| OCR Text |
Show NOTE. 409 at the close of my work entitled 11 V ersuche iiber die gereizte Muskel und Nervenfaser, nebst Vermuthungen iiber den chemischen Process des Lebens in der Thier und Pflanzenweltn (bd. ii. s. 430-436), I already declared that I by no means regarded the existence of such peculiar vital forces as demonstrated. Since that time, I have no longer called peculiar forces what may possibly only be the operation of the concurrent action of the several long-known substances and their material forces. We may, however, deduce from the chemical relations of the elements a safer definition of animate and inanimate substances than the criteria which are taken from voluntary motion, from the circulation of fluids within solids, from internal appropriation and n·om the fibrous arrangements of the elements. I term that an animated substance 11 of which the parts being separated by external agency alter their state of composition after the separation, all other and external relations continuing the same." This definition is merely the enunciation of a fact. The equilibrium of the elements in animated or organic matter is preserved by their being parts of a whole. One organ determines another, one gives to another its temperature and tone or disposition; in all which, these and no other affinities are operative. Thus in organized beings all is reciprocally means and end. The rapidity with which organic parts, separated from a complete living organism, change that state of combination, differs greatly, according to the degree of their original dependence, and to the nature of the substance. Blood of animals, which varies much in the different classes, suffers change sooner than the juices of plants. Funguses generally decay sooner than leaves of trees, and muscle more easily than the cutis. Bones, the elementary structure of which has been very recently recognised, hair of animals, wood in plants or trees, the feathery appendages of seeds of plants (Pappus), are not inorganic or without life; but even in life they approximate to the state in which they are found after their separation from the rest of the organism. The higher the degree of vitality or susceptibility of an animated substance, the more rapidly does organic change in its composition ensue after separation. "The aggregate total of the cells is an organism, and the organism lives so long as the parts are active in subservience to the whole. In opposition to lifeless or inorganic, organic nature 35 |
