a. Animal=World-periodicity.1. Sleep=Rotation of the Earth.2. Menstruation=Lunar revolution.3. Pregnancy=Solar revolution.b. Vegetal=Earth-periodicity.1. Digestion=Water, Ebb and Flow.2. Respiration=Air, Electricity.3. Pulse=Earth, Magnetism.
Awaking.
2766. The awaking takes place of itself through the origination of a new polarity in the brain during the afflux of arterial blood, whereupon the dreams follow which precede the act of waking. During sleep the plant continues to act, the unloaded cortical substance becomes again oxydized and charged; tension arises between it and the medulla, and with this come the dreams. This encephalic polarity is imparted to the sensitive and motor nerves, and the organs open. If external stimuli are superadded, all this happens somewhat earlier. The act of awaking is invariably, however, a restoration effected, or brought about, by the plant, and especially by the circulation.
2767. Man would therefore wake up had there also been no world of the senses; but then he would not continue awake, but at once relapse into slumber, and sleep the eternal death.
2768. The functions of the organs are the functions of the system associated or combined, just as the organs are but ultimate evolutions of the systems existing under similar relations. The organic functions are always therefore in a state of concatenation with other systems, and there can be no organ which acts in an isolated manner.
2769. By this character a new field for sympathy has been opened. All the organs operate through sympathy. Sympathy is therefore the result of parallel systems, or also of antagonisms between the factors of asinglesystem. Taken in a strict sense, there are no vegetative organs. The organs are therefore limited to theencephalic animal, such as are those of motion and the senses, and to thesexual animal.
1.Functions of the Encephalic Animal.
A.ORGANS OF MOTION.
2770. Just as the nerves have a function in themselves, and one directed towards the subordinate organs, so also has the motor system.
2771. The motor system is in the first place doomed to serve the whole body, since it flexes it, moves it forwards and backwards and upon all sides. It is related principally to the movements of the vertebral column, and serves in numberless animals to effect the act of crawling or creeping.
2772. Then again it will serve individual parts of the body, such as the belly in its evacuations, or the sexual animal in emitting urine, &c. It ministers unto the thorax in the act of respiration, which is a very complicated process. The thoracic muscles are to a certain degree co-ordinated with the constantly polar nervous system, and become thereby and in part involuntary. But one main reason of this appears to be the air that is constantly renewed in their cavity.
2773. In the act of respiration two orders of muscles are active, the proper-pectoral muscles, and the abdominal muscle, which has been displaced from the thorax, or thediaphragm.
2774. As originally the thorax took its rise at the expense of the abdomen, so also is every inspiration an elevation of the thorax and a displacement of the abdomen. Every breath or in-draught of air expands and produces the thorax, but narrows and arrests the abdomen. The diaphragm expresses this contest. Its contraction being a result of the respiratory tension, expresses consequently a preponderance of the thorax, and in obedience to this, narrows and diminishes the abdomen.It is supplied, in conformity with its origin, by nerves from the upper cervical vertebræ, since prior to this the abdomen extended as far as the head, and the branchiæ were appended to it aslateral strips of integument—as in Fishes.
2775. As the thoracic cavity is drawn by the diaphragm's descent towards the abdomen, so by the pectoral muscles is it raised upwards to the head. The latter movements are what is animal in the respiratory process, for they lift the thorax towards the head. Pectoral muscles and diaphragm stand opposite to each other, like limbs and trunk; the ribs are the limbs, the diaphragm the upper abdominal tunic or covering. Through this antagonism what is limbed, as belonging to the thoracic cavity, is drawn upwards, what is abdominal in its character, downwards; the result is expansion, and through this pumping in of the air.
2776. The air is in part voluntarily swallowed like the food, as e. g. by the movement of the ribs, in part involuntarily by the diaphragm. The diaphragm may be termed the heart of the abdominal cavity.
2777. In the lower organized animals, where merely branchiæ are present, the animal motion encroaches but little upon the act of respiration. In Molluscs and Snails, the oxygen is almost always on the branchiæ, as is the case also in Insects. In Fishes the water is still taken in like the food through the mouth, and driven out or expelled by the pharyngeal muscles from between the branchiæ. In them the air is in both respects swallowed. In many Reptiles the air is indeed drawn in through the nostrils, but conveyed into the lungs by a true act of deglutition. These kinds of functions are necessary, because as yet the whole trunk is abdomen, and the thoracic cavity has not as yet separated from it; hence the diaphragm is wanting.
2778. The respiratory originates therefore from the digestive organ; it is freely developed only from the abdomen, and is at length entirely liberated from the latter as a self-substantial cavity, e. g. first of all in theMammalia. Respiration is originally but an act of deglutition, which has gradually become perfected, by the animal trunk being associated with it to a greater extent.
2779. The pumping in of air has therefore become in the highest degree a process of suction, and in this resembles the digestive function when it has become animal.
2780. Then also the air passes no longer through the mouth, but through the nose, as being the peculiar opening of the thoracic cavity in the head. Even the Fishes have as yet no nostrils opening into the mouth.
2781. The thoracic motion is a limb-motion, and would become locomotion, were the ribs not conjoined. In many of the lower animals the branchiæ are at once organs of motion, such as fins or rudders.
2782. Every inspiration is a self-manning towards the animal; every expiration a retro-depression unto the plant; the abdomen in this case regains the upper hand from the diaphragm reverting to its usual position, and the thoracic cavity narrowing. Respiration is a becoming animal.
2783. The motions in themselves, without reference to the trunk, are the motions of the limbs, as standing, walking, &c. The movements of the arms and feet are sympathetic, because their muscles are of equal signification.
B.FUNCTIONS OF THE NERVE-ORGANS.
2784. These functions have relation only to the nervous system itself, because all nerve-organs are elevated above the trunk, and live in themselves. They are simply the functions of the sensorial organs.
a.Functions of the Vegetable Sensorial Organs.
2785. These must be regarded as those that still encroach upon the inferior organs. They are not, however, the inferior processes themselves, but their ascensive formations into the nervous system. This thereforeworks henceforward only in and by itself, but yet in relation to the inferior processes.
1.Function of the Sense of Feeling.
