36 Natural Salvation. 



sue, whose office should be that of intercommunication 

 between the different associated cells and tracts of cells 

 which were thus assuming m6re and more diverse offices, 

 and becoming somewhat different in character, one from 

 another. It was thus and for this reason that a nervous 

 system began to be needed and hence to develop ; for the 

 plastic, living substance has always shown a faculty of 

 adapting itself to widely variant functions and modes of 

 living. 



" Certain cells began to take up the business of receiv- 

 ing sensory influences from outlying cells which were 

 hard pressed or in want of food, and of transmitting such 

 sensory influences to contiguous cells. In short, certain 

 lines of internal cells began to take upon themselves the 

 task of conveying the sensations of others from one tract 

 of the cellular mass to another tract, and of interpreting 

 the sensation received from one tract to the comprehen- 

 sion of the sentience of another tract, so that action, 

 within its sphere of action, would ensue in the second 

 tract. In addition to their own sentient economy, these 

 lines of cells in the incipient nervous system took up the 

 function of common carriers of sense, and also the o"ffice 

 of interpreters of the sensory language of one order of 

 cells — if I may borrow the figure — to the different 

 language of another order. 



" Thus, humbly, as we conclude from observation of 

 low forms of life, did the nervous system, or tissue of in- 



