2372. The arms are a thorax, consisting quite purely of bone and muscle, and represented as isolated or detached from the viscus, or the lung; on this depends their nobility, or, in other words, upon what is vegetative having been wholly left behind.
2373. The arms, when clasped together by the fingers, are a thorax without viscera, without heart and lungs; they are destined to inclose a whole body in the embrace.
2374. By an embrace that which is embraced has been made our viscus; it has been adopted as our animal heart, and as our animal vital organ—or lung. The embrace has an exalted physiological signification, and precisely that which it unconsciously possesses in the state of pure love. Nature always thinks more nobly than we do. We follow blindfold her beautiful regulations, and she rejoices in the sport.
2375. As the fundamental number of the branchiæ is five, so also must the limbs represent five ribs; they split into five digits or fingers. The feet of the Crustacea and Insects generally do not correspond to our feet; but to our fingers. The lower organized animals have onlytoes, no feet. The five thoracic feet of the crab correspond to our fingers; its five abdominal feet to our toes.
2376. There are three limbs in accordance with the three totalities of the body, truncal, sexual, and cephalic members, or arms, feet, and jaws.
2377. The members of the body or trunk belong to the thorax, because it is the respiratory system. The abdomen has no members; what have been so-called, are in their signification sexual limbs.
2378. Had the animal no sex, it would have no posterior limbs.
2379. As the three lower cervical and the two upper dorsal vertebræ belong to the arms, so also they appear to commence with five ribs, but then to become arrested, and again emerge to perfection in the digits.
2380. The shoulder appears to consist of five ribs, but this does not as yet admit of being clearly pointed out. Meanwhile, it is certain that the scapula, acromion, and coracoid are particular bones, to which may be added the clavicle.
2381. The middle finger is the elongated radius, and is therefore the longest or radial digit. It is that which is persistent, if only one finger has been left, as in the horse. The ring-finger is the ulnar finger. It is that which, along with the former, appears in the bi-ungulate animals; the spurious or dew-claws are the auricular and index-finger; the thumb is the last ramification, is therefore always arrested, and frequently present only as a wart-like excrescence or papilla.
2382. All animals, which have true digits, are furnished with five of them, more or less completely developed. If what has been called the metacarpal bone of the thumb be numbered, which it must, as a digital articulation or phalanx, every finger has thus one carpal bone, and each bone of the fore arm also one.
2383. The sexual members or feet correspond in all their pieces to the arms: the pelvis is the shoulder repeated; and certainly, the iliac bone is equivalent to the scapula, the ischium to the coracoid process, theos pubis to the acromion, the marsupial bone to the clavicle.
Cephalic Members.
2384. Both pairs of limbs are repeated in the head, because in it the whole trunk is repeated; the upper jaw corresponds to the arms, the lower jaw to the feet. Each jaw consists of two members, which are ankylosed in the higher animals at their point of meeting or in front, but in Fishes are partly, and in Insects completely, separated.
2385. Each jaw consists of the same bony divisions as the limbs of the trunk, of scapula, humerus, and fore-arm; or of pelvis, femur, and tibia. This is easily to be demonstrated in Birds, Reptiles, and Fishes.
2386. The digits are repeated in the teeth. The teeth are claws.
2387. There are therefore five kinds of teeth, which correspond to the five digits. The thumb becomes the canine tooth; the index-finger the false molars; the middle finger the laniary molar, the ring-finger the second, and the little finger the third true molar tooth.
2388. The intermaxillary with its incisor teeth belongs, as well as the palatal bones, to the pharynx; and is a visceral or intestinal maxilla.
2389. The lower animals therefore, as the Fishes, have almost nothing but intermaxillary and palatal teeth. They act principally upon the lingual teeth. The reptiles have still palatal teeth, which higher up in the vertebrate series disappear.
Symmetry.
2390. As the cervical ribs have nothing more to inclose, have no longer to respire, but only to move; their symmetrical development is thus undelayed. The symmetry is at first wholly attained by the act of opening or apertion.
2391. The limbs are the most symmetrical organs. They are symmetrical in each smallest part, and theseparts again assume a symmetrical arrangement in regard to each other. They are the ideal of symmetry.
