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242 THE WILL IN NATURE.
actions that follow upon external motives, and thus receiv
ing impressions from inside upon which they react corre
spondingly, just as the brain receives representations
on the strength of which it forms resolutions ; only each
of these minor centres is confined to a narrower sphere of
action. Upon this rests the vita propria of each system,
in referring to which Van Helmont said that each organ
has, as it were, its own ego. It accounts also for life con
which have been cut off the bodies of
tinuing in parts
insects, reptiles, and other inferior animals, whose brain has
no marked preponderance over the ganglia of single parts ;
and it likewise explains how many reptiles are able to live
for weeks, nay even months, after their brain has been re
moved. Now, if our surest experience teaches us that the
will, which is known to us in most immediate conscious
ness and in a totally different way from the outer world, is
the real agent in actions attended by consciousness and
directed by the chief centre of the nervous system how
;
can we help admitting that those other actions which, pro
ceeding from that nervous system but obeying the direc
tion of its subordinate centres, keep the vital processes
constantly going, must also be manifestations of the will ?
Especially as we know perfectly well the cause because of
which they are not, like the others, attended by con
sciousness : we know, that is to say, that all consciousness
resides in the brain and therefore is limited to such parts
as have nerves which communicate directly with the brain ;
and we know also that, even in these, consciousness ceases
when those nerves are severed. By this the difference
between all that is conscious and unconscious and together
with it the difference between all that is voluntary and in
voluntary in the movements of the body is perfectly ex
plained, and no reason remains for assuming two entirely
different primary sources of movement : especially as prin-
cipia prceter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda. All this is