Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/203

 furnishes the means whereby nervous action, so akin to electrical action, produces muscular contraction and action, thus giving the mind control and direction of the physical senses and organs.

That the ether enters to constitute the invisible nervous fluid is not only reasonably concluded from the way the body appropriates in general the substances of nature for its construction, but it is quite clearly demonstrated. Says Huxley in commenting upon the experiments of M. Dubois Reymond and others, "Every amount of nervous action is accompanied by a certain amount of electrical disturbance in the particles of the nerves in which that nervous action is carried on. In this way the nervous action is related to electricity in the same way that heat is related to electricity; and the same sort of argument which demonstrates the two latter to be related to one another, shows that the nervous forces are correlated to electricity." Science is continually adding new proofs of this. In fact that electricity enters into the nervous organization is so well known among scientists, that a mere statement of the fact might suffice for the purpose here. Spencer