198 The Unity of the Organism 



supposed. 



For one thing the results seemed to show that the sym- 

 pathetic nervous system shares with the central system 

 more profoundly than had been known before, in determin- 

 ing life processes. 



The conclusions which flow with apparent certainty from 

 the observations are well summed up in the following: "Un- 

 doubtedly all such activities [of visceral life] may subsist 

 and function in a comparatively normal fashion after re- 

 moval of all spinal influence. The office of the spinal sys- 

 tem in regard to the visceral life seems to consist in en- 

 dowing these functions with greater energy, and in con- 

 ferring greater stability and more solid equilibrium on the 

 general constitution of the animal." ^^ 



The reader will hardly fail to recall, on reading this state- 

 ment about the function of the mammalian spinal cord, 

 Loeb's statement, quoted some pages back, about the nor- 

 malizing function of the Nereis brain. "Stabilizing" the 

 dog's function means much the same as "normalizing" the 

 annelid's functions. Nor should the reader neglect to notice 

 that he might substitute the word "integratedness" for 

 "equilibrium" in the quotation without change in the es- 

 sential meaning of the sentence. 



Critique of the Elementalist Attempt to Interpret Tropistic 

 and Segmental Theories of the Function of the 



Nervous System 



We now return to the central point of the present sub- 

 topic, namely that of what a genuine bio-elementalist is able 

 to do when confronted by the facts in possession of modern 

 physiology bearing on the tropistic and segmental theories 

 of the nervous system. 



First we are compelled by the evidence to recognize the 

 general soundness of the doctrines. Second, we recognize 



