THE SCOPE OP MIND. 



259 



If tliis be so, the nerves, the marvellously complex, arrangeiceiits 

 of fibres slowly procUiced by living matter, are in all cerebral 

 actions directly influenced by the vital movements and other 

 changes of tlie millions of bioplasts in relation with them in the 

 cerebral convolutions ; and mental actions, like the mere move- 

 ments of an amoeba, are purely vital actions ; but vital actions of 

 different orders are dependent, as I think we must admit, upon 

 different vital endowments communicated to matter from matter 

 with similar endowments, we know not precisely how or when — 

 endowments cerfcainly not due to any properties of the atoms or 

 combinations of the atoms of which they are. composed, or to any 

 powers of which science is cognisant, or of which, as yet, we have 

 the slightest conception, powers undiscovered, and so far 

 undiscoverable, powers beyond comprehension, but the existence 

 of which we must admit, if we do not deny the facts we have 

 established by actual observation. 



Only last week I received, from one of the most eminent 

 Professors of Minute Anatomy in Germany, a recognition of the 

 results of some minute anatomical researches published in my 

 lectures at the Royal College of Physicians thirty-six years ago.* 

 The views I was then led to form have been confirmed and 

 further strengthened by subsequent observations. Unfortunately 

 over a period of many years we have been drifting towards purely 

 physical doctrines of life, but a more careful review of facts long 

 known and the results of recent investigations have led many to 

 revise the general view they had been led to entertain and to 

 admit that many facts in connection with living nature in all 

 departments justify the conclusion that vitality is a special 

 endowment which is transferable without loss or without modifica- 

 tion from living to lifeless matter. All mental actions are purely 

 vital actions occurring in living matter. 



April 12th, 1897. 



* " On the Structure and Growth of the Simple Tissues of the Human 

 Body," a course of lectures delivered at the Eoyal College of Physicians, 

 April-May, 1861 (out of print). London : John Churchill. Translated 

 into German by Professor Victor Cams Engelmann, Leipzig. 



s 2 