2786. To constitute the sense of feeling the integument, in other words the nutritive or vascular system, has assumed a nervose character, and consequently that which is in communication with the materiality of the external world. The function of this sense will therefore have materiality only for its object.
2787. The integument is the organ by whose means the animal is absolved or liberated from the world. The sensation belonging to it, is none other than the perception of this diversity subsisting between the two.
2788. Through the tegumentary sense, the world becomes a something external in relation to the nervous function; while previously it was such through the medium of the skin for the lower organs only, viz. as an object of absorption. The discrimination of materiality is calledFeeling. The sense of feeling is the earth-sense.
2789. The sense of feeling perceives materiality, like the nerves perceive all objects or all stimuli, through polar excitation. Every pressure, every contact is polar excitation.
2790. The sense of feeling is characterized by poles only being excited in it by absolute proximity or immediate contact. Just because it is the first sense, through which the animal is set free, so must that which is liberated be at once perceived in the moment of liberation, and thus in immediate contact. The sense of feeling is a polarity of contact, a polarity without distance. The stronger the contact, by so much the stronger is the polar excitation—there is increased pressure. The gravity acts simply by pressure. The perception is therefore resolvable into one of pressure or contact.
2791. Different degrees of pressure necessarily impart different amounts of feeling. Perception of the different degrees of pressure made by an object betrays its inequalities of surface. The sense of feeling is alsothe sense for determining inequalities, for the Soft and Hard, for the Solid, Fluid, and Gaseous; all these feelings, however, are referable to the contact.
2792. Through diseased conditions, the polarizability of the sensitive nerves may become exceedingly elevated, and they then perceive the polarity of contact prior to the contact having taken place. For the two bodies invariably excite poles that are antagonized to each other. Were other bodies not to approach them more closely, or else act upon them more energetically and so extinguish the polarity; they would remain at an infinite distance in a state of polar relation towards each other. Feeling can therefore be extended to an indefinite distance. Hysterical, mesmerized, and even healthy human beings, feel further than they grasp or touch with the hand.
2793. Homogeneous polarities, or those of the same kind, are throughout nature to be found also by means of others; e. g. electrical polarities are not disturbed by the intervention of magnetic ones. Such is the case also in feeling. That which is related to oneself is felt, although it is more remote from us than other objects, upon which we do not bestow any attention, or towards which we do not turn our poles.
2794. The sense of feeling differs according to the diversity of certain points in the integument, and is thus nobler in character, the higher the rank which these may hold. Thus it is most feebly developed in vegetable situations, where hairs, nails, claws, and scales are placed. It must attain the highest grade of perfection in the animal organs, and thus in the limbs or their parallels, the lips.
2795. In the limbs, by reason of their mobility, the feeling becomes voluntary. It is then wholly in our power to strengthen or weaken the contact, to press gently or firmly, and allow these periods of feeling to succeed each other rapidly or slowly.
2796. Feeling associated with motion is calledtouch; this condition of the organ thetactile sense. The tactilesense is by no means different from that of feeling; it is only the combination of feeling with motion.
2797. The fingers are the most perfect organs of feeling, because they are the most moveable parts of the body, and therefore they areorgans of touch.
2798. As simple feeling perceives the asperities of bodies, so does touch theforms. The perception of forms is based upon the form that resides in thetactile organitself.
2799. All possible forms reside in the motion of the fingers.
2800. Each hand is a semi-ellipse, in which the four fingers are the periphery, the thumb the radius. Both hands together form a perfect ellipse with two radii.
2801. Now, in the ellipse are involved all geometrical figures. The hands include in their movements the whole of geometry.
2802. We can only perceive the forms of nature, because they all reside in ourselves, because we can create them. This, and none other, is the meaning or sense of the doctrine of pre-established harmony.
2803. The sense of touch is also the sense of form. The fingers constitute so perfect an organ, that it is scarcely requisite for us to estimate all its value. In it the whole body is repeated simply in forms, in spiritual motions.
2804. Through the hand the whole planet becomes an object unto us. It is the hand which instructs us how to know this terrestrial world.
2805. The greatest perfection is attained by the greatest variety or multiplied diversity of the organs. The limbs are simply destined for motion, yet feeling also resides in them, because they are invested with integument. Could the limbs therefore divide into motor and tactile members, the conceivable sum total of perfection must be attained. This division is present alone in Man. The feet have become simply locomotive members, because they are those of the sex; but the hands have become tactile members, because they are those of the encephalic animal.
2806. It is not, as has been imagined, the hands, as hands, which confer nobility upon our species, for by their means an essential half of the animality, or the power of locomotion, is lost; but it is the preservation of all possible functions in an animal, and in such a manner that each stands upon its highest grade of perfection. The highest perfection cannot, however, be attained where two functions are attached to one organ. Should both hands and feet exercise the sense of touch, the motion is impaired; should both move the body, then the sense suffers.
2807. The four hands of the Apes are therefore an imperfection, which we have no need to envy them. They can, properly speaking, only climb and grasp with them, but not run. Each gait of theirs becomes therefore ungainly, the horizontal as well as the upright or perpendicular, and they make use of both alternately; because too the act of handling, i. e. of climbing, is their only proper movement. Now, in the act of climbing all the limbs are brought into requisition, and consequently a free voluntary touch and a free progression disappear.
2808. The feet support the body and stand in its service.
2809. The hands are, on the contrary, supported by the body, are free.
2810. The wings also support the body.
2811. Feet and hands define man. Through the two only does he becomefree.
Tegumental Covering.
2812. The skin, as being originally a branchia, is provided also with its branchial operculum. This is the epidermis.
2813. Scales are plications or folds of the epidermis, which accord with the situation of the branchial vessels; they are therefore arranged generally in a circular form around the body, and are more definitely varied upon the dorsal than ventral aspect of the body. Large scales, or those which may be regarded as formed by the confluence of several scales, are called scutes.
2814. It is merely the epidermis which is concerned in the production of the squamous covering; but if the former branchial vessels emerge themselves so as to project above the integument and become dried, then hairs originate.
2815. If these hairs ramify, then there are feathers.
2816. It is only therefore the Mammalia and Birds who possess a proper external covering or garment.
2817. The claws or nails are scales upon the extremity of the branchial arches, which have become animal in character, or in other words, are digital scales; they are animal branchial opercula.
