42f) BIOLOGY. 



2542. The point-tissue is in every respect the aether 

 which has become the mucus, and has in every respect 

 also to act in accordance thereunto. 



2543. The sensibility or the nervous power, viewed in 

 relation to the smallness of the body, operates instan- 

 taneously upon every spot. It is not first conducted or 

 tardily conveyed hither and thither ; but everywhere, 

 where an antagonism, a stimulus, a planet is, there also 

 is the "vis nervosa." Where a planet is, there also is 

 the solar tension. 



2544. But abstractedly or ideally considered, the ner- 

 vous force certainly requires a time to elapse for the 

 propagation of the stimulus, just as the light-tension 

 darts through the aether only in a given time. As 

 light traverses at the rate of 40,000 miles per 

 second, so must the nervous power, if it obey similar 

 laws to those of its prototype, and the length of a man 

 be estimated at 1-5 000th of a mile, glide through the 

 human body in 1-2 00, 000, 000th of a second, which, 

 " quoad" the phenomenon, cannot, of course, be observed. 



2545. Accordingly, it is theoretically certain that the 

 nervous power does not operate with absolute or uncon- 

 ditional velocity. To the validity of this statement, 

 observations of many kinds, especially those made in 

 diseases, and by astronomical computations of the strokes 

 of the chronometer, afford additional evidence. 



2546. Thus, for a stimulus impinging upon the brain, 

 to act or be transmitted from thence into the toes, 

 there elapses 1 -200,000,000th of a second. In the event 

 of disease, a retardation in the process is conceivable, 

 and may admit even of being observed. 



2. Function of the Globe-tissue. 



2547. The dense or solid form is the matter, when it 

 has died away; the function also, or the crystallization, died 

 therein, so soon as the crystal was represented. The 

 office of the bones is only to preserve the counterpoise to 

 the nerve, to supply a limit, and therefore a support to its 

 action, by which means the achievement of the latter 

 first becomes possible. 



