Sanity and insanity / by Charles Mercier.

  • Charles Arthur Mercier
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Sanity and insanity / by Charles Mercier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    affair, and then to proceed in detail in the inverse order of that just given. That is to say, he would begin with the description of the elementary constituents, and then explain the fabrics built up by their combination. In describing the elaborate and complicated structure of the nervous system ft will be well to follow a plan similar to that which would naturally suggest itself in the case sup- posed ; and though it is unlikely that any reader will be as ignorant of the structure of the nervous system as a Bedouin of that of a house, yet, for the sake of completeness, it will be well to assume a similar vacuity of information, so as to begin at the bottom and leave nothing unexplained. To recur for a moment to the illustration, it is obvious that no satisfactory notion of the arrangement of a house could be given unless the various uses- of the rooms were indicated in explanation of their shapes, sizes, positions and fittings ; and in the same way, the shapes and positions of the various stones and beams must account for their proper- ties and uses. In other words, structure and function must be dealt with together ; and with the nervous system also this course will be found the best. If we cast a comprehensive glance over the whole of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, with a view to determine the quality or property which most conspicuously and clearly distinguishes the former from the latter, we should probably fix on the presence or absence of purposive move- ment as the most characteristic distinction. It is true that, very low down in the scale, there are rudimentary vegetable forms with considerable powers of movement that is spon- taneous, and may in some cases appear purposive ; and, in a similar position on the other side, there are sessile and stationary animal forms. It is true also that some of the higher forms of vegetable life, such as the droserae, Venus's fly-trap, and certain of the orchids, execute movements which undoubtedly subserve definite ends. These move- ments are, however, always movements of parts, often of minute parts, and never of the organism as a whole ; and
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