2818. The nails are demi-claws, and therefore leave the points of the digits free. Free digital apices or points constitute the most perfect organ of touch, because this is then divided into two parts and because the nail increases the amount of resistance.
2819. The organs of defence are therefore an appendage of the sense of feeling, as are the bones of the motor system.
Splanchnic or Visceral Senses.
2820. These senses will not be found to disown their predecessors; and just as the latter extracted the qualities from terrestrial matter, so also do they. But while the former had to deal with the material, the present set will have to transact business with the spiritual qualities.
2.Function of the Gustatory Sense.
2821. Digestion is a chemical process, and one indeed wherein actual mixture and decomposition take place; it is therefore also, and "par excellence," an aqueous process. For matters that are actually decomposible are alone submitted to digestion, since it is of too coarse a character to perceive the proneness of such bodies to decomposition.
2822. It belongs only to a higher grade of perfection, or to a nervose condition of the digestive process, to perceive the rationale of the decomposition, or the spiritual conflict, which prevails between the matters, when they are about to separate.
2823. Now, the organ which only perceives the qualities of matters, without reference to their actual separation, is a sense. Upon the highest grade of perfection the digestive passes over into a sensorial function.
2824.Tastingis the first commencement of the digestion in the nervous system, where the aliments are felt just before the analysis into their polar quantities has taken place. The gustatory is a water-sense.
2825. For the exercise of the sense of taste the same conditions are requisite as for digestion, viz. solution and capacity for decomposition. Without the capacity for being dissolved, and without the occurrence of actual solution, nothing can be tasted, any more than digested. The saliva is the gastric juice for the tongue.
2826. If water be the basic element in the process of digestion, so in gustation must the higher water, or thesalt, be the basis of taste. Salt alone is sapid, and every thing in order to be tasted, must possess saline properties.
2827. The tongue, by means of the saliva, passes over gradually into salt. Salt is the last extremity of the tongue. The salt-formation is a member of the gustatory formation. Hence tasting is only an ascension of the inorganic to the animal tongue. The salt is the gustatory sense of the earth.
2828. The general object of taste is the salt of the sea. It alone can and must be converted into a pleasing taste or relish. What is general in nature, is the antetype of that which is equivalent in an organism. Sea-salt and the tongue or saliva are one in kind.
2829. Every thing admits only of being tasted, in so far as it is salt; every thing is but savoury, in so far as it is marine salt.
2830. As the component parts of sea-salt are acid and alkali, so also are both these the extremes of tastes. Tastes are divisible accordingly into acid and alkaline savours.
2831. As salt is a product of what is inorganic, so will the sapid bodies of this kind be pleasant objects for gustation, provided they do not act chemically nor in excess. Therefore, what is saline, or acid and alkali combined, is agreeable to the taste, even if its action should last a long time.
2832. On the contrary, the proper organic savours, which admit with difficulty of being reduced to the former or inorganic kinds, if they do not prove at once nauseous or unpleasant, yet become so by lengthened operation, e. g. the Sweet, the Bitter.
2833. According to these savours has the organ of taste been regulated. It hath in itself also polar relations. The point or tip of the tongue tastes what is acid, its root more readily what is bitter, its dorsum or back what is poignant or moist.
2834. The matters are not mechanically analyzed upon the tongue; it does not therefore taste the several component parts, but only their chemical behaviour or relation in the water, in other words, their reaction.
3.Function of the Olfactory Sense.
2835. In the lungs the air is materially analyzed and deprived of its oxygen; but, when these organs have assumed a nervose character, the tension only of the air unto the analysis will be perceived. Now, the action of the air is the electrism. The nose perceives only the electrical condition of the air.
2836. The sensation of the electrical relations is calledSmelling. The olfactory sense is an air-sense. We smell nothing but the electricity, and neither the contact, nor the impressions, &c. of the particles that find their way into the nose. These particles would have no effect upon the nasal organ, if they did not stand in an electrical relation unto it.
2837. Now, the electrical bodies in nature are the resins or Inflammables. What salt is for the gustatory, that is resin for the olfactory sense. The nose is an electrical, a resinous organ.
2838. In like manner the solubility of bodies in the air is as requisite for smell, as that in water is for taste. The water is the menstruum of the sapid, as the air is of odorous, bodies; and this indeed of necessity, because water and air are the antetypes of these mineral classes.
2839. In order to be an odorous body or object of smell, the resin must resolve itself into air, or become aeriform. Aeriform resin is æthereal oil. Bodies such as those which part rapidly with their electricity, substances containing hydrogen, æthereal oils and burnt spirits, are the usual objects appreciated by the olfactory sense.
2840. The hydrogenous body is therefore provided with a sweet scent. Most bodies which are evolved by fermentation, in so far as they are electrical, are odoriferous. Most blossoms smell agreeably, because they secrete aerial matters.
2841. The products of putrefaction emit a fetid odour, because they indicate the presence not of aerial, but aqueous and terrestrial matters. Nearly all animal bodies stink, besides many secretions of the sexual parts, because they belong to the vegetable nature.
2842. The objects of taste have their residence in what is inorganic, but those of smell, as being objects of a higher sense, have it in the vegetable kingdom. The succeeding or auditory sense has the animal kingdom for its object, while the eye scans the universe.
2843. The nose is in every respect an electrical organ; it is an electrophore, or rather a battery consisting of numerous plates. Of the truth of this, its numerous tortuous passages and laminated bones are striking proofs.
2844. That the nose consists of a great number of blood-vessels, as well as of arteriose olfactory nerves, is quite commensurate with its character or signification, as being a higher pulmonary organ.
2845. The objects of the three vegetative senses are the three elements of the planet, earth, water and air; in the first of these reside the relation of the gravity, rest,and crystallization; in the last the relation of the electricity; in the water that of the chemism. The sense of feeling is an earth-sense, that of taste a salt-sense, that of smell a resin-sense.
b.Functions of the Animal Senses.
