38 CUVIKll 



has come to be applied more especially to the purely 

 empirical constancies of relation, and has lost most of its 

 functional significance. But the correlation of the parts of 

 an organism is no mere mathematical concept, to be 

 expressed by a coefficient, but something deeper and more 

 vital. 



Cuvier interpreted the functional dependence of the parts 

 in terms of what we now call the general metabolism. He 

 had a clear vision of the constant movement of molecules in 

 the living tissue, combining and recombining, of the organism 

 taking in and intercalating molecules from outside from the 

 food and rejecting molecules in the excretions, a ceaseless 

 tourbillon vital. " This general movement, universal in 

 every part, is so unmistakably the very essence of life that 

 parts separated from a living body straightway die." 1 The 

 organisation of the body, the arrangement of its solids and 

 liquids, is adapted to further the tourbillon vital. " Each 

 part contributes to this general movement its own par- 

 ticular action and is affected by it in particular ways, with 

 the result that, in every being, life is a unity which results 

 from the mutual action and reaction of all its parts." 



Cuvier, however, did not resolve life into metabolism, nor 

 reduce vital happenings to the chemical level. The form of 

 onranised bodies is more essential than the matter of which 



o 



they are composed, for the matter changes ceaselessly while 

 the form remains unchanged. It is in form that we must 

 seek the differences between species, and not in the combina- 

 tions of matter, which are almost the same in all. 3 The 

 differences are to be sought at the level of the second and 

 third degrees of composition. 



The existence of differences of form introduces a new 

 problem, the problem of diversity. There are only a few 

 possible combinations of the principal organs, but as you get 

 down to less important parts the possible scope of variation is 

 greatly increased, and most of the possible variations do exist. 

 Nature seems prodigal of form, of form which needs not to be 

 useful in order to exist. " It needs only to be possible, i.e., of 



1 Lemons it Anatomic Conif>iin : c, i., p. 6. 



- Lf Rcgne Animal, i., p. 16. 



3 Hist. Prog. Sci. Nat., i., p. 187, 1826. 



