The law within / by Sir Bampfylde Fuller.

  • Joseph Bampfylde Fuller
Date:
1926
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The law within / by Sir Bampfylde Fuller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    be caused mechanically or chemically. But, under the influence of gravity, it results from a force that is beyond our powers of explanation. The weather, again, is affected by such material causes as moisture and wind movement; but it is also changed by the action of unperceivable energies that have so far not been reduced to law. This curious duality is also to be observed in causes that affect ourselves. The activity of thought can be increased by promoting the flow of blood to the head, as by lying down ; but it is also quickened by admiration, whether of ourselves or others. An illness may be cured by a material remedy ; it may also be cured by such immaterial means as a sudden shock to the nerves, or the influence of faith or of suggestion. We are exhilarated by alcohol; we are also exhilarated by a compliment. Life and electricity may, accordingly, both be termed “ de- materialized ” forces, and there are some curious points of contact between them. It has been proved that the nervous current set up by sensation possesses electrical affinities; and there are creatures, such as the electrical eel and the torpedo fish, which are actually endowed with electrical generators. It is characteristic of electricity that it assumes one or other of two contrary phases. Living energy is also two-phased, moving us attractedly or repelledly, pleasurably or displeasurably. As electricity may be generated by friction or by chemical action, so the sense organs may be stimulated vibratively, as in touch, hearing and sight ; chemically, as in smell, And protoplasm, from which life cannot be dissociated, appears to be characterized by an unceasing process of disintegration and re¬ integration, such as, we may believe, might generate electrical conditions. Electrical energy being amenable to law, there is no prima facie reason why living energy should be free from it. We are inclined to repel any attempt to reduce life to rule, because the exercise of the will is one of the most prominent of our faculties, and this seems to be arbitrary, and untrammelled by conditions. But we shall find that, as a matter of fact, the will is stimulated in regular course by a shock or discord, without which there is no effoit; and that the couise of volition is invariably led by id;as of success or failure that are derived from experience. In its origin, and in its course of action, volition is, then, governed by laws. That energy should be originated by discord is, no doubt, in flat contradiction to the theory of the Conservation of Energy, which until lately was accepted as an axiom of science. But this assumption has now been shaken to its foundations by the discovery of radio-activity. And, if one
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