Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/275

 tivity, which it has no power to do, but to supply material in the proper condition to be used by the vital forces, in structure, repair, and use. The blood furnishes material, warmth, and chemical conditions essential to the operation of vital forces, but in the first instance the vital forces give to the organs of the body the forces essential to prepare suitable supplies and to convey them to the places of need. This the vital force can do because the nerve fluids, the brain, the blood, and the muscles are themselves organisms that receive the vital force and appropriate it on their respective planes to the accomplishment of their individual offices. It is this derived force, this inflowing life-force that gives direction in the body, and that in forming the body makes use of attraction, chemical affinity, osmosis, capillarity, and other material forces. The result is not that "the evolution of thought and emotion varies with the supply of blood to the brain," but the inverse; that thought and emotion communicate activity to the brain whereby more vital force is centered there, and greater activity of the brain-particles ensues, more corpuscles are used, and more blood is required. It is not a material force freed from matter by chemical change that travels from the stomach to the brain, is converted into a vital force, descends to the muscles, and lifts a thou-