THE ANIMAL AS A PRIME MOVEE. 333 



periodicities. Tesla attempts it by electrostatic action ; nature does it 

 perfectly by what seem to be chemical processes. How shall we ulti- 

 mately accomplish tbis seductive task and emulate nature while com- 

 plying with those economic laws which always control, and often 

 seriously impede, the progress of the engineer? 



Vital force and energy, the force and energy which constitute vitality, 

 which are the characteristics of animal life, may easily be shown to be 

 apart from that higher life of the soul and the intellect which consti- 

 tutes the ego, which is the individual. They reside not in the brain, or in 

 its directing power, the mind, but j>ervade the animal frame, and are 

 found active throughout the vital machine. Life, in this sense, is seen 

 in the motions of the decapitated trunk of any animal, and the reptiles 

 often live a long time with brain removed. All the functions of purely 

 animal life continue, and the taking of food, its digestion, the act of res- 

 piration, that of blood circulation, and the whole "automatic" operation 

 of the system essential to continued vitality goes on. This independ- 

 ence of the vitality of all mind is seen in the spermatozoa, which live 

 independent lives for hours, and even in some animals, as in the bats, for 

 months at a time. It is seen, very probably, in the white blood corpus- 

 cles, which, as they float in the stream of vital fluid, change form, seize 

 upon each other or upon the surfaces of their channels, and otherwise 

 exhibit independent life. In fact it may be fairly presumed that they are 

 themselves the principle of life, its method of importation into the ani- 

 mal system. But this is not all. The vital principle attaches to every 

 part, and the heart, removed from the body, continues for a time pul- 

 sating with its own independent life, the vital principle surviving long 

 enough to produce many repetitions of the natural rhythmic automatic 

 movements of the organ. In man — as intellection is entirely unessen- 

 tial to vitality, and, when unconscious, as when sleeping, when under 

 the influence of anaesthetics, when suffering from concussion or other 

 injury to the brain, the whole animal system continues in action with 

 more or less accuracy under the impulse and direction of the vital 

 power — unconscious life continues, in some cases, weeks and months. 



The probability that the vital functions are independent of the intel- 

 lectual and moral life and of brain action is also evidenced by the facts 

 that the muscle, even when excised, quivers with vitality for a time; 

 that it exudes carbonic acid when working; that it reduces lactic acid, 

 decreases the amount of compounds present soluble in water, and 

 increases the quantity of those soluble in alcohol; decreases glycogen, 

 increases sugar; and all this when the flow of blood, with its burden 

 of nutrients and of oxygen, is cut off from it. Blood entering the liv- 

 ing and working tissues is always changed in life and issues with a 

 new composition. The tissues are thus "laboratories in which mate- 

 rials abstracted from the blood are transformed." 



An excised intestine continues its peristaltic movements for an 

 appreciable time. The heart of the rabbit beats sometimes a half hour 



