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PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY. 241
that all bodily movements, even those which are purely
vegetative and organic, proceed from the will, by no means
implies that they are voluntary. For that would mean
that they were occasioned by motives ; but motives are
representations, and their seat is the brain: only those
parts of our body which communicate with the brain by
means of the nerves, can be put in movement by the brain,
consequently by motives, and this movement alone is what
is called voluntary. The movement of the inner economy
of the organism, on the contrary, is directed, as in plantlife,
by stimuli; only as, on the one hand, the complex
nature of the animal organism necessitated an outer sensorium
for the apprehension of the outer world and the
will s reaction on that outer world, so, on the other hand,
did it necessitate a cerebrum abdominale, the sympathetic
nervous system, in order to direct the will s reaction upon
inner stimuli likewise. We may compare the former to a
Home Ministry, the latter to a Foreign Office ; but tho
will remains the omnipresent Autocrat.
The progress made in Physiology since Haller has placed
beyond doubt, that not only those actions which are con
sciously performed (functiones animales), but even vital
processes that take place quite unconsciously (functiones
vitales et naturales), are directed throughout by the nervous
system. Likewise that their only difference, as far as
our consciousness of them is concerned, consists in
the former being directed by nerves proceeding from the
brain, the latter by nerves that do not directly com
municate with that chief centre of the nervous system
mainly directed towards the outside but with sub
ordinate, minor centres, with the nerve-knots, the ganglia
and their net-work, which preside as it were like vice
gerents over the various departments of the nervous
system, directing those internal processes that follow upon
internal stimuli, just as the brain directs the external