150. This course is described with a precision and a confidence which induces the inexperienced reader to suppose that it is the transcript of actual observation. I venture to say that it is imaginary from beginning to end. I do not affirm that no such course is pursued, I only say no such course was ever demonstrated, but that at every stage the requisite facts of observation are either incomplete or contradictory. First, be it noted that the actions to be explained are never the actions of organs so simple as the description sets forth. It is not by single fibres and cells that the stimulus is effected, but by complex nerves and complex centres. Only by a diagrammatic artifice can the fibre represent the nerve, and the cell the centre. In reality the cells of the centre (supposing them to be the _only_ agents) act in groups, and Anatomy should therefore show them to be mutually united in groups--which is what no Anatomy has succeeded in showing, unless the Neuroglia be called upon. Secondly, be it noted that the current scheme of the relations between cells and fibres is one founded on physiological postulates, not on observation. Thirdly, much of what is actually observed is very doubtful, because we do not know whether the appearances are normal, or due to modes of preparation and post-mortem changes. We cannot at present say, for instance, whether the fibrillated appearance of cell contents and axis cylinder represents the living structure or not. We may either suppose that the neuroplasmic pulp splits longitudinally into fibres, or that neuroplasmic threads resolve themselves into a homogeneous pulp--the axis cylinder may be a condensation of many fibrils, or the fibrils may be a resolution of the substance. 151. Let us contrast step by step the Imaginary Anatomy found in the text-books with the Objective Anatomy as at present disclosed by the researches of all the chief workers. Imaginary Anatomy assumes that the sensory fibre passes from a surface into the cells of the posterior horn of the spinal cord. Objective Anatomy sees the fibre pass into the gray substance, but declares that no direct entrance of a fibre into a cell is there visible. Imaginary Anatomy assumes that from the sensory cells of the gray substance pass fibres in connection with the motor cells of the anterior horn, thus forming a direct channel through which the excitation of a sensory cell is transmitted to a motor cell. Objective Anatomy fails to discover any such direct channel--no such fibres are demonstrable.