82 AGE. 



once distinguished it from the dust, and that cessful in obtaining satisfaction. Or finally, if 

 not less literally than truly it has become more we return to the heart, and investigate the dimi- 

 and more " of the earth earthy." nished nervous power, admitting this diminu- 



We have now traversed as far and as mi- tion to be alone sufficient for the debility of 

 nutely as our space would allow, the organs circulation, is it possible to stop at this pheno- 

 and tissues, with their various alterations. It menon ? Nervous power is nothing but the 

 remains for us to inquire whether any one of function of nervous substance, and whether the 

 them may be considered to stand in the rela- latter belongs to the ganglionic system, or to 

 tion of cause to the others. We have already the cerebro-spinal, it may have undergone some 

 dismissed the supposition, that rigidity and con- change, or have been stimulated differently 

 cretion are productive of the other alterations, from usual. We know that the sensibility of 

 and we also partly entertained the question, the nervous system is most intimately connected 

 when treating of the relations between assimi- with Inequality of the blood, and with the force of 

 lation, the fluids, and the organs subservient to its impulse ; so that if it be true that diminished 

 circulation and digestion. But there are one or circulation is the effect of diminished innerva- 

 two additional points which must be alluded to tion, it is no less true that the latter is also the 

 in this place. result of the former. Thus it appears that in 



The decay of all the organs, concerned in this inquiry we are constantly arguing in a 

 the life of relations, has been shewn to depend circle, and it can scarcely be otherwise; the 

 on a failure in the actions which are necessary principal structures and functions of the organic 

 to their generation and maintenance ; these life commenced simultaneously ; they must.de- 

 organs may, therefore, be dismissed at once cline simultaneously : they assisted one another 

 from our inquiry into the causation or priority to grow ; they accelerate each other in the way 

 of the processes of degeneration. Yet the to dissolution. If, however, we are disposed 

 observation of the marked declension of the in some measure to qualify this remark, and 

 function of the nervous system throughout the still hold that there must be some organic 

 body, has led to the hypothesis, that the changes primary in the work of decay, all ana- 

 failure in this power is the ultimate fact in the logics must, we think, conduct us to the simple 

 history of our decline, the fact to which all the processes of assimilation and secretion, into 

 others maybe traced. This view is suggested which all the more complicated functions must 

 by Dr. Roget in his justly-admired article on be ultimately resolved ; but we can go no 

 Age, in the Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine, farther, for we know not what determines or 

 He considers the general condensation of tissue modifies the play of those subtle affinities, 

 throughout the system, to be occasioned by a motions, and contractions, in which such 

 diminished force of circulation, which allows changes consist. 



the capillaries to collapse and become obli- Some fancy that the enigma is solved by the 

 terated ; the weakened circulation this distin- hypothesis of a diminished vital power ; but 

 guished author is inclined to attribute to a we have already attempted to show that the 

 diminution of nervous power in the muscular interpretation is without value, when applied to 

 fibres of the heart; whence he infers that the the cessation of development ; the same reasons 

 declension of nervous power bears the priority render it equally useless as a key to the hiero- 

 in the chain of events. We do not feel pre- glyphics of decay. Not less vain were the 

 pared to adopt the inference ; for if we admit endeavours of those who could satisfy their 

 this failure in the innervation of the heart, (and philosophy with such a subterfuge of ignorance 

 whether its fibres are dependent on nerves for as was afforded in the theory of a sum of exci- 

 their contractility, is still an unsettled ques- tability, originally allotted to the system, and 

 tion,) are we to pass over the condition of the gradually exhausted, &c. ; as if excitability 

 blood ? Might we not say that the enfeebled could possibly mean any thing more than an 

 contractions of the heart are referable to an expression of the collective phenomena of ex- 

 alteration in the properties of its appropriate citement, or vital movement. It is exactly on 

 stimulus? It is known that this vital fluid has a par with the doctrine of decreasing vitality.* 

 been less affected by respiration than in former Some talk prettily and poetically of the vital 

 periods of our existence ; we might therefore, flame burning out, of oil gradually wasting, of 

 when searching for the earliest antecedent in fuel expended, phrases applicable enough as 

 decay, stop at the imperfect arterialization of metaphors, but absurd when propounded, as 

 the blood. But this would be, in our humble they too often are, as statements of matters 

 opinion, to pause too soon. The deficient of fact. 



oxygenation of the circulating fluid is sufficiently When philosophy has failed to discover an- 

 well known to be the effect of certain changes tecedences, she may still find a prolific source 

 in the apparatus of respiration. And to what of employment in the study of harmonies. 

 do these changes belong ? To a variety" of There is no event to be found in the relation of 

 structural, functional, and nervous phenomena, cause to those organic changes which, without 

 which, if pursued, would lead us into a maze the intervention of accidental agents, ultimately 

 of events, from which it would be impossible affix a bound to the duration of man's existence, 

 to select that which was earliest in its occur- As no cause can be elicited for the termination 

 rence. Or if we leave the respiratory system, of development, neither can we better explain 

 and follow the blood backward to the process 



of chylification, and ultimately to digestion, we * La gene de 1'influence viule s'accroit sans 

 shall, as was shewn above, be equally unsuc- cesse." Cabanis. 



