156 OF VITAL MOTION, 



impressions from the inherent life of the individual, 

 as well as from foreign sources. Nerve and blood, 

 therefore, are inseparably united in the economy, and 

 the one reacts upon the other ; and where both are 

 necessary, it is idle to say that one is more important 

 than the other. Indeed, we must not forget that the 

 seat of life is assigned by Scripture to the blood. 



All the arguments which show that the nervous 

 system cannot be regarded as the exclusive seat of 

 mind, apply equally to the other systems of the 

 organism, and thus we are led to imagine that there 

 may be something in corporeity which more closely 

 conforms to the ubiquity of the mind than we might 

 at first believe. Considerations like these do not 

 harmonize with the prejudice that the body is the 

 source and fountain of the mind a notion savouring 

 of the proneness to idolatry which has infected all 

 our faculties, and which is as fatal to the discovery 

 of truth in science as in religion. In teaching us the 

 existence of an archetypal unity in the works of nature, 

 philosophy enables the reason to comprehend how the 

 body is transformable into unity, which, if we may 

 so speak, is but a single step from spirit; and at 

 one and the same time to conquer the erroneous ideas 

 that the body is the cause or parent of the mind, 

 or that it is an inferior and degraded companion 

 to be got rid of as soon as possible. Philosophy 

 elucidates what, in a certain sense, may be said to be 



