THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



theory of an immortal soul without knowing the anat- 

 omy, physiology, and pathology of the brain. 



The comparative anatomy, physiology, and pathology 

 of the brain, in concurrence with the results of ontogeny 

 and phylogeny, have led us to form the sound monistic 

 principle that the human mind is a function of the 

 phronema, and that the neurona of the latter, or the 

 phronetal cells, are the real elementary organs of mental 

 life. Hence modern energism is perfectly justified in 

 regarding mental energy (in all its forms) from the same 

 point of view as all other forms of nervous energy, and in 

 fact all manifestations of energy in organic or inorganic 

 nature. Fechner's psychophysics had already shown 

 that a part of this nervous energy is measurable and 

 methematically reducible to the mechanical laws of 

 physics {Riddle, chapter vi.) Ostwald has, in his Natural 

 Philosophy, lately emphasized the fact that all the mani- 

 festations of mental life, not only sensation and will, but 

 even thought and consciousness, can be reduced to 

 nervous energy. Hence we may distinguish what are 

 called mental forces from the other expressions of 

 nervous energy as phrenetic energy. The monistic re- 

 search of Ostwald on the energy-processes in mental life 

 (chapter xviii.), consciousness (chapter xix.), and will 

 (chapter xx.) is very notable, and confirms the views I 

 advanced in the second part of the Riddle (chapters vi., 

 x., and xi.). Ostwald has, however, caused some mis- 

 understanding by insisting on substituting his idea of 

 energy for the pure notion of substance (as Spinoza 

 had formulated it), and by rejecting the other attribute 

 of substance, matter. His supposed "Refutation of 

 Materialism" is a mere attack on windmills; his ener- 

 gism (the consistent dynamism of Leibnitz, etc.) is just 

 as one-sided as its apparent opposite, the consistent 

 materialism of Democritus, Holbach, etc. The latter 

 makes matter precede force ; the former regards matter as 



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