2846. The objects of the animal senses are no longer matter, nor its chemical qualities, but the higher relations of the solar system, and the highest organizations, the animals themselves. Throughout the supra-planetary solar system there is naught to be conceived but motion and light in action. Wherever there is æther, it is in motion; the corresponding organs of sense must therefore perceive these two relations. Now, since the animal is also motion and light, and this alone, so by means of these senses will the innermost of animality be at once perceived. Animals become acquainted with themselves only through these senses, and by them only enter, in so far as they are animals, into communication with each other. In so far as they are mere masses of matter, they are capable of self-perception through other senses. These senses may therefore also be called cosmical, while the three former are terrestrial.
2847. They correspond thus with each other. The tactile sense is a precursor of the sense of motion, and represents the motion, gravity, and pressure, after a terrestrial manner; the two splanchnic senses are the precursors of the light-sense, since they dwell upon the qualities of the matter, while the light also is only a quality of the æther. The sense of smell, being as it were an air-sense, will in particular border most closely upon the light-sense.
2848. Through the two cosmic senses the universe is translated into the animal, like the planet is through the terrestrial senses; through the former also the animal spirit, which is a transcript of the universal spirit, passes over into other animals. They are the senses of the highest instruction, of freedom.
4.Function of the Auditory Sense.
In the æther resides the movement of the world.
2849. To the motor system that only which is its equal, and thus the movement of nature, can of necessity become an object. The motor system represented as a sense, cannot, however, perceive the borrowed or derived motion, not the planetary or massive motion, but the primary motion of the æther. The planetary motion is related to the primary motion as the oxydation is to the electrism, as chemical analysis to chemical affinity, and consequently also as respiration to smelling, as digestion to tasting, in short, as the material metatype to the spiritual antetype.
2850. The limbs are the planetary motion organized, and therefore perceive only this material motion—pressure. Touch is related to the animal sense of motion, as digestion is to the tasting.
2851. Smell and taste no longer perceive the bodies in the very act of decomposition, but their laws or their spiritual operations; so will the motor sense not perceive, like the sense of touch, the mass when in motion, but only themotor laws of the mass.
2852. These laws of motion are those of the primary motion. This is, however, a product of the light in the æther, an effect of polarity, and that indeed the first polarity which was manifested in the universe. The motor sense therefore perceives only a motion which has originated through primary polarity.
2853. Such motion is not relative in kind, i. e. it does not affect several portions of the matter in reference to some other matter; but it affects the whole matter internally, or its atoms, so that all matter may remain in its place and yet every atom of it be moved.
2854. This motion is like the motion of heat in the matter. By it heat is excited. For internal motion of the atoms, when aroused by polarity, so that every atom enters into a state of motion against the other, is a discharging of the poles, and consequently development of heat.
2855. This internal motion has, however, been produced by an external; for the external motion acts by contact, and this is a process of polarization. Now, the interior of a mass is only moved by repeated contact, or through the restlessness of polarization and by a proper amount of force, or one which is proportional to the mechanical resistance of the mass to be excited. The last of these is the stroke or blow, the first the vibration of the body. By vibration or oscillation only can a body be internally polarized; for, if it does not oscillate upon the shock being applied, it is still indeed set in motion, but "en masse," so that the internal parts remain in a state of rest.
2856. Oscillation is distinguished from continuous or progressive motion by its affecting theatomsof the body, while the latter acts upon the body itself. Through the vibration heat is engendered, because the poles are free and the matter passes over into æther.
2857. Vibration must endure the longest in solid bodies, and thus in that which belongs to the earth. Among these the hard bodies must take precedence, because the soft are of an aqueous nature. Among the hard bodies again the heaviest must vibrate most effectually, because they offer a longer resistance, and do not yield so soon as light bodies to the effort made at separation. The purest representative of the earth-element or themetalis thus the best instrument or means of vibration, and consequently the object of the motor sense.
2858. Thus as the salt of the earth-element is the object of taste, and as the resin of the earth-element is the object of smell, so would the metal be the object of this motor sense.
2859. But no sense-object is without its medium for transmission, except in the case of the sense of feeling or touch. The salt is only tasted by means of the water, the Inflammable only smelt by means of the air; the metal's primary motion could not therefore be perceived directly by the auditory sense. It must be propagated throughthe medium which ranks next to the heat, and whose atoms insinuate themselves most easily into those of the vibrating body—thus through the air. Man perceives the primary motion, in which things tend to resolve themselves into æther, through the air. By the metal, or by every vibrating body, the vibration of the air is communicated.
2860. This vibration is not, however, a general movement to and fro, but a dissolution of the material bands. This dissolution can only take place according to the laws of the primary motion. They are rigidified in the solid masses as crystalline forms. Every law of motion is a crystalline form which has become free or spiritually manifested. Through the vibration forms are engendered in bodies, which are commensurate with the substance and form of the mass and the degree of vibration. These forms, being as it were the ghosts or phantoms of crystals, are calledsonorous figures.
2861. If the air be displaced when in a state of covibration, it is not thrown into undulatory circles or waves, like water into which a stone has been cast, but in each of its parts the sonorous figure of the rigid body is repeatedly represented. The vibration of air is a progressive motion of sonorous figures.
2862. If the sonorous figures are not incommensurable, several may be at one and the same time in asingleportion of air, without interfering with each other. They harmonize, because they have originated according to concordant laws. But if they are products of different laws, they are then confused, and an indeterminateoffensivevibration originates, just as savours become loathsome if they depart from their laws.
2863. These figures of the air are only perceived by theEar. The ear is the only sense in which the motor system is represented in apurestate, devoid of any vegetal signification, and simply endowed with nervose nobility. The ear is therefore the only organ which can perceive the primary motion of the matter; for like acts only in or upon its like.
2864. The metals are the ear of nature, the salt her tongue, the resin her nose, the earth her hand.
2865. The power or capacity excited by sonorous figures of covibrating according to the same laws, constitutesHearing; the phenomenon is calledSound. Hearing is a primary motion in the musculo-osseous system of the ear, which is communicated to the auditory nerve. The auditory sense is æther-sense, metal-sense. Hearing is magnetizing.
2866. The sonorous figures are formed in the auditory organ, and even in the auditory nerves, just as they have been represented upon an infinitely small scale in the air. The nerve becomes in hearing a sonorous figure.
