Abstract
II.
AS the Medusæ are thus the lowest animals in which a nervous system has yet been discovered, we have in them the animals upon which we may experiment with the best hope of being able to elucidate all questions concerning the origin and endowments of primitive nervous tissues. I have therefore spent much time and labour, both last year and this year, in cultivating this field of inquiry; and as it is a field whose ground had never before been broken, and whose fertility has proved itself prodigious, it is not surprising that I should have reaped a rich harvest of results. So far as these results have any bearing on the general theory of evolution, their character is uniformly such as that theory would lead us to expect. For if I had two hours at my disposal instead of one, I might mention a number of facts which, tend to show, in a very striking manner, that the primitive nervo-muscular tissues of the Medusæ, in respect of their physiological properties, present unmistakable affinities, on the one hand with the excitable tissues of certain plants, and on the other hand with the nervo-muscular tissues of higher animals. But not having time to go into this matter, I shall on the present occasion restrict myself to describing such of my results as tend to substantiate Mr. Herbert Spencer's theory concerning the mode in which nerves and nervo-systems have been evolved. And I adopt this course, not only because I feel that any facts bearing on so important a subject cannot fail to be of interest to all intelligent persons, but also because I think that this is a place best suited for publishing the somewhat speculative inferences which I have drawn from my facts. If these inferences are correct, their philosophical as well as their scientific influence will be great and far-reaching; but until they shall have been more completely verified I have not thought it desirable to adduce them in my communications to the Royal Society. Referring, therefore, those among you who may be interested in the research as a whole to the Philosophical Transactions, I will now invite your attention to a connected interpretation of some of the facts that it has yielded—an interpretation which I here publish for the first time.
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Evolution of Nerves and Nervo-Systems 1 . Nature 16, 269–271 (1877). https://doi.org/10.1038/016269a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/016269a0