heological lay-figure; and it becomes "the proper
study of mankind," one of the noblest and most interesting of pursuits.

The whole physiology of the nervous system, from the simplest
manifestation of its power in an insect up to the supreme act of the
human intelligence working through the brain, is full of the most
difficult yet profoundly interesting questions. The singular relations
between electricity and nerve-force, relations which it has been
attempted to interpret as meaning identity, in the face of palpable
differences, require still more extended studies. You may be interested
by Professor Faraday's statement of his opinion on the matter. "Though
I am not satisfied that the nervous fluid is only electricity, still I
think that the agent in the nervous 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
knowled