vous system maybe an inorganic force; and
if there be reason for supposing that magnetism is a higher relation of
force than electricity, so it may well be imagined that the nervous power
may be of a still more exalted character, and yet within the reach of
experiment."

In connection with this statement, it is interesting to refer to the
experiments of Helmholtz on the rapidity of transmission of the nervous
actions. The rate is given differently in Valentin's report of these
experiments and in that found in the "Scientific Annual" for 1858. One
hundred and eighty to three hundred feet per second is the rate of
movement assigned for sensation, but all such results must be very
vaguely approximative. Boxers, fencers, players at the Italian game of
morn, "prestidigitators," and all who depend for their success on
rapidity of motion, know what differences there are in the personal
equation of movement.

Reflex action, the mechanical sympathy, if I may so call it, of distant
parts; Instinct, which is crystallized intelligence,--an absolute law
with its invariable planes and angles introduced into the sphere of
consciousness, as raphides are inclosed in the living cells of plants;
Intellect,--the operation of the thinking principle through material
organs, with an appreciable waste of tissue in every act of thought, so
that our clergymen's blood has more phosphates to get rid of on Monday
than on any other day of the week; Will,--theoretically the absolute
determining power, practically limited in different degrees by the
varying organization of races and individuals, annulled or perverted by
different ill-understood organic changes; on all these subjects our
knowledge is in its infancy, and from the study of some of them the
interdict of the Vatican is hardly yet removed.

I must allude to one or two points in the histology and physiology of the
organs of sense. The anterior continuation of the retina beyond the ora
serrata has been a subject of much discussion. If H. Muller and Kolliker
can be relied upon, this question is settled by recognizing that a layer
of cells, continued from the retina, passes over the surface of the
zonula Zinnii, but that no proper nervous element is so prolonged
forward.

I observe that Kolliker calls the true nervous elements of the retina
"the layer of gray cerebral substance." In fact, the ganglionic
corpuscles of each eye may be considered as constituting a little brain,
connected with