Chapter XXI 



IMPLICATIONS OF THE TROPISTIC AND SEG- 

 MENTAL THEORIES OF NERVE ACTION 



HAVING now carried our study of the nervous sys- 

 tem far enough to enforce the conception that the 

 very essence of this system, even the wholly reflex aspect of 

 it, is its unifying, its integrating office for the organism, it 

 remains to see what the elementalist mode of reasoning can 

 do with the system in this aspect of it. 



As in the case of internal secretions, we can get at this 

 subject in no way better than through the writings of 

 Jacques Loeb. This way of approach will be seen to be the 

 more advantageous when Loeb's long-continued and dis- 

 tinguished experimental studies on some of the activities of 

 several kinds of lower animals are borne in mind. 



Neglect of the Works of Sherrmgton and Cannon by 

 Jacques Loeb 



Despite Loeb's express statement in the preface to The 

 Organism as a Whole that the volume is intended to be a 

 companion to The Comparative Physiology of the Brain, on 

 which account a discussion of the central nervous system is 

 omitted from The Organism as a Whole, the omission seems 

 very unfortunate. Much important work on the physiology 

 of the nervous system, especially on its integrating function, 

 has been done since The Comparative Physiology of the 



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