Philosophy of Botany. 2 '79' 



have within the last twenty-five years reached important re- 

 sults. The differentiation and localization of the motoiy,. 

 sensitive, and intellectual functions has been determined. It 

 is estimated that the gray or cortical substance contains frcm: 

 500 to 1,000 millions of ganglia or cells, each of which -emits- 

 from 5 to 10 nerve fibers to receive external impressions and 

 to intercommunicate them. Thus we see a field of actijn 

 which the most vivid fantasy could not survey. 



I venture, with some diffidence in my ability to essay if. a. 

 short sketch the mechanism which combined with the physico- 

 chemical processes effects those cerebral functions which ive 

 comprehend as psychical activities, consciousness and reason. 



The speculative or metaphysical procedure has from the re- 

 motest days to this time always been attempted in two totally 

 different and opposite ways. The dualistic, accepting two- 

 elements, body and soul, whereby the body presides over the 

 vegetative and animal functions and the soul exercises the 

 hegemony over all the intellectual faculties, retaining its self- 

 consciousness and permanence after its separation from the 

 body by death. 



The other, or monistic, view declares for the inseparable 

 unity of both, and, repudiating the intrusion of dogmatic ele- 

 ments as parts of argumentation, defends its position by means, 

 of the exact natural sciences, facts sustained by anatomical 

 dissection, the microscope, and psychological experiment. 



From this source we know that tlie faculty to think and to 

 move depends upon the intact state of nervous cells and fibers, 

 and that the entire psychology is identical with the anatomy 

 and physiology of the nervous system. 



We know now with considerable detail how the contact o£ 

 the sensual organs with the outer world produces specific sense 

 activities, to be conducted along linear paths, the nerves and 

 nerve fibers and fibrils to the brain, in whose different depart- 

 ments the peripheral perceptions are elaborated into intel- 

 lectual concepts. 



But few years ago it was believed that nerve fibers emitted 

 from the great hemispheres would, in uninterrupted continuity, 

 extend to the outmost limits of the body, comparing the mind 

 apparatus with an immense central station of a telephone sys- 



