Note 226 — RESEARCH IV.

Of the facts on which Brown founded his law of indirect debility, no prudent man will lose sight either in practising or studying medicine. They are incontrovertible.—And our new facts may doubtless be conciliated to the Brunonian doctrine.

But to suppose that the expenditure of a quality or a substance or a spirit, and its renewal or accumulation are the general principles of animal phænomena, seems to me a grievous and baneful error. I believe it often happens that excitement and excitability increase, and that they oftener decrease together;—In short, without generalizing in a manner, of which Brown and similar theorists had no conception, our notions of the living world will in my opinion, continue to be as confused as the elements are said to have been in chaos. On some future occasion, I may presume to point out the region through which I imagine the path to wind, that will lead the observers of some distant generation to a point, whence they may enjoy a view of the subtle, busy and intricate movements of the organic creation as clear as Newton obtained of the movements of the heavenly masses.