In classifying the above-mentioned empirical corroborations of my doctrine according to the sciences from which they come, while I take the graduated order of Nature from the highest to the lowest degree as a guiding-thread to my expositions, I must first mention a very striking confirmation lately received by my chief dogma in the physiological and pathological views of Dr. J. D. Brandis, private physician to the King of Denmark, a veteran in science, whose "Essay on Vital Force" (1795) had received Reil's hearty commendation. In his two latest writings: "Experiences in the Application of Cold in Disease" (Berlin, 1833), and "Nosology and Therapeutics of Cachexiæ" (1834), we find him in the most emphatic and striking manner stating the primary source of all vital functions to be an _unconscious will_, from which he derives all processes in the machinery of the organism, in health as well as in disease, and which he represents as the _primum mobile_ of life. I must support this by literal quotations from these essays, since few save medical readers are likely to have them at hand. In the first of them, p. viii., we find: "The essence of every living organism consists in the will to maintain its own existence as much as possible over against the macrocosm;"--p. x.: "Only _one_ living entity, _one_ will can be in an organ at the same time; therefore if there is a diseased _will_ in disagreement with the rest of the body in the organ of the skin, we may hold it in check by applying cold as long as the generation of warmth, a normal _will_, can be induced by it." P. 1: "If we are forced to the conviction that there must be a _determining principle_--a _will_, in every vital action, by which the development suited to the whole organism is occasioned, and each metamorphosis of the parts conditioned, in harmony with the whole individuality, and likewise that there is a something capable of being determined and developed," &c. &c.--P. 11: "With respect to individual life, the element which determines, the organic _will_, if it is to rest satisfied, must be able to attain what it wants from that which has to be determined. This occurs even when the vital movements are over-excited, as in inflammation: something new is formed, the noxious element is expelled; new plastic materials are meanwhile conveyed through the arteries, more venous blood is carried off, until the process of inflammation is finished and the organic _will_ satisfied. It is however possible to excite this _will_ to such a degree, as to make satisfaction impossible. This exciting cause (or stimulus) either acts directly upon the particular organ (poison, contagion) or it affects the whole life; and this life then begins to make the most strenuous efforts to rid itself of the noxious element or to modify the disposition of the organic _will_, and provokes critical vital activity in particular parts (inflammations) or yields to the unappeased _will_."--P. 12: "The