2867. It is not the mere motion in the auditory organs which produces the sensation of sound; the nerve certainly perceives each movement in the ears, because none is possible apart from or without primary motion; only such a motion is no sound, but only a noise. What has been written in the tingling metal according to eternal laws, is transcribed or copied in the auditory nerve; it is only this writing, but no massive motion of the air, which is legible by the nerve.
2868. Melody is a retrogression of the matter into æther, of the formed world into the primary world; through melody is the spirit of the world revealed. The ear is the first liberation of the animal from all terrestrial matter; through the ear the animal becomes for the first time spiritual.
2869. Melody is the voice of the universe, whereby it proclaims its scheme, or its innermost essence. Hence the wondrous, mysterious action of harmony, the secret sovereignty of music. Music is the expression of the ardent desire to revert to the primary idea. It makes man unconsciously yearn after a condition which he knoweth not; it transports him unconsciously into this condition of divine repose and godly bliss.
Speech.
2870. That which melodizes proclaims its spirit: the melody of animals displays their internal law.
2871.The musical system of all animal laws is Speech.
2872. Speech is the representation of all nature's sonorous figures in the human organ of sound.
2873. Through speech Man delineates himself in spiritual outlines or sketches, which, devoid of matter (or body), he sets down before himself. Such sketches are easily seen through, since to them every material covering is wanting, and they lie purely before the sensation, as the law, the will of nature.
2874. Through speech Man appears as a double essence. He is a corporeal essence; and the spoken word appears before him in the same outlines, but without body. When conversing, Man is aself-manifestation unto self.
2875. Previous to speech no self-consciousness originates.
2876. Without an auditory organ there is no self-consciousness.
2877. To the organ of hearing, however, belongs also the auditory nerve and the cerebellum. Without a cerebellum there is no self-consciousness.
2878. While Man appears unto himself, he appears also to change. Nature is gloomy, incomprehensible; the spirit is clear, and enlightens her.
2879. Manifestation is only possible through self-manifestation; through a doubling of itself, through its expression.
2880. Animals appear only, in so far as they are individual self-manifestations of Man.
2881. With speech Man creates unto himself his world. Without speech there is no world. For the Apes there is no world, but only tree-fruits, female and male.
2882. Through speech Man becomes acquainted with or learns to know himself; through it he becomes a self-substantial essence, which resembles God, because it creates for itself its world, and recognizes itself, i. e. speaks.
2883. Words are forms of our body mathematically laid down.
2884. A single world is dead, so also are many.
2885. Words, which are connected together according to organic laws, form an organic system, are at once alive, and have a meaning.
2886. Speech originates gradually like the organs, like Man. Speech grows like a plant; at first it is only root, next it puts forth a stem, then leaves, and finally blossoms, when it is the perfect expression of the animal body.
2887. The organ of speech is composed of the three terrestrial organs of sense, the air-, water-, and earth-sense.
2888. The air-organs are the principal medium, because they must produce the sonorous figures; the tongue imparts to them the specific modification; but the lips and jaws, as being motor members, afford the articulation or themovementproper. The lungs and nose breathe out the tones; the tongue digests them; the lips move them, and fashion them into perfect bodies—words.
2889. A word is at once for itself a regularly inter-articulated body. The sounds are its members, its organs or fundamental formations.
2890. Speaking is a gentle respiration, carried on by the mouth, nose, and limbs or jaws.
2891. As respiration has a special thorax, so also has speaking. The speech-(or voice-) thorax is the larynx.
2892. The larynx represents the ribs and arms, which all move in order to form a sound. The tongue is, so to speak, the head upon this thorax.
2893. The nose imparts euphony to the sounds. It tests their fragrancy. The tongue gives them a special quality, their chemical character or taste; the teeth and lips furnish the cadence as a kind of joint to the sounds, or in other terms the words.
2894. Four organs of sense belong to speech, viz:
Touch in the Jaws.Taste in the Tongue.Smell in the Nose.Hearing in the Ear.
2895. The ear receives the products of the three vegetative organs of sense. It is a synthetic sense.
2896. The tongue gives the vowels; the jaws the consonants.
2897. In accordance with this the vowels are thebodyof speech, and the consonants thelimbsor members, whereby it effects its movements.
2898. Vowels express time, consonants space; the one the chemical import, the other the form.
2899. The vowel E expresses the present, A that which has just past, O that which has quite passed, U that which has passed long ago, I the future.
2900. The more consonants there are in the words, so much the richer is the language; the more vowels, the poorer it is. Such is the speech of savages or wild men.
2901. The speech of animals is a vocal or vowel-speech.
5.Function of the Optic Sense.
2902. As the primary motion of the world is manifested to the animal through the ear; so does the primitive cause of the motion, that of every activity and every phenomenon, i. e. light, appear unto the nerve-sense.
2903. The light-sense is similarly formed or modelled according to the light of nature, and kindles also the light within itself, just as the light originated in the æther; viz. through primary antagonism taking place in its own substance.
2904. Light is the binary division of the æther-mass, not an antagonism between it and some other matter; in like manner sight is a binary division of the nerve-mass in itself, without antagonism to other organs.
2905. Sight is the tension of the æther directly continued into the animal æther, just as taste was a chemical action continued into the animal chemism, and smell an electrical process continued into the animal electrism.
2906. In sight the nervous mass is completely self-antagonized, is a phenomenon unto itself; the eye is the brain placed opposite to the brain.
2907. Sight is thus a tension between optic and central brain; as illumination is tension between planetary and solar æther.
2908. Illumination and vision are of one kind, only occurring in two different sorts of worlds. The planet sees by means of the illumination, the animal illuminates or gives out light by means of seeing. Sight is a light-sense.
2909. Now, the illumination is a fixation of æther, a coloration, and thus a descent of the æther into what is terrestrial. In seeing we perceive the æther, as to how it becomes world; in hearing we perceived the world, as to how it became æther.
2910. Seeing and hearing are opposite functions; the first indicates the creation, the latter the return of the creation into chaos.
