COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



of the cerebral arteries. Now the need for com- 

 plete continuity of molecular equilibrium, both 

 in the white and in the gray tissue, is a fact of 

 no meaning unless a molecular rearrangement is 

 an indispensable accompaniment of each change 

 in consciousness. 



Secondly j the presence of a certain amount of 

 nutritive material in the cerebral blood-vessels 

 is essential to every change in consciousness ; 

 and upon the quantity of material present de- 

 pends, within certain limits, the rapidity of the 

 changes. While rapid loss of blood causes faint- 

 ing, or total stoppage of conscious changes, it is 

 also true that lowered nutrition, implying defi- 

 ciency of blood, retards the rate and interferes 

 with the complication of mental processes. In 

 a state of extreme anaemia not only does think- 

 ing go on slowly, but the manifold compound- 

 ing and recompounding of conscious changes, 

 which is implied in elaborate quantitative rea- 

 soning, cannot go on at all. Now the need 

 for the constant presence of nutritive material 

 is a meaningless fact unless each change in 

 consciousness is dependent upon a molecular 

 transfer between the nutritive material and the 

 nerve-substance. 



Thirdly, the maintenance of conscious changes 

 requires the presence of certain particular ma- 

 terials in the blood, and the absence, in any 

 save the smallest proportions, of certain other 



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