THE MECHANISTIC CONCEPTION 35 



services the different non-nervous cells of the 

 organism give something more than a prompt and 

 blind obedience to the behests of the governing 

 caste of cells, for they supply the nervous structures 

 with an abundance of food and oxygen, and promptly 

 relieve the governing structures of the incubus of 

 waste products. Indeed, the body as a whole shows 

 a kind of preferential attitude toward the nervous 

 system in supplying the brain with a full amount of 

 blood and oxygen even when a weak heart or defec- 

 tive volume of blood causes other parts to suffer 

 from both lack of blood and lack of oxygen. There 

 is here apparently a kind of automatic recognition 

 of the services of consciousness to the organism. 

 But this is not all. The discriminative action is not 

 limited to foodstuffs and oxygen supply. It extends 

 to a striking protective action in respect to poisonous 

 substances. Even in a state of health the body is 

 flooded during digestion with substances very in- 

 jurious to the nervous system ; and in disease there 

 may be an acute or chronic intoxication. But 

 before the nervous system is permitted to suffer, 

 the body uses its utmost resources to destroy or 

 detoxicate or eliminate the, poisons in question. 

 Liver cells, kidney cells, and white blood cells are 

 called into action to the fullest possible extent, and 

 the body offers them up freely to sacrifice in order 

 to screen that part of its mechanism which is at once 

 the most sensitive and the least capable of making 

 a direct defense. 



