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concurrently in constant interaction within the body; every portion of the body is subject to more or less rapid change; and special members of the body and the whole body are set in motion by external stimuli. Thus motion becomes a striking feature of animal life, and different forms of motion distinguishing features. The nervous system is the means at once of the inside organizing process, and also of the extended interaction with the environment which accompanies it. A general knowledge of the nervous system, .through which all these forms of activity grow up together, is necessary as a means of approaching the highest phase of development, that of voluntary action. Vital action is so closely united with the secondary forms of voluntary effort known as executive volitions, that we shall not be able to understand these without some general apprehension of the mechanism they employ, and its methods of play under simple, vital forces.

Lesson 87 - 2. Life as plastic power - p.372

2. Life we hold to be a superior, plastic power, working pervasively, yet under one harmonious plan or impulse in all parts of the living body. This life, this pre-eminent, peculiar and inscrutable power, whether we regard it as the immediate presence of the Divine hand, or as a distinct existence, is the maker the indispensable architect of that most strange and marvelous of structures, a living thing; be it plant, shrub, tree, insect, bird, beast, or man. Molecular, chemical, electric, thermal forces are the means employed; but these as much fail to explain the form and relations of the final product, the wonderful manner of its putting up and repair, as do the stone, mortar and timber, the digging, the hewing, and the heaving, the plan and proportions of a cathedral. The exact thing to be accounted for is that on which these blind forces cast no light. How came they to work in these marvelous relations to each other; how to institute these unusual and strange conditions