his soul no way differed from the Archæus of Van Helmont, or indeed from the Psyche of Aristotle. When Stahl was so addressed, he was wont "to curse and to swear," to deny that he owed anything to the ancients, and to appeal to the direct consciousness of his hearers for the truth of his speech. In all this he was natural and true to himself. What he uttered as novelty, had, at least, the charm of freshness He reproduced the thoughts of others, but they were the growth of his own mind; and the bitterness that mingled with them was due in part to what he felt to be the unjust reception of these sublime truths.

Stahl has been severely dealt with by some of the greatest medical writers, especially by Haller; and, undoubtedly, he drew upon himself well-deserved chastisement by the extravagance of his assertions, and his contemptuous treatment of his great contemporaries. "The exact form of the semicircular canals in the ear, of the malleus, the incus, the stapes, and (what a magnificent discovery!) the round bone, would doubtless, if unknown, make the physical knowledge of the human frame very defective! But medicine stands in need of such knowledge, just as much as it does of what became of the snow that fell ten years ago.

We can understand this extravagance in a man who felt himself called on to protest against the exclusive prominence given by his brilliant colleague and his illustrious contemporaries, to the knowledge of the mechanism of the body; and who, glorying in his ignorance, boasted that "he had had no time to saunter through class-rooms and wriggle through antiquarian libraries;" but it was naturally irritating to those he despised.

As a theory of vital action in health, the hypothesis of Stahl is simple, and, to a certain extent, entirely satisfactory; indeed, it is not till we attempt to explain by it all 1 Proempt Mang. Sprengel, Vol. V., p. 306.

nism if we want to obtain a key to the mystery of the human organism."

While the so-called mechanical school strove to arrive at an explanation of the problems of organic structure, by a careful examination of all the parts, by taking the watch to pieces, proceeding from without inwards, Stahl followed the opposite method, and worked from within outwards. The body of man was not to him a curious aggregation of wellfitting parts, acting and re-acting on one another; it was an organic whole, springing out of the influence of mind.

By a rapid analysis he arrived at the conclusion, that what we feel within us and name the soul, is at once the subject of emotion and the moving power. It is the same mind or soul that thinks and feels, that is aware of danger, and contrives a means of resistance or escape the very same soul that raises the arm to strike, or moves the legs to run. This soul, then, is the living force in the body; it not only stimulates the muscles to contract, but it presides over all secretions. What makes the tears flow in sorrow, but the soul? What parches the mouth in fear, by sealing up the sources of the water of the mouth, but the soul? The soul is everywhere present; it does everything. "The body, as body, has no power to move; it must always be put in motion by an immaterial principle. All movement is immaterial, and a spiritual act (ein geistiger act)."1

Stahl felt this, and expressed his feelings on the subject with the passionate earnestness of a man who utters convictions derived directly from consciousness. To him they

It

were absolute truth, truth he had won for himself. was characteristic of the man, that, assuming the mystic language of inspiration, he should be intolerant of contradiction, and should resent as an insult, the suggestion that whether his doctrines on the subject of the soul were true or false, at all events they were not new; for that

Theorie Med., pp. 43, 260,

his soul no way differed from the Archæus of Van Helmont, or indeed from the Psyche of Aristotle. When Stahl was so addressed, he was wont "to curse and to swear," to deny that he owed anything to the ancients, and to appeal to the direct consciousness of his hearers for the truth of his speech. In all this he was natural and true to himself. What he uttered as novelty, had, at least, the charm of freshness He reproduced the thoughts of others, but they were the growth of his own mind; and the bitterness that mingled with them was due in part to what he felt to be the unjust reception of these sublime truths.

Stahl has been severely dealt with by some of the greatest medical writers, especially by Haller; and, undoubtedly, he drew upon himself well-deserved chastisement by the extravagance of his assertions, and his contemptuous treatment of his great contemporaries. "The exact form of the semicircular canals in the ear, of the malleus, the incus, the stapes, and (what a magnificent discovery!) the round bone, would doubtless, if unknown, make the physical knowledge of the human frame very defective! But medicine stands in need of such knowledge, just as much as it does of what became of the snow that fell ten years ago.