2392. They are, however, the free living symmetry. They can create by their motions symmetrical forms. The symmetry consists chiefly in, and has been produced only by, the motion.
2393. The symmetry of the motion is the most exalted, for it is that which is endowed with life. The symmetry of the form is that which is dead.
2394. The symmetry of the form appertains to inorganic nature, the symmetry of the motion is the property of animals.
2395. Dancing and acting are the highest organic symmetrical movements, and also the highest symmetries. They are the symmetry of the motor members, wrought by motion.
2396. Music is a much higher symmetry of motion.
2397. Speech is the highest spiritual symmetry; it is the dance and histrionism of the spirit or mind.
2.Muscular Organs.
2398. The muscles are everywhere attached to the bones, and help to form with them the same set of organs.
2399. The muscles of the larynx are therefore the antetypes of the costal muscles, these of the member-muscles, and the dorsal muscles of the scapular and pelvic muscles.
2400. The muscles of the limbs are found in a state of treble repetition. That the muscles of the arm and leg are of one kind, admits of being demonstrated with tolerable facility. But it is necessary, that in doing this regard be paid to the ligaments.
2401. The ligaments are only stunted muscles. Without bringing them into account, the muscular system does not admit of being explained and understood.
2402. The crural muscles are again found in the lower jaw.
2403. The brachial muscles, on the upper jaw or face.
2404. The movements of the facial muscles correspond to those of the limb-muscles. Upon this depends the interpretation of dumb-show, or the art of physiognomy.
3.Nervous Organs.
2405. Nervous organs are liberations of individual parts of the nervous system, and their endowment with a peculiar function or sensation.
2406. The liberations of the nerves are combinations with the other anatomical systems at the spot where they have attained their highest evolution.
2407. Each system, however, has its peculiar process. Through the reception or adoption of the systems into the nervous system, a peculiar sensation must therefore originate.
2408. Peculiar sensations are sensations of sense.
2409. The combinations of the anatomical systems with the nervous system, whereby the former have been subordinated to the latter, are consequentlysensorial organs, or organs of sense.
2410. In the sensorial organs the processes of the several systems attain unto sensation. They are brains of the anatomical systems.
2411. There are as many senses as there are different anatomical systems, and consequently senses belonging to vegetative and animal life.
2412. The number of vegetative systems is 3; the vascular, intestinal, and pulmonary system.
2413. The most complete combination of the vascular with the nervous system is the integument—constituting the tegumentary sense, orsense of feeling.
2414. The most complete combination of the intestinal system with the nerves is the tongue—intestinal orgustatory sense.
2415. The most complete combination of the lungs with the nerves is the nose—pulmonary orolfactory sense.
2416. Among the three animal systems, bones andmuscles produce, from their association, only one action—the motion. The most complete and perfect combination of the motor system with the nerves, is in the ear—osseo-muscular orauditory sense.
2417. The nervous system has become a self-substantial organ in the eye—the nervous, orvisual sense.
2418. There are therefore only 5 senses; they are none other than repetitions of the anatomical systems in the sensation; they are the highest developments which are possible in the lower systems, being the blossoms or heads of such systems.
2419. These systems are, however, processes of the universe taken up into the organization. In its organs of sense, the processes of the universe are thus felt or perceived. The senses are world-organs, and are therefore placed in contact with the world, or occupy an outward position.
2420. The vascular system is the nutritive system. In it the blood coagulates into the solid parts of the body. The feeling-sense is therefore sensible of the nutrition or rigidifying process of the body. Now, the Solid of the planet is the earth. The sense of feeling perceives therefore opposition—it is anearth-sense.
2421. The function of the intestinal canal is digestion. In taste, the process of digestion is felt. But digestion is a solvent, a hydrapoietic process; in taste the water is therefore felt—it is thewater-sense.
2422. Respiration is a process of oxydation. In smell the respiratory process is felt. Oxydation is, however, an air-process—it isair-sense. Thus do the three vegetative senses feel the elements of the planet—areplanetary senses.
2423. The animal systems are symbols of the æther, of the gravity with the heat or motion, and of the light.
2424. The motion is only moved matter, and thus a combination of the muscular and osseous system. The ear therefore perceives the motion of the primary matter, or the atomic motion—it isgravity-sense,æther-sense.
