42 OF HEALTH AND HUMAN NATURE. 



(58. clause 5 and 6) with purely vital contractility, and indeed 

 greater during life than afterwards.* Animal sensibility is accom- 



I 





f 



* The following is Bichat's table of the properties of the living body : 



Classes. Genera. Species. Varieties. 



1 



T Animal 



Sensibility <? 2 

 1 1 (^ Organic 



Vital C 1 



2 f Animal 1 



\Contractility < o f Sensible. Such as the motion of the 



| .-. . ) heart and alimentary 



j L Organic < 2 canal 



.2 ("Extensibility (^Insensible. Such as the motion of 



Structural < 2 the capillaries. 



(_ Contractility 



Although these are the general properties of the living frame, and sensibility, 

 or more properly excitability, is at the bottom of all other vital or organic 

 properties except the active power of contraction, yet each part has also some 

 peculiarity, altogether inexplicable, not in the least, I think, to be accounted 

 for on Bichat's supposition of each part possessing a certain degree of organic 

 sensibility in relation to its fluids. What causes the vessels of muscle to pro- 

 duce muscle ; of bone, bone ; of membrane, membrane ; what causes the se- 

 creting vessels of the liver to form bile, and of the testes semen, we know not. 

 The cause of these circumstances .may be called by Blumenbach, after Bordeu, 

 vita- propriee ; but it must be carefully remembered that this expression simply 

 denotes an unknown cause of a fact, and affords no explanation. 



Feeling, I use the word for want of another to embrace consciousness and 

 perception, is in the same manner at the bottom of all the mental properties 

 except the active power of willing, but it alone wall not explain them. All 

 matter is probably the same ; but its modifications also are so various that at 

 present we are compelled to speak of distinct kinds of matter. 



The operation of agents on the system is analogous. As far as they all affect 

 the living solid they may be all called stimuli; but they differ in something 

 more than degree of stimulus. Each affects in a peculiar way ; some directly 

 depress life, and many occasion opposite results in different parts. 



When organic sensibility is heightened in one part, it sinks in another, 

 and vice versa, unless the change of it should be such as to extend generally, 

 and even then it is still frequently found in the opposite state in some parti- 

 cular part : we notice coldness of the feet and fulness of the head together ; 

 blisters relieve internal inflammation, and irritate the more difficultly in pro- 

 portion to the violence of the internal disease. The same phenomena are 

 observable in animal sensibility and in the mind at large : 



