THE RELATIONS OF THE ORGANITES. 133. In enumerating among the obstacles to research the tendency to substitute hypothetic deductions in place of objective facts, I had specially in my mind the wide-reaching influence of the reigning theories of the nerve-cell. Had we a solidly established theory of the cell, equivalent, say, to our theory of gas-pressure, we should still need caution in allowing it to override exact observation; but insecure as our data are, and hypothetical as are the inferences respecting the part played by the cell, the reliance placed on deductions from such premises is nothing less than superstition. Science will take a new start when the whole question is reinvestigated on a preliminary setting aside of all that has been precipitately accepted respecting the office of the cell. This exercise of the imagination, even should the reigning theories subsequently be confirmed, would not fail to bring many neglected facts into their rightful place. I am old enough to remember when the cell held a very subordinate position in Neurology, and now my meditations have led me to return, if not to the old views of the cell, at least to something like the old estimate of its relative importance. Its existence was first brought prominently forward by Ehrenberg in 1834, who described its presence in the sympathetic ganglia; and by Remak in 1837, who described it in the spinal ganglia. For some time afterwards the ganglia and centres were said to contain irregular masses of vesicular matter which were looked on as investing the fibres; what their office was, did not appear. But there rapidly arose the belief that the cells were minute batteries in which “nerve-force” was developed, the fibres serving merely as conductors. Once started on this track, Hypothesis had free way, and a sort of fetichistic deification of the cell invested it with miraculous powers. In many works of repute we meet with statements which may fitly take their place beside the equally grave statements made by savages respecting the hidden virtues of sticks and stones. We find the nerve-cells credited with “metabolic powers,” which enable them to “spiritualize impressions, and materialize ideas,” to _transform_ sensations into movements, and _elaborate_ sensations into thoughts; not only have they this “remarkable aptitude of metabolic local action,” they can also “act at a distance.”[162] The savage believes that one pebble will cure diseases, and another render him victorious in war; and there are physiologists who believe that one nerve-cell has sensibility, another motricity, a third instinct, a fourth emotion, a fifth reflexion: they do not say this in so many words, but they assign to cells which differ only in size and shape, specific qualities. They describe sensational, emotional, ideational, sympathetic, reflex, and motor-cells; nay, Schröder van der Kolk goes so far as to specify hunger-cells and thirst-cells.[163] With what grace can these writers