2425. The light is the tension-process of the æther; tosee, is therefore in an organism to emit light or shine—light-sense.
2426. The signification of the senses is twofold; they are anatomicalsystemswhich have become nerves, and on that account alsoelementsthat have attained unto sensation.
1. Sense of feeling—vascular, tegumentary, nutritive sense,earth-sense.
2. Gustatory sense—intestinal, digestive sense,water-sense.
3. Olfactory sense—pulmonic, respiratory sense,air-sense.
4. Auditory sense—osseo-muscular, motor sense,æther-sense.
Matter-Sense.
5. Visual sense—nervous, tension-sense,light-sense.
2427. The sensorial organs are not simply combinations of the anatomical systems with the nerves, but also with the bones and muscles. These have been entirely taken up into the signification of the animal body.
2428. Each sense has its own nervous, osseous, and muscular system.
2429. The sense of feeling has its bones and muscles in the limbs.
2430. The sense of taste, its bones in the lingual bone, its muscles in and upon the tongue.
2431. The sense of smell, its bones in the nasal bones, its muscles being frequently very much developed in the snout or proboscis.
2432. The sense of hearing, its bones in the auditory ossicles, its muscles in the auditory conch.
2433. The sense of sight, its bones in a ring surrounding the sclerotic coat and in the eyelids, its muscles in the ocular muscles.
2434. Besides the proper sensorial nerves, each organ of sense is provided with nerves for the motor system and for the vegetative systems, especially those of secretion.
2435. The integument has, besides the nerves of the tactile papillæ, vascular and motor nerves.
2436. The tongue is supplied with nerves of motion and digestion, and has therefore three pairs of nerves.
2437. The nose receives motor and respiratory nerves from the fifth pair.
2438. The ear has likewise three kinds of nerves; the auditory nerves, facial nerves, and a branch from the fifth pair, not to mention those that are distributed to the auditory conch.
2439. The eye has, in addition to its wholly special motor nerves, a number of others, which superintend its vegetative systems, such as the iris and the secretions of the humours.
a. VEGETATIVE SENSES.
1.Vascular Senses.
2440. All senses are only conditionated by the peripheric nervous mass because they are combinations of the nervous mass with the blossoms of the inferior systems.
2441. The most general system of the animal is the vascular system, which is represented externally as integument. The animal was in the commencement nothing but integument, and this again naught but vascular and nervous mass, so that the whole integument was thus an organ of sensation.
2442. Through the integument the animal becomes an individual, or a something distinct from the aggregate of nature. Now as the integument is principally the organ of sensation, so is the primary sensation that act, by which the animal is distinguished from nature. The tegumentary sense is the sense ofdistinction, of limitation.
2443. Through the act of discriminating, a something foreign or extraneous is granted us. The immediate perception of what is extraneous, is called feeling. Tegumentary sense issense of feeling.
2444. The feeling-sense is the first in the animal.
2445. It is that which is general in the animal.
2446. The whole animal is naught but a sense of feeling.
2447. Out of the feeling-sense all other senses must be developed, just as all other systems are developed out of the tegumentary formation.
Organs of Touch.
2448. Where, however, the skin has attained to a higher grade of formation, or where it has combined with higher systems, there also will the sense of feeling be supplied by the former.
2449. The combination of the integument with the osseous and muscular system, and with a nervous system of its own, takes place in the limbs. Since the motor members are only a liberated thorax, so no other sense can belong to them but that of feeling, which the thorax previously possessed.
2450. But these sensitive organs are moved, and therefore voluntary organs, digits, or former branchiæ. Moveable or voluntary organs of feeling are calledtactile organs. The feeling of the motor members is touch.
2451. The highest feeling necessarily consists in touching, because it has in that become active, while before it was only passive.
2452. In the situation of the sensitive papillæ, the origin of the digits from respiratory organs admits of being still recognized. They are arranged in spiral lines upon the points of the fingers.
2453. The sexual organs belong as tegumentary developments to the sense of feeling. There is no special sexual sense.
2.Intestinal Sense.
2454. Opposite to the general feeling or the integument, the function of the intestine is evolved. In the trunk it is simply busied with its own processes; when it first mounts or ascends into the head, it becomes subordinated to the nervous action.
