320 ON THE PRESENT STATE OF KNOWLEDGE AS TO NERVE 



appear to indicate a direct relation between nerve force and chemical 

 change, seem sufficient to prove that nerve force must henceforward 

 take its place among the other physical forces. 



This then is the present state of our knowledge of the structure 

 and functions of nerve. We have reason to believe in the existence 

 of a nervous force, which is as much the property of nerve as magne- 

 tism is of certain ores of iron ; the velocity of that force is measured ; 

 its laws are, to a certain extent, elucidated ; the structure of the 

 apparatus through which it works promises soon to be unravelled ; 

 the directions for future inquiry are limited and marked out ; the 

 solution of all problems connected with it is only a question of time. 



Science may be congratulated on these results. Time was when 

 the attempt to reduce vital phenomena to law and order was regarded 

 as little less than blasphemous : but the mechanician has proved that 

 the living body obeys the mechanical laws of ordinary matter ; the 

 chemist has demonstrated that the component atoms of living beings 

 are governed by affinities, of one nature with those which obtain in 

 the rest of the universe ; and now the physiologist, aided by the 

 physicist, has attacked the problem of nervous action — the most 

 especially \-ital of all vital phenomena — with what result has been 

 seen. And thus from the region of disorderly m^'stery, which is the 

 domain of ignorance, another vast province has been added to science, 

 the realm of orderl)- mystery. 



