Identifier: pedigreeofmanoth00haec (find matches)
Title: The pedigree of man : and other essays
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich Philipp August, 1834-1919
Subjects: Man Evolution Man Evolution
Publisher: London : A and H.B. Bonner
Contributing Library: ASC - York University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: York University - University of Toronto Libraries

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glion-cells that receive the stimulus to others,and the chief counsellor now determines what is to bedone. The result of this determination is telegraphedas will through the motor-nerves to the muscles, that atonce obey the command sent to them by the contractionof their fibre-cells, by motion. Without doubt the nerve-cells of the brain, theganglion-cells, or soul-cells (Fig. 40), with their radi-ating poles, connected one with another by a branchingnet-work, play the most important part in the life of thesoul. They form, in fact, the central directing organ of thewhole of the multicellular body. They gather togetherall the reports from the external world that are sent tothe brain via, the centripetal telegraph-wires or sensorynerves. They convey, in like manner, all the ordersof the will that pass out to the muscles by the centri-fugal paths of the motor nerves. And, in addition,these notable soul-cells of the brain effect that mostimportant and enigmatical work that we denote by the
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150 CELL-SOULS AND SOUL-CELLS. Fig. 40. v A soul-cell or ganglion-cell from the brain of an electric fish(Torpedo). In the middle of the large ramified cell lies thenucleus, enclosing a nucleolus and most internally a nucleo-linus. The protoplasm of the cell is traversed by many verydelicate fibrillas. The poles or extensions of the branchingcell go partly to nerve-threads (a), serve partly (b) for put-ting this particular soul-cell into relationship with others. word Ideation. They, in the higher animals, as inman, effect that most exalted of all functions of thesoul—that of thinking and of perception, reason andconsciousness. Whilst we are now dealing with the loftiest regions,and the noblest workings of soul, life, reason, and con-sciousness, we must further state that in truth theexact nature of these difficult cell-functions is as yetwholly unknown, but that we are in a position, by theaid of comparative physiology and the history ofdevelopment, to throw a clear light on this i

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