2455. The combination of the intestine with bones, muscles and peculiar nerves, is presented in the tongue. This is the sensitive organ of the intestine.
2456. The tongue is a feeling-sense in water, just as the skin was that in the air. For it is the blossom of the digestive process. To the tongue therefore belongs the digestive or water-organ of the mouth, which is constituted by the salivary glands.
2457. The sensation of what is fluid in its chemical relations is calledtaste. Gustation is not a peculiar process, but obviously only the nervous commencement of the digestive process. On that account also the gustatory sense still lies concealed in a cavity. The whole buccal or oral cavity still belongs to the sense of taste.
2458. As in the sense of feeling the motor system still predominates, so does it also in the tongue, as being the second sense, which has been liberated from the plant. The nervous mass is in this sense not preponderant over the muscular and bony mass.
2459. The tongue is still to be regarded as an organ of touch, though one in which the flesh or muscle has gained a mastery over the bones, while in the true tactile organ the bones determine the principal forms and functions. The tongue is a nervous organ in the muscle, the hand is such in the bone.
2460. The hyoid or lingual bone is none other than the first branchial arch, and consists pretty nearly of the same pieces as the arm.
2461. Compound lingual bones, such as occur in many Reptiles, have originated from coalescence of several branchial arches.
2462. Like the limbs, so is the tongue originally a double organ. In most Reptiles it is longitudinally fissured. Such animals have usually also a double penis. In all animals the tongue is divided into two moieties, which are only connate by means of suture. The penis also consists of two connate penes.
2463. As in the tegumentary sense, the nerves could not be peculiar or special in kind, but took their originfrom all parts, and particularly from the spinal cord, so also is this the case with the intestinal sense, which is still only an internal tegumentary sense. The lingual nerves proceed from several situations, and that too from the upper part of the spinal cord.
2464. The oral cavity also consists, properly speaking, of mere tactile organs, which have been repeated in the head. Thus, there are tactile organs which are subservient to the gustatory sense, in biting, chewing, and swallowing.
2465. The lips are tactile organs upon the threshold or brink, as it were, of the gustatory sense.
2466. In the oral cavity, however, the glands of the intestinal canal are repeated. The salivary glands secrete fluid, like the pancreatic glands.
2467. The sense of feeling is present in all animals. They are only animals by virtue of it; but the sense of taste appears to be first formed at a later period, after the intestine has separated from the integument; in the animals that have no intestine, its existence is problematical, and even in Fishes and Birds it is but poorly developed.
3.Pulmonic or Lung-sense.
2468. When the respiratory organ is hoisted up into the head, and there becomes an organ of sensation, it passes over into a sense.
2469. That the nose is the thorax, together with its viscera, repeated in the head, has been already remarked. The many convolutions of the turbinated or olfactory bones correspond to the ramifications of the trachea; the nasal cartilages to the tracheal or laryngeal rings; the olfactory membrane to the pulmonic vesicles.
2470. The process of the lungs repeated in the head becomes smell, like that of the intestine became taste. The olfactory sense is the highest blossom of the arteriose vascular system or the branchial net. On this account the olfactory membrane is the most delicate, and the densest tissue of arteries and veins.
2471. The nose is related to the mouth, as the thoracic is to the abdominal cavity; the olfactory membrane to the tongue, as the lung is to the stomach. It is a cephalo-thorax. The nose is not therefore so completely closed as the mouth, but is opened through the two most anterior air-holes or spiracula. The nasal apertures or nostrils are the last persistent remnants of the spiracula, after all those upon the sides of the body have been closed up.
2472. It is the last organ of sense, which has been evolved from the trunk. It is therefore nobler than the two others, and has also a nobler object, the air.
2473. The nerves of the olfactory organ are peculiar to it, and are encephalic nerves. As the sense of smell is the pulmonic or arteriose sense; so also does the arteriose substance of the brain combine with this organ. The olfactory nerves consist of cineritious or gray substance, and are only prolongations thereof.
2474. This is the only phenomenon of the kind met with among all nerves, but it is commensurate with the character or signification of this organ. A sensible pulmonary organ can only have arteriose nerves. As the liver is throughout venous, so is the nose throughout arteriose in quality.
b. ANIMAL SENSES.
