Essays on Life 



no longer see the animalcules ; but our sight 

 of the animalcules is not the microscope, 

 though it is effectuated by means of the 

 microscope, and our feeling is not the nervous 

 system, though the nervous system is the 

 instrument that enables us to feel. 



The nervous system is a device which living 

 beings have gradually perfected I believe I 

 may say quite truly through the will and 

 power which they have derived from a foun- 

 tain-head, the existence of which we can infer, 

 but which we can never apprehend. By the 

 help of this device, and in proportion as they 

 have perfected it, living beings feel ever with 

 greater definiteness, and hence formulate their 

 feelings in thought with more and more pre- 

 cision. The higher evolution of thought has 

 reacted on the nervous system, and the con- 

 sequent higher evolution of the nervous system 

 has again reacted upon thought. These things 

 are as power and desire, or supply and de- 

 mand, each one of which is continually out- 

 stripping, and being in turn outstripped by 

 the other ; but, in spite of their close connec- 

 tion and interaction, power is not desire, nor 



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