C.iAP. XXX.] HIGHER CEREBRAL FUNCTIONS. 6S9 



It is commonly believed that ' living matter ' has now, or 

 has had in past times, a natural origin ; Nerve Tissues also 

 have a natural origin in or from elemental forms of ' living 

 matter'; and if Conscious States or Feelings are admitted 

 to be an appanage only of Nerve Actions, so also (as far as 

 we can ascertain) does their mode of appearance, their in- 

 crease in intensity, their modifiability by agents modifying 

 the nerve tissues, and the limitation by which they occur 

 only in association with certain nerve actions taking place in 

 the higher and most complex of an animal's Nerve Centres, 

 harmonize with the notion that they are in some way an 

 actual outcome of such Nerve Actions — -no more capable 

 of being dissevered from the physical conditions on which 

 they depend, than is Heat to be dissevered from its physi- 

 cal conditions (see p. 142). To say that Heat is a ' mode of 

 motion,' takes for granted the underlying fact that wo can- 

 not have motion except through a something which moves. 

 Heat has no abstract and isolated existence as an entity. 

 Consciousness also is a result of a something which moves. 

 But just as it is the very material motions on which Heat 

 depends which do the work ascribed to Heat, so do the 

 very material motions on which Consciousness or Feeling 

 depends, do the work which we ascribe to Feeling. These 

 particular motions, be it remarked, enter as components 

 into the ' circuit of motions ' constituting Nerve Actions, 

 and may, therefore, easily co-operate as real motors. 

 Hence it is that States of Feeling may, in very truth, 

 and in accordance with popular belief, react upon Nerve 

 Tissues so as to alter the molecular motions taking place 

 therein. Feelings, whether purely personal or of the 

 moral order, thus have, as they seem to have, an indubi- 

 table effect in modifying our Intellectual Operations, our 

 Volitions, or our Movements. 



To show how these particular motions in Nerve Tissue 