We can understand this extravagance in a man who felt himself called on to protest against the exclusive prominence given by his brilliant colleague and his illustrious contemporaries, to the knowledge of the mechanism of the body; and who, glorying in his ignorance, boasted that "he had had no time to saunter through class-rooms and wriggle through antiquarian libraries;" but it was naturally irritating to those he despised.

As a theory of vital action in health, the hypothesis of Stahl is simple, and, to a certain extent, entirely satisfactory; indeed, it is not till we attempt to explain by it all

Proempt Mang. Sprengel, Vol. V., p. 306.

vital manifestations throughout the entire range of creation, that we feel the dilemma of the position of Stahl; for either we must be prepared to show some essential difference in the human vitality from that of the lowest forms of animal life, or else to credit even polypes and animalculi with the possession of a soul-a conclusion from which we shrink. Stahl's theory of animation has been largely accepted, especially in England, where some of the most celebrated writers, such as Darwin (the elder), have pronounced in its favour. Indeed, Darwin's opening sentence in his famous "Zoonomia seems to have been taken from Stahl:-"The whole of the matter may be supposed to consist of two species or substances; one of which may be termed spirit, and the other matter. The former of these possesses the power to commence or produce motion, and the latter to receive or communicate it." But even if we accept this theory, as Darwin does, as the foundation of the "laws of life," yet it would be difficult to make any use of it in practice. Perfect as a physiological hypothesis, it entirely fails as a pathological one. If all vital healthy action is due to the immediate activity of the intelligent soul, the natural explanation of all morbid action is, the effort of this soul to defend its house against the intrusion of some destructive force. It is thus ingeniously set forth by Dr. Whytt, a celebrated professor of the University of Edinburgh, who died in 1766:-"As the Deity seems to have implanted in our minds a kind of sense respecting morals, whence we approve of some actions, and disapprove of others, almost instantly, and without any previous reasoning about their fitness or unfitness,-a faculty of singular use, if not absolutely necessary, for securing the interests of virtue among such creatures as men!- -SO methinks the analogy will appear very easy and natural, if we suppose our minds so framed and connected with our

1 Darwin's Zoonomia. 4to. London.

bodies, as that in consequence of a stimulus affecting any organ, or of an uneasy perception in it, they shall immediately excite such motions in this or that organ or part of the body, as may be most proper to remove the irritating cause, and this without any previous natural conviction of such motions being necessary or conducive to this end. Hence, men do not eat, or drink, or propagate their kind, from deliberate views of preserving themselves or their species, but merely in consequence of the uneasy sensations of hunger, thirst, &c." "There seems to be in man one sentient and intelligent principle which is equally the source of life, sense, and motion, as of reason; and which, from the law of its union with the body, exerts more or less of its power and influence, as the different circumstances of the several organs actuated by it may require." "It operates by the intervention of something in the brain and nerves." 1

If the soul pervades all parts of the body, and communicates, by direct radiation to every cell of which it is built, the power of assimilating appropriate nourishment, and of extracting its proper secretion from the blood; if it gives the power of contraction to the muscles, and of secretion to the liver; if, moreover, it so presides over the wellbeing of its living vesture as to repel, with instinctive perception and force, every source of danger; it is manifest that there is hardly a possibility of the body receiving any injury except from mechanical violence. If what is noxious to any tissue or organ, is instantaneously perceived to be so, just as the palate perceives what is bitter or sour; and if every point has the power of preventing the entrance of this mischievous intruder; the great mass of the disorders of the frame could never exist. Surely the soul is supposed to be immortal, and as immortal must be incapable of languor or fatigue; for languor is the beginning

1 Whytt on Vital Motions, p. 288.