2911. Through sight we become acquainted with the universe, through hearing with the miniature universe, or man. Sight passes out of us, hearing into us; or through sight Man is posited in the world, through hearing among his fellow-men. Sight is the speech of the world, hearing that of the planet.
2912. Sight is the speech or language of the universe, hearing the language of Man. Through sight the world reveals unto us its spirit or its thoughts; but through hearing man only discloses what are his own. As words are but the representations of the disintegrated body of Man, so are the world-forms the representatives of the disintegrated body of the primary spirit. The word is a rigidified, crystallized thought of Man; a natural body is a rigidified, crystalline thought of the primary act—a word of God.
2913. Through hearing self-consciousness originates; through sight consciousness of the world, universal consciousness. By means of the former we only become acquainted with human relations—which isunderstanding; by the latter with those that are universal—this beingreason.
2914. Without the ear there would be no understanding, without the eye no reason.
2915. Understanding is microcosm, reason macrocosm. From what is intelligent we expect human wisdom, from what is rational world-wisdom.
2916. That the light also has a medium, whereby it acts upon us, is at once evident from our existing in such a medium; but it could also act directly upon us, were it not inevitably broken up beforehand into colours in traversing the media. All terrestrial elements may be a medium for the transmission of light, such as the gaseous, fluid, and solid, i. e. if they are transparent.
2917. We perceive only coloured light, because our organ of light is only a rigidified colour, a material light. There is no pure light for us; there is none also in general.
2918. Sight is thus a terrestrial light-tension, a colour-becoming.
2919. This happens only through refraction. The eye is a refracting medium. It is distinguished from the brain by being a translucent, refractive, encephalic substance.
2920. Light does not stream into the eye like water into the sponge, but it progresses gradually into and operates upon it.
2921. The eye, in order to experience the sensation of light, is placed in a similar tension to the air, water, or crystal. This tension between it and the brain is perceived by the latter as illumination. The eye is a prism, in which the brain sees the world, in which the brain observes its own tension, or the production of colour. Sight is a deoxydation of the eye.
2922. The optic nerve is an organized ray of light, the brain an organized sun, the eye an organized chromatic sun or rainbow.
2923. Just as the sonorous figures are delineated in the ears, and as the nerve perceives these, but not any concussion of the air; so also does the optic nerve perceive not the light in general, but its terrestrial formation or the chromatic image, which has been propagated into the eye.
2924. In an eye, while seeing, the world is depicted;as in the ear, when hearing, the crystalline forms of the air are delineated.
2925. The eye does not on that account see two worlds. For the chromatic image is nothing else than that which is external to or without the eye. It is verily one and the same influence of light, which acts continuously in a straight line between the chromatic image and the object apparent or beheld.
2926. As a stick thrusts us from the side whither it comes; so does the chromatic image from the side whence the light comes. The exit and entrance of the light are not distinct from each other. The objects could not therefore appear reversed, because we do notseethe image in the eye, butfeelits process of deoxydation along with its direction.
2927. The objects of the eye are colours. Like as they are related in nature, so also must they be in sight; for they are only the eye extended, or this again is only the formed colour.
2928. We see nothing else but colours, no bodies. For the eye there is no material world. It directly perceives the spirit, and indeed its own spirit, or the world of light.
2929. There is no pre-established harmony, but complete conformity between the world and organ of sense. (Vid. Oken's Essays, "Ueber das Universum als fort-gesetztes System der Sinne," and "Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts." Jena bei Fromann, 1808.)
II.Functions of the Sexual Animal.
A. VEGETAL SEXUAL ORGANS.
1.Of the Sexual Intestine.
2930. As the sexual animal is in every respect the encephalic animal reversed, so also is this the case in respect to its functions. The sexual intestine gives out through its mouth or anus, while the other or animal gut takes in.As being the intestine of the vegetal animal it receives the fermented product of digestion, or the excrement, and conveys it backwards towards the sexual orifice or mouth.
2931. The intestinal function of the sexual animal is an act of vomition. The evacuation is an act of vomition, seeing that the intestinal contents are moved backwards.
2932. The sexual stomach is the rectum. In it the excrementitious matter is accumulated, so that it may be ready for being broken away in the process of evacuation.
2933. The commencement of the sexual intestine is the cæcum, its extremity the anus.
2.Functions of the Sexual Lung.
2934. We may distinguish two circulations, the splanchnic or visceral, which takes place between the lung, intestine, and liver, and the great circulation, which instead of going to the viscera passes to the other organs, and is called the bodily or systemic circulation. The liver excretes the product which results from the splanchnic circulation; the systemic circulation has its organ also, but one which does not secrete a special, but general product.
2935. The general secernent organ of the whole body together with all its systems is the sexual system, which having been elevated by virtue of this general character to the rank even of an animal, is a true sexual animal. That which is a general and not a partial excretion, is imparted by the sexual animal. It is the animal reversed.
2936. Thus the secernent organ of the general circulation must belong to the sexual system, and perform in it that which the liver, or in other words the reverse of the lungs, has done in the splanchnic circulation. Thekidneysare the lungs reversed.
2937. If the bile be an extract from the visceral blood, so is the urine an extract from the body's blood, andis consequently the purest reflex or pattern of the former.
2938. The urine is sexual blood, just as the excrement is a product of the sexual digestion. The urine is reversed blood.
2939. The formation of urine is a retro-formation of the blood into digestive fluid or sap. The urine is blood of the sexual animal which has become chyle. It has both properties in itself. It is discoloured blood, and consists for the greatest part of water and salts, all of which are characters belonging unto chyle. It, however, contains urea, which corresponds to the noblest parts of the blood. This substance, like fibrine, consists for the greatest part of nitrogen; it may be called dissolved or decomposed fibrine. It imparts colour to the urine; it is converted by oxydation into lithic or uric acid, and is precipitated of a red colour analogous to that of the blood-globules. In addition to this, albumen, gelatine, carbonate of lime, and phosphorus, consequently the whole blood, are present in the urine.
2940. In urea the muscle flows or runs out of the animal, in albumen the nerve, in lime and phosphorus the bone, in gelatine the tegumentary together with the visceral system, lastly, in water the menstruum of the digestion and respiration.
2941. Thus the urine, just like the blood, is the whole body rendered fluid, but only in a sexual manner, namely, as being half decomposed.
