322 LECTURE XIV. 



central point susceptible of anatomical demonstration 

 exist, from which the operations of the body are carried 

 on in a perceptible manner. And even if we appeal to 

 the experience which every one daily stores up around 

 him, we shall find that this is the only view which con- 

 cedes life to the individual parts of an organism, or 

 allows it to the plant the only view which enables us 

 to institute a comparison both between the collective 

 life of the developed animal and the individual life of 

 its smallest parts ; and also between the life of a plant 

 as a whole and the life of the individual parts of a 

 plant. 



The opposite view which at this very moment is mani- 

 festing itself with a certain degree of energy that 

 namely, which beholds in the nervous system the real 

 central point of life is met by this extremely great 

 difficulty, that, in the very same apparatus, in which it 

 places its unity, it again finds the same splitting up into 

 an infinite number of separate centres, which is pre- 

 sented by the rest of the body ; and that in no part of 

 the whole nervous system it can show the real central 

 point, from which, as from a seat of government, man- 

 dates are issued to all quarters. 



It may seem very convenient to say that the nervous 

 system constitutes the real unity of the body, inasmuch 

 as there is certainly no other system which enjoys such 

 a complete dissemination throughout the most various 

 peripheral and internal organs. But even this wide dis- 

 semination and the numerous connections which exist 

 between the individual parts of the nervous system, are 

 by no means calculated to show it to be the centre of all 

 organic actions. We have found in the nervous system 

 definite little cellular elements which serve as centres of 

 motion, but we do not find any single ganglion-cell in 

 which alone all movement in the end originates. The 



