COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



bly retarded, as by the anaemia and feeble cir- 

 culation of disease or old age, new associations 

 of ideas become difficult or even impossible. 



To sum up this whole preliminary argu- 

 ment: the cerebrum and cerebellum are organs 

 whose function is ideation or the generation of 

 ideal feelings and thoughts. They are organs 

 made up of a tissue in which chemical changes 

 occur with unparalleled rapidity. We cannot 

 see these changes go on, but we can equally 

 well infer their general character when we have 

 examined the chemical properties and molecu- 

 lar structure of the tissue in which they occur. 

 Microscopic and chemical examination of this 

 tissue shows that these chemical changes must 

 consist in a perpetual transfer of energy from 

 one cell to another along transit lines composed 

 of nerve threads. Bear in mind that the cell 

 does not average more than one ten-thousandth 

 of an inch in diameter, and that the quantity 

 of matter contained in a transit line is almost 

 infinitely small. Now since the cerebrum and 

 cerebellum are, subjectively speaking, places 

 where ideation is continually going on ; and since 

 they are, objectively speaking, places where 

 nerve cells are continually sending undulations 

 back and forth along transit lines ; the inference 

 seems forced upon us, that the transfer of an 

 undulation from one cell to another is the ob- 

 jective accompaniment of each subjective unit 

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