human
It is supposed by some physiologists that the essential cells of nerves do not actually touch, but are separated by a narrow gap which widens in sleep while it narrows almost to extinction during mental activity. THIS CONDITION IS SO SINGULARLY LIKE A BRANLY OR LODGE COHERER [a device which led to the discovery of wireless telegraphy] AS TO SUGGEST A FURTHER ANALOGY. The structure of brain and nerve being similar, it is conceivable that there may be present masses of such nerve coherers in the brain, whose special function it may be to receive impulses brought from without, through the connecting sequence of ether waves of appropriate order of magnitude. Roentgen has familiarized us with an order of vibrations of extreme minuteness as compared with the smallest waves with which we have hitherto been acquainted; and there is no reason to suppose that we have here reached the limit of frequency. It is known that the action of thought is accompanied by certain molecular movements in the brain, and here we have physical vibrations capable from their extreme minuteness of acting direct upon individual molecules, while their rapidity approaches that of internal and external movements of the atoms themselves. A formidable range of phenomena must be scientifically sifted before we effectually grasp a faculty so strange, so bewildering, and for ages so inscrutable, as the direct action of mind upon mind.
gpt
The structure of the nervous substances, and the experiments made upon the nerves and nerve-centres, establish beyond a doubt certain peculiarities as belonging to the force that is exercised by the brain. This force is of a current nature; that is to say, a power generated at one part of the structure is conveyed along an intervening substance and discharged at some other part. The different forms of electricity and magnetism have made us familiar with this kind of action.
human
I find that the cerebrum is absolutely analogous to in construction to any other nervous arc. It is composed of centripetal and centrifugal fibres, having also registering ganglia. If in other nervous arcs the structure is merely automatic, and can display no phenomena of itself, but requires the influence of an external agent--the optical apparatus inert save under the influence of light, the auditory save under the impression of sound--the cerebrum, being precisely analogous in its elementary structure, presupposes the existence of some agent to act through it.
gpt
The arrangement of the nerve-envelopes is so like that of the best constructed electrical cables that we cannot help thinking that both were constructed to conduct something very much alike. I know that there are those who stoutly maintain that nerve force is not electricity, and it is not in the senses that an electrical battery is not the same thing as a live man; but, nevertheless, nerve-force is closely allied to that wonderful thing that for want of a better and clearer understanding we agree to call 'electricity.'
human
The ether is accepted by science as a reality, and as a medium for light, heat, electricity, magnetism, etc. The nervous system is certainly comparable to an electric battery with connecting wires. Communications of thought and feeling without the mediation of sense-perceptions as commonly understood, is now established. Inanimate objects exert, now and then, 'strange influences.' People certainly carry with them a personal atmosphere. The representation of the condition of these facts by a psychic field, compared to the magnetic or electric field, becomes, therefore, if not plausible, at least convenient. As such a 'field' exists surrounding the sun, so may a 'field' be assumed as surrounding each human individual. 'We have already strong grounds for believing that we live in a medium which conveys to-and-fro movements to us from the sun, and that these movements are electro-magnetic, and that all the transformation of light and heat, and indeed the phenomena of life, are due to the electrical energy which comes to us across the vacuum which exists between us and the sun--a vacuum which is pervaded by the ether, which is a fit medium for the transmission of electro-magnetic waves.' By means, then, of a similar theory applied to mind and brain and body, we may find reasonable explanations of many otherwise insoluble mysteries of life, and, which is of more importance, deduce certain suggestions for the practical regulation of life in the greatest individual interest.
gpt
All states of body and mind involve constant molecular and chemical change. The suggestion arises that the brain, with its millions of cells and its inconceivable changes in substance, may be regarded as a transmitting and receiving battery. The brain being a kind of battery, and the nerves being conductors of released stored-up energy to different parts of the body, by a kind of action similar to the actions of electricity and magnetism, it is suggested that, either by means of the ether, or of some still finer form of matter, discharges of brain energy may be conducted beyond the limits of the body. If the nerve-track corresponds to wires, this refined medium may correspond to the ether-field supposed to be employed in wireless telegraphy. As electrical movements are conducted without wires, or other visible media, so may brain-discharges be conveyed beyond the mechanism of the battery, without the intervention of nerves--except as they may constitute a part of the battery. Generally speaking, such discharges would originate in two ways, viz., by direct mental action, or by mental or physical states--perhaps by a combination.