242 NATURE STUDIES. 



recall it; while it certainly cannot reflect as we 

 can about abstract ideas, or even about things which 

 do not concern its immediately present needs and 

 actions. 



Indeed, the whole nervous system of the beetle is 

 so loosely bound together so little co-ordinated, as 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer puts it that it can hardly be 

 said to possess any distinct voluntary capacity, or 

 any strongly-marked personality at all. In the case 

 of man and the other higher animals, almost the 

 whole nervous system is Abound up with the brain, 

 sending messages up to it, and receiving orders from 

 it in return, so that a single great nervous centre 

 governs all our movements, and ensures that uni- 

 formity of action without which the complicated 

 activities of human life would be impossible. The 

 only nerves (worth mentioning) in the human body 

 which are not thus under the control of the brain, are 

 those of the heart and other internal organs; and 

 over these parts, as everybody knows, we have not 

 any voluntary power. But all our limbs and muscles 

 are moved in accordance with impulses sent down 

 from the brain, so that, for example, when I have 

 made up my mind to send a telegram to a friend, my 

 legs take me duly to the telegraph office, my hand 

 writes the proper message, and my tongue undertakes 

 the necessary arrangements with the clerk. But in 

 the insect's body there is no such regular subordina- 

 tion of all the parts composing the nervous system to 

 a single central organ or head-office. The largest 