2475. It now only remains for us to consider the motor and the sensitive system proper upon their highest stage of development. The motor system, when represented in the nervous system, is a peculiar organ of sensation, as is likewise the nervous system itself upon attaining its highest state of development.
4.Osseo-Muscular Sense.
2476. The lowest condition of the motor system is the limbs, which represent no peculiar sense, but only the sense of feeling refined or set in motion. This motor system ascends into the head, and there no longer exercises its motive powers in prehension, progression, &c., butsolely unto sensation. Now, a system, which converts its function into that of sensation, is a sense.
2477. The sensorial organ, which simply through motion, or a resistance presented to that of the atoms, produces sensation, or wherein the motion as such is felt, is theEar.
2478. The ear is none other than the ultimate development of the bone and muscle, when they are brought under the direct dominion of the nerves.
2479. The auditory ossicles are the limbs subtilized or refined in character. They have joints, are provided with muscles, and move exactly like the limbs. It may be said; that the stapes is the scapula, the incus the humerus, the malleus the fore arm, and the concha with its cartilages, the hand with its digits.
2480. The ear, like the bulk of the limbs, has originated from branchiæ. In Fishes, the auditory ossicles have degenerated into the branchial opercula.
2481. The ear-trumpet (or Eustachian tube), which opens into the mouth, is the internal branchial aperture.
2482. The motor system, however, belongs to the trunk, whose viscera are repeated also in the ear, or in a cavity which has been called its labyrinth. The three semicircular canals appear to correspond to the intestine, the cochlea to the trachea.
2483. The ear has not only a nerve, but likewise a brain, of its own.
2484. The cerebellum is the auditory brain, and from it the acoustic nerves take their rise. For, since the ear is the sense of the whole motor system, and consequently of half the animal, it inevitably follows, that an appropriate or special nervous mass must be developed for it, just as the myelon or spinal chord has been for the trunk. An organ, which is so constantly active, must necessarily have a large nervous mass. The cerebellum is consequently not a brain in the general sense, but one which is wholly individualized. It participates in the motion, which, as sound, is transmitted to the animal.
2485. By its signification as well as by its ownbrain, the ear gives us to recognize its elevated rank above the other senses.
2486. The ear must stand in relation with the body's limbs.
2487. The ears first make their appearance in animals, associated with a tolerable development of the limbs. With the exception of a few instances, the ears first become apparent in Fishes, being in them at least furnished for the first time with true ossicles and semicircular canals. The ear, like the limbs, with which it constantly maintains a parallel course, is very slowly perfected. In the Fishes which have only fins (as instruments of locomotion) it is wholly concealed within the cranial bones; in the Reptiles it emerges or is more exposed to view; but for the first time in Birds and Mammalia where, generally speaking, the limbs also are first perfected, it attains its completion; in them only is the cochlea fully developed, and an auditory meatus which opens externally.
5.Nervous Sense.
2488. In all lower organs, and even in the senses which have hitherto been commented upon, the nervous system was not the chief, but only the co-ordinate agent. It has only by its conjunction with, assisted in elevating the character of, other systems, so that their material might be converted into spiritual processes. But the nervous is also a self-substantial system, and must therefore attain likewise a free development.
2489. With the highest organs of the nervous system, the relation which has been hitherto maintained, must be reversed. The inferior systems will now be the co-ordinate agents.
2490. The highest nervous organ can only possess that function, which is originally peculiar to the nervous system, i. e. the most delicate polarization, the light-function. There is theLight-sense.
2491. The eye is nothing but a nervous system represented in a state of purest organization, just as the ear was the purest system of motion.
2492. In the eye it is the brain itself, which expands, in order to turn unto or face the light.
2493. As the ear has its own brain, so also has the eye; the cerebrum is the optic brain. (Ed. 1st, 1811. §. 2317.) This is the rationale of our having two brains.
2494. Now the cortical or gray substance has been already diverted from the cerebrum to supply the olfactory sense. Its medullary or white substance remains for the eye. The medullary brain is the optic brain. The medullary is consequently the nobler part of the nervous system.
2495. The brain's medulla is homologous to the light; its exterior or cortical portion is related to the material light, the air.