2942. So the bile, from its not representing the whole body, does not contain the latter in itself. It properly contains only the excretion of the intestinal process.
2943. The kidneys stand accordingly opposed without distinction to all the organs, in so far as all of them are affected by the circulation. Their remote sympathy, or if we please, their antagonism, is with the animal systems, or with bone, muscle, and nerve. With the osseous, as being the profoundest system, there is of necessity also a close sympathy. In diseases of bone the bones, as well as themorbid matter, flow away principallythrough the urine. Their most intimate sympathy must be with the organs of circulation, with the lung, liver, intestine, and skin. As the skin is also an organ of evaporation, so is the antagonism between it and the kidneys of a direct or immediate kind. The skin is the kidneys expanded into a large cyst. These are in turn, just as the lung is, the inverted skin.
2944. A lung in the reversed animal can do nothing else but expire. It only expels the evaporated matter of the sanguinary system, but takes in none, so as to alter or support the blood. The sexual animal aims at the destruction of the animal. The urinary cyst, as being the remnant of the allantois, and of the primordial kidneys or sexual branchiæ, is simply destined to purposes of expulsion. It is the larynx reversed. Micturition takes place through contraction of the cyst, as does expiration by that of the lungs in Reptilia. It is a cough.
B. FUNCTIONS OF THE ANIMAL SEXUAL ORGANS.
2945. The sexual functions proper correspond to the sensorial functions, though to these upon an inferior stage. They are sensorial functions, which are simply occupied with the materials of the senses, so that they are vegetative senses. They are a prefiguration of the sense of feeling, taste, and smell.
1.Functions of the Male Organs.
2946. The testes secrete semen in the same manner that the salivary glands do their fluid or juice.
2947. The semen is sexual saliva, and is thus sexual virus or poison. Like the saliva destroys that which is living, so does the semen. The saliva, however, destroys it in order to form a new animal out of the food; with the same motive the semen destroys it. But both differ in this, that the saliva takes care of the body to which it belongs, while the semen attends to another body, the fœtus or fruit.
2948. The saliva is only the highest condition of the digestive fluid, and is thus a totality merely of the intestinal system; the urine is the total product of the vascular system in its antagonism with the lung; but the semen is the product of the whole body. Through the semen the whole body, rendered fluid or reduced to the primary form, runs away. The semen is the chyle already prepared for all parts; but because it is in a sexual animal, it thus takes the reverse direction and passes out.
2949. A fluid, in which the whole animal has been dissolved, is parallel to the nerve-or point-mass. The semen is a fluid point-or nerve-mass, the fluid brain.
2950. Even what is spiritual directly resides in the semen; it need only assume a form and the cerebral functions commence.
2951. The penis, as being the sexual tongue, has only retained the sensibility of the sense of touch and the function of ingestion.
2.Functions of the Female Parts.
2952. The female aperture is the pharynx for the ingestion.
2953. It is by means of the female parts that the whole sexual system becomes for the first time equal to the perfected animal; through them for the first time the male tongue obtains an oral cavity.
2954. In the total representation of the sexual animal the female parts environ and include the male. This moment is calledcopulation.
2955. Copulation is the representation of the entire animal out of two incomplete ones. The sexual animal is only an entire beast in copulation, and is only then to be considered as equal to the encephalic animal. Copulation is a representation of the hermaphrodite.
2956. This propensity for bringing about the sexual animal's completion is sexual passion or lust.
2957. In copulation the male parts are "par excellence" the sensorial organ, the female only the recipient mouth. Both are properly organs of sense, but the one is operative or active, the other patient or passive.
2958. Previous to copulation the female parts are consequently inactive, just as digestion is before taste. As digestion first commences after taste has given up the food and excited the stomach to activity, so also the sexual function first commences in female animals, after the act of tasting is past.
2959. Through copulation what is female becomes masculine. It now secretes for the first time self-substantial semen. Through impregnation the female ovaria are first excited to secrete the saliva, which the whole animal contains in a state of solution.
2960. As the chyle becomes what it is, or is derived from the saliva and food; so from the semen and vitellus proceeds the fœtus, but in such a manner that the female substance gives it the mass, while upon this the male only bestows the polarity.
2961. Thus, were the male semen to actually solidify into the fœtus; it is still not its mass which comes into consideration in the latter, but only its polarizing strength. It supplies the place of the nervous system. This power appears to reside principally in the (seminal) Infusoria or animalcules, just as that of the blood does in the blood-globules. Meanwhile both are only signs of the maturity of their respective juices, as the Infusoria in sea-water are a proof also that the sea can produce other animals from its mucus or slime. The Infusoria are the primary mass of the Organic. Its life is only a manifestation of the seminal polarity. The Infusoria are semen which has been poured out over the earth. Propagation is only possible through reduction taking place to the infusorial primary mass.
2962. The semen and the ovum first meet or come together in the uterus.
2963. The ovum is the mean between vegetable and animal semen. As the former is distinctly formed and at once represents, upon a small scale within itself, the principal parts of the future plant, so does the ovum; but only in parts, from which the animal organs first of all grow forth, upon which having commenced, the former or vegetal parts are cast aside.
2964. The ovum is the entire animal in idea, or in design, but not yet in structure; it is the thought unto the animal; it is related to the animal as the thought is to the word.
2965. The ovum has therefore no organ of the animal preformed within itself, but only the materials requisite thereunto. But the materials are not so general in character, that like as from the infusorial mass, everything could become or derive its existence from everything else. But they are at once destined for definite organs, as the vitellus for the intestine, the albumen probably for the integument.
2966. In an ovum therefore the animal resides preformed only in a spectral or phantom-like manner. There are principal masses present in it, from which the principal organs originate.
Mammæ.
2967. In the oviparous animals the secretion of the vitellus is distinct from that of the albumen; the one takes place in the ovarium, the other in the oviduct or uterus.
2968. By degrees the albumen-secreting vessels advance further outwards upon the orifice of the sexual parts, and are then called milk-organs—Mammæ.
2969. Mammæ are only the vascular bundles of the oviduct placed in the direction outwards, or albumen-glands of the integument.
