claimed as absolutely due to 

 sympathetic nerve influence, generated in and radiated from 

 the true, or specific, nerve elements properly belonging to 

 that system. 



Thus, the sympathetic nervous system may be said to 

 energise all living organic substances, morphous and 

 amorphous, in proportion to their degree of develop- 

 ment, textural differentiation and vital requirements, and 



