THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



1. The soul of man is — objectively considered — essen- 

 tially similar to that of all other vertebrates; it is the 

 physiological action or function of the brain. 



2. Like the functions of all other organs, those of the 

 brain are effected by the cells, which make up the 

 organ. 



3. These brain-cells, which are also known as soul- 

 cells, ganglionic cells, or neurona, are real nucleated 

 cells of a very elaborate structure. 



4. The arrangement and grouping of these psychic 

 cells, the number of which runs into millions in the 

 brain of man and the other mammals, is strictly regu- 

 lated by law, and is distinguished within this highest 

 class of the vertebrates by several characteristics, which 

 can only be explained by the common origin of the 

 mammals from one primitive mammal (or pro-mammal 

 of the Triassic period). 



5. Those groups of psychic cells which we must regard 

 as the agents of the higher mental functions have their 

 origin in the fore-brain, the earliest and foremost of the 

 five embryonic brain-vesicles; they are confined to that 

 part of the surface of the fore-brain which anatomists 

 call the cortex, or gray bed, of the brain. 



6. Within the cortex we have localized a number of 

 different mental activities, or traced them to certain 

 regions; if the latter are destroyed, their functions are 

 extinguished. 



7. These regions are so distributed in the cortex that 

 one part of them is directly connected with the organs of 

 sense, and receives and elaborates the impressions from 

 these: these are the inner sense-centres, or sensoria. 



8. Between these central organs of sense lie the intel- 

 lectual or thought-organs, the instruments of presenta- 

 tion and thought, judgment and consciousness, intellect 

 and reason; they are called the thought-centres, or 

 association-centres, because the various impressions re- 



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