2496. The eye is only a medullary brain, posited peripherically and in a nervous manner. The brain itself has elongated and become integument.
2497. The visual membrane (or retina) is the cerebral substance cystically expanded. It must be regarded as being originally a closed bladder or cyst. (Ed. 1st, 1811. §. 2321.)
2498. The optic nerve is itself hollow, and unites the cerebral with the orbitar cavity.
2499. The vitreous body, which fills out the cyst of the retina, is the cerebral medulla which has become transparent, or a semi-fluid albuminous mass.
2500. The sclerotic coat of the eye is the continuation of the brain's dura mater.
2501. The vascular or choroid coat of the eye is the continuation of the encephalic pia mater. All parts of the brain have been consequently continued into the eye.
2502. Now, what the brain is for the earthly body, that also must it be for the eye. The eye is not simply brain, but a representation also of the whole body. The brain can, forsooth, be nowhere without its body; if therefore it is elevated into the eye, so also must it take up and elevate the body along with itself.
2503. The eye is an entire body, a whole animal.Again, in the next place, the animal systems, such as limbs, thorax and abdomen, have been most distinctly represented in it. The light is seized, respired, digested, and hence felt by the eye.
2504. As the light represents chaotically the whole of nature, but this material nature enters completely into the animal through the processes of the trunk, so does the light enter it through the eye. The eye is the chaotic representation of all material processes of a body.
2505. The limbs or members of the eye are repeated in the ocular muscles and the sclerotic or bony ring; in many Fishes the eye stands upon a flexible pedicle, as in the Crabs. The ocular muscles move the eye in different directions like a hand.
2506. The sclerotic corresponds to the corium, the cornea to the digital unguis, or finger-nail.
2507. The choroid or vascular coat, is the respiratory system or lung in the eye. The iris corresponds to the larynx, the pupil to the glottis; its expansion and contraction is a respiratory movement.
2508. The choroid coat incloses also an osseous mass, the lens—a vertebral body. The morbid states of the lens are osseous diseases, such as gout.
2509. In the chambers of the eye, water, as being a product of digestion, is constantly secreted.
2510. The orbitar cavity is a mouth with salivary glands—giving vent to tears.
2511. The lachrymal canal is a branchial duct, which opens into the nose, like the Eustachian tubes did from the ear into the mouth.
2512. The eyelids consequently correspond to the lips, and are in like manner fringed with hairs.
2513. As the body has everywhere two halves, and laterally also presents two entire organisms, so also is the formation of the nervous system a double one. Each eye is an entire body.
2514. In the two eyes the halves of the body have completely separated as entire bodies, and each hasattained self-substantiality. Each eye is a free animal in the animal body. Each eye is therefore circumscribed by its ownintegument—is a free animal. It is endowed, like the hand, with omnilateral motion; it has cavities, i. e. its bodily cavities and humours, or inclosed masses—viscera.
2515. An organ, which again repeats in its miniature the whole animal itself, of which it is only a part, must necessarily be the highest point unto which an organism can attain. With the eye the organization, and consequently nature, has been concluded.
2516. The eye is a parasitic animal, of the same kind with the animal upon which it exists.
2517. In a certain sense all sensorial organs are parasitic animals in the animal; only they are not all of the same kind with it. No one of the other senses has e. g. repeatedalllower systems in itself, and it is therefore to be regarded only as a subordinate or half-animal, which lives upon that which is more perfect.
Senses of the Sexual Animal.
2518. In essaying to speak concerning the sensorial organs of the sexual animal, we shall only encounter in the latter the emotions of the vegetative senses, and these indeed disposed according to their rank.
2519. The sense of feeling is most perfectly developed in the legs, whereof the pelvis represents the scapula.
2520. The external sexual parts are the analogues of the gustatory sense; the female parts being indeed those of the mouth; the male, which are frequently furnished with bone, of the tongue. The jaws are not repeated in a sexual animal, except in Insects, namely, as the pharyngeal maxillæ.
2521. The analogue of the nose is wholly stunted, and is only left persistent as a trachea or air-tube in the urethra.
2522. In other respects the cavity of the sexual parts is a trunk-cavity "per se," like the thoracic and abdominal; the pelvic cavity contains the viscera of a whole animal.