464 



CHAPTER V. 



EXAMINATION OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND 

 CONSEQUENT SPECULATIONS. 



Sect. 1. The Examination of the Nervous System. 



IT is hardly necessary to illustrate by further 

 examples the manner in which anatomical ob- 

 servation has produced conjectural and hypothetical 

 attempts to connect structure and action with some 

 higher principle, of a more peculiarly physiological 

 kind. But it may still be instructive to notice a 

 case in which the principle, which is thus brought 

 into view, is far more completely elevated above 

 the domain of matter and mechanism than in those 

 we have yet considered ; a case where we have not 

 only irritation, but sensation; not only life, but 

 consciousness and will. A part of science in which 

 such suggestions present themselves, brings us, in a 

 very striking manner, to the passage from the phy- 

 sical to the hyperphysical sciences. 



We have seen already (p. 428), that Galen and 

 his predecessors had satisfied themselves that the 

 nerves are the channels of perception; a doctrine 

 which had been distinctly taught by Herophilus 1 in 

 the Alexandrian school. Herophilus, however, still 

 1 Spr. i. 534. 



