108 DR seller's memoir OF THE 



existing in the reproductive cells derived from the first parent, or first parents of 

 every species in the organic world. 



Whatever else it may be, this psyche is a force ; for, according to the received 

 axiom in physiology, every act of life, every exercise of intelligence, every burst 

 of passion, determines some change on the affinities in the textures concerned, 

 while every change on such affinities is a source of force or motion. 



Whytt's psyche was nothing different from that now referred to — such a 

 psyche as is held essential by many modern jihysiologists, such a ps3^che as was 

 upheld with much force of argument by the present Professor of Anatomy, in a 

 discourse which he has not yet published, delivered to the Royal Medical Society 

 several years ago. 



Whytt, then, it will be found, was no follower of Stahl ; he was no animist 

 or semianimist, any more than the major part of the medical world. 



As already said, the "Essay on the Vital and other Involuntary Motions of 

 Animals," was published in 17-31. Whytt professes to found his views on expe- 

 riment and observation. He sets out with stating, that we have no reason to 

 doubt that voluntary motion is produced by the immediate energy and agency of 

 the mind, and that following the path pointed out by the ordinary simplicity of 

 nature, he has endeavoured to show that all the spontaneous motions of animals 

 are explicable upon the same principle, and owing to one general cause, lie 

 remarks that Stahi., " by extending the influence of the soul, as a rational agent, 

 over the body, a great deal too far, has been the occasion why, for many years, it 

 has been considered rather as a subject of ridicule than deserving a serious 

 answer." He cites a passage from Leibnitz, in which that philosopher supposes, 

 " that the natural motions may be owing to some impressions made on the mind, 

 although we are no ways conscious of them." "But there is no need," Whytt 

 says, " of understanding the nature of the soul, or the way in which it acts upon 

 the body, in order to know that the vital motions are oAving to it ; it is sufficient 

 if we know from experience that it feels, is endued with sensation, and has a 

 power of moving the body." "It is no sufficient objection that we are uncon- 

 scious of the interposition of the mind in the vital and other involuntary move- 

 ments ; for some, he continues, of the voluntary motions, are performed, while 

 we are insensible of the power of the will being exerted in their production." 

 * * * * " Some, indeed, have gone so far," he says, " as to deny that even 

 voluntary motions are owing to the mind as their proper cause, and have thought 

 the direction of the voluntary muscles, in order to perform the various motions 

 of the body, to be an office which its faculties are not equal to. But if these 

 motions be not owing to the mind, from what cause, external or internal, do they 

 proceed ? They cannot be owing to the body alone ; and it is in vain to attribute 

 them to any law which it may be pretended the Deity has established, since a 

 law can produce no effect of itself ; and without some agent to execute, it is only 