2970. Mammalia are those animals where the ovarium has completely separated into albumen-and vitellus-organ.
2971. Those mammæ which have scarcely been detached from the oviduct, and become free, are necessarily more incomplete, and are situated in the neighbourhood of the sexual parts—as udders.
2972. As the separation of the substances composing the ovum is an advancing-step towards their improvement, so also is the removal of the albumen-glands from the vitelline sac a nobler condition. They cannot, however, remove further off than to the thorax, because this is the highest post or station of the vegetative parts.
2973. Milk is a vegetable product of the animal.
2974. Numerous mammæ are a lower development.
2975. The milk is albumen, which has been secreted by tegumentary glands; it is animal albumen. The lacteal or milk-organs therefore belong to the sexual system.
2976. As the male parts are only the female otherwise developed, it is to be comprehended why the male animals also have mammæ. They are probably the embryo's principal organ of absorption.
Functions of the Uterus.
2977. Now, the uterus obtains the sexual food in a living state, and from its being such is affected by it.
2978. The uterus must be thus a world for the living germ. Two processes are, however, indispensable for the germ, namelynutritionandrespiration; both of which are furnished by the uterus.
2979. The uterus is to be regarded as the water, the sea in which the germ or embryo is developed. The water decomposes into basic nutritive matter and oxygenous matter of respiration. The water of the uterus is the blood; this is separated through the antagonism of the fœtus into mucus and oxygen. The mucus penetrates into the amnion, the oxygen into the chorion, or the placenta.
2980. The fundus of the uterus is more arteriose than the os uteri, and stands therefore in opposition with it.
3.Development of the Fœtus.
a.Anatomy.
2981. The germ may be regarded as a vesicle, full of nutritive matter or albumen, situated within the cavity of the uterus, the walls of which act upon it.
2982. As the fundus of the uterus is the arterial pole, so it oxydizes the vesicle and repels that part which liesclose upon it. Through this originates a saccular inversion, as in the mesentery of the peritoneum, and the vesicle separates into three divisions. In itself it is amnion, the inverted part is the integument of the embryo, the tube which unites these the umbilical cord.
2983. The amnion is thus the root or primary cyst of the integument.
2984. Through continuous oxydation blood-vessels are developed upon the surface of the amnion, which finally withdraw to constitute a special integument, which is called chorion. Its vessels are in like manner repelled from the fundus uteri, and prolonged into the inversion of the umbilical cord and the embryo. The chorion is thus the root or primary cyst of the vascular system.
2985. These two bladders, sacs, or cysts are the only general ones which circumscribe or invest the entire embryo, because there are only two general vegetative systems, namely, the tegumentary and vascular.
2986. The embryo has not originated freely in these shut sacs, but only through their introversion; it is itself a portion of these sacs.
2987. The embryo properly lies external to its envelopes, as the intestine does in respect to the mesentery.
2988. Just as the two general vegetative systems have been developed from primary cysts, so also are there sacs for the two special vegetative systems, or the intestinal and sexual; but, on that very account, these cannot be general sacs, nor any longer envelop the embryo.
2989. At the entrance of the inversion of the umbilical cord is situated a small vesicle, which divides and is prolonged into the two intestines. It is therefore the root or primary sac of the intestinal system, and is called in Man the 'vesicula umbilicalis,' in the Mammalia the 'tunica erythroides,' and in oviparous animals the 'vitellus.'
2990. In the same situation is placed another cyst, which is prolonged into what has been called the 'urachus' and the urinary cyst, and from which the primordial kidneys, the true kidneys, and the sexual parts are developed by sacciform eversion. This sac is called the'allantois,' 'tunica allantoides,' and is consequently the root or primary sac of the sexual system.
2991. These cysts or sacs are consequently not envelopes that serve for the protection of the fœtus, but its developmental organs, which disappear, so soon as their prolongations into the fœtus itself enable them to exercise their functions.
2992. There are thus as many developmental sacs or cysts, as there are vegetative systems present, viz.:
a. Two General Cysts.1. The Vascular cyst—Chorion.2. Tegumental cyst—Amnion.b. Two Special Cysts.3. The Intestinal cyst—Vitellus.4. Sexual cyst—Allantois.
2993. It is only the vegetative systems which take root in the fœtal envelopes, but not the animal systems. There is no developmental cyst for the nervous, muscular, and osseous systems.
2994. The persistent vegetative systems are the developmental organs for the animal systems; as the intestine for the bones, the veins for the muscles, the tegument or branchial sac for the nerves.
2995. The fœtus consists of three floors or stories like a house, whereof one has been based upon, or rather developed out of the other, viz.:
a. Of the Developmental cysts.b. " Vegetative systems.c. " Animal systems.
2996. According to time the sacs are developed in the following series. The first sac is that of the vitellus or the intestine, which is also the first that is present in the development of the animal kingdom. Upon this vitelline membrane the blood-vessels ('vasa omphalomesenterica') are developed, are prolonged into the body with the intestine, turn again outwards and form the chorion. From this the amnion next separates into the envelopes, and the integument upon the embryo. Lastly,the allantois appears, and in its prolongation the sexual parts.
2997. Originally the whole chorion is replete all around with vessels; but as the process of oxydation occurs most powerfully upon the fundus uteri, so are the vessels developed most abundantly in that very situation, and form the placenta.
2998. The placenta is no peculiar organ, but only the more energetic part of the chorion.
2999. It must necessarily be placed around the insertion of the umbilical cord, because at this spot the inversion takes place, on account of the strong oxydation.
3000. The placenta is always situated upon the fundus uteri, because it originates only through its influence. It cannot therefore begin to suck, like the mouth of a leech, in a fortuitous or voluntary manner anywhere. If it is found occupying some other situation, it is a proof that the oxydizing process of the uterus has been displaced. This is consequently an abnormal situation.
3001. Opposite to the fœtal vascular system is first of all developed the general system of animal life, namely, the nervous system, and indeed the spinal chord, or what has been called the 'carina' or primary streak.
3002. The development of all other systems oscillates in this antagonism of blood and nerves.
3003. In the antagonism of the placenta is formed the liver, which in the embryo is one of the largest organs, and in its antagonism the brain is developed.