Volume 1

Mind and brain, or, The correlations of consciousness and organisation : systematically investigated and applied to philosophy, mental science and practice / by Thomas Laycock.

  • Thomas Laycock
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mind and brain, or, The correlations of consciousness and organisation : systematically investigated and applied to philosophy, mental science and practice / by Thomas Laycock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    405/470 page 365
    div. ii.] BIOLOGY. 3^5 ears adapted to the same optical and acoustical condi- tions ; their reproduction generally regulated by the same general laws. * 260. If we speculate as to the future, can we doubt that these laws will be still the laws of life and organisation from age to age, as they have been from age to age, and such as they are now ? for do we not see that these laws are correlative with the primary laws and forces of matter itself, and will only cease when these come to an end ? 261. The development of varieties in plants and ani- mals, and of hereditary characteristics as to structure and functions, is due, therefore, to the law of permanent ac- tion with incessant change. Place an organism under such conditions as to light, heat, food, protection from hurtful agencies, and the like, that they differ from those amidst which the parent organism existed, and changes in adaptation to the new conditions, involving both struc - ture and function, will be developed. In other words, the vital forces will have a new direction given to them, in so far as the new conditions are operative. But this new direction is integrated in the sperm-cell and germ- cell, and continued on to the reproduced organisms, ami so on, as long as they are not modified or deflected, as it were, by great variations in external conditions.! The transmission of a predisposition to hereditary diseases, * The Unity of Worlds, p. 359. t Mr Darwin's work on the origin of Species having attracted so much attention so very lately, and having heen so fully dis- cussed, it is hardly necessary to do more than call the reader's attention to it, as an instructive and important addition to the literature of this part of the subject. The article Skeleton, by Mr Maclise, in the Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, is also worthy notice, as an interesting exposition of the operation of the law of variety in unity in the development of the archetypal skeleton.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3