ON LIFE AND ORGANISATION. 291 



peculiarly arranged groups of nerve-cells, connected by nerve- 

 fibres, and that its actions consist merely of polar forces 

 acting as physical currents along the nerve-fibres, and induced 

 by external agencies, or by the nerve-cells of the organ itself, 

 while it may confirm the expectations of the materialist, and 

 has apparently excluded the mind from any appropriate 

 locality — has, in fact, placed its essentially peculiar character 

 on its proper basis. 



It is important to observe that the three groups of subjects 

 into which Anatomy and Physiology have latterly become de- 

 veloped are in themselves essentially distinct, and demand for 

 their investigation fundamentally distinct methods of inquiry. 

 The chemico-physical group requires for its development the 

 experimental and mathematical methods of the chemist and 

 natural philosopher. The* morphological group can only be 

 investigated by an intellect naturally fitted for, and trained in, 

 the peculiar essentially formal method of the natural sciences. 

 The third group demands the exercise of the human self- 

 consciousness on itself, and the application of the results to 

 the elucidation of psychical manifestations generally ; it 

 demands, in fact, the altogether peculiar method of philosophy 

 proper, and of inductive psychology. 



It is, moreover, important to observe that these three 

 departments afford no immediate promise of coalescing. 

 They have come into contact, and are advancing parallel 

 to one another, but there is apparently no immediate relation 

 between the laws which respectively regulate them. The 

 nature of the connection between the chemico-physical pro- 

 perties of the living organism and its psychical manifesta- 

 tions will, in all probability, continue a mystery. But with 

 equal confidence it may be asserted that the crowning triumph 

 of physiology will 1"' the reduction of the teleological and 

 morphological principles of structure to our central law. 



Having now < - 1 1 « 1 « avoured to as< ertain the presenl position 



