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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



vitalist theories induced. Yet Bichat's concep- 

 tion, freed from those errors which at his time 

 were hardly to be avoided, remains, nevertheless, 

 a conception of genius, on which modern physiol- 

 ogy is founded. Before his day, the doctrines of 

 philosophers, animist or vitalist, soared to a point 

 too lofty and too remote from reality to permit 

 their entering with force and growth into the 

 science of life ; they could have no other action 

 upon it than that paralyzing effect shared with 

 the inert sophisms then prevalent in that school. 

 Bichat, on the other hand, by diffusing life away 

 from a centre, by showing it dwelling in the tis- 

 sues, and connecting its manifestations with the 

 properties of these very tissues, still makes them 

 dependent, it is true, on a metaphysical principle, 

 but that principle is one of a less lofty philosophic 

 dignity, one that may be used with far greater 

 convenience as a scientific basis by the spirit of 

 research and progress. In a word, Bichat, like 

 his predecessors, the vitalists, fell into errors upon 

 the theory of life, but he made no mistakes as to 

 the methods of physiology. It is his glory to have 

 founded that science, by placing in the properties 

 of tissues and of organs the immediate causes of 

 the phenomena of life. 



The ideas of Bichat effected a deep and gen- 

 eral revolution in physiology and medicine. The 

 anatomical school issued from them, seeking ea- 

 gerly in the vital properties of healthy and un- 

 sound tissues the explanation of the appearances 

 of health and disease. In another direction the 

 advance of physical methods, the splendid dis- 

 coveries of modern chemistry, with the broad 

 light they threw upon the vital functions, added 

 every day a new protest against the view main- 

 tained by Bichat, as well as by the vitalists, of a 

 necessary separation and opposition between the 

 organic and the inorganic phenomena of Nature. 



We thus find Bichat and Lavoisier, very near 

 our own day, standing as representing those two 

 great distinct tendencies of philosophy, antago- 

 nistic as we have discerned them from the earli- 

 est times, in the very beginning of knowledge, 

 one attempting to reduce the phenomena of life 

 to the laws of chemistry, physics, and mechan- 

 ics ; the other, on the contrary, seeking to set 

 them apart and place them under the government 

 of a special principle, a peculiar power, what 

 name soever be given it, whether soul, or archce- 

 on, or pv/che, or plastic intermediary, or guiding 

 spirit, vital force, or vital properties. This con- 

 test, so ancient already, is still, as we show, not 

 ended ; but how must it end ? Will one of these 

 doctrines at the last win the day over the other, 



and have undivided sway ? I do not so believe. 

 Advances in sciences result in weakening by slow 

 degrees, and in equal measure, those earlier ex- 

 clusive ideas sprung from our little knowledge. 

 As it is the unknown that gives all their strength, 

 in proportion as it vanishes disputes must end, 

 conflicting theories disappear, and the scientific 

 truth that takes their place must rule without a 

 rival. 



II. 



« 



We may say of Bichat, as of most of the 

 great promoters of science, that he had the mer- 

 it of inventing a formula for the indefinite con- 

 ceptions of his day. All the notions as to life of 

 his contemporaries, all their efforts to shape them 

 in a phrase, are in a manner little else than an 

 echo or paraphrase of his teaching. A surgeon 

 of the Paris school, Pelletan, says that life is 

 the resistance opposed by organized matter to 

 the causes which incessantly tend to destroy it. 

 Cuvier himself unfolds the same thought, that 

 life is a force which resists the laws that rule 

 inert matter ; death can be only the return of liv- 

 ing matter to the control of those laws. What dis- 

 tinguishes the corpse from the living body is that 

 principle of resistance which upholds or deserts 

 organized matter ; and to clothe his thought in a 

 more striking and attractive form, Cuvier paints 

 for us the figure of a woman in the splendor of 

 youth and health, suddenly seized on by death. 

 " See," he says, " those voluptuously rounded 

 forms, that pliant grace of motion, that soft 

 warmth, the rose-hued cheeks, the countenance 

 brightened by the flash of wit, or kindled with 

 the fire of passion ; nothing is wanting to com- 

 plete the enchantment of her presence. A mo- 

 ment is enough to destroy that charm; often 

 without a visible cause, motion and feeling cease 

 suddenly, the body loses its warmth, the muscles 

 relax and reveal the angular, bony projections ; 

 the eyes grow dim, the lips and cheeks livid. 

 This is but the beginning of more frightful 

 changes ; the flesh discolors into blue, green, 

 and black ; it draws in moisture, and while part 

 of it goes into evaporation and exhales infection, 

 part drips away in putrid matter, which soon in 

 turn dissolves in air ; in brief, at the end of a few 

 days, nothing is left but a few earthy and saline 

 principles ; the other elements are scattered in 

 air and water, to unite in new combinations. It 

 is plain," Cuvier adds, " that this separation is 

 the natural result from the action of air, warmth, 

 and moisture, in short, of all outward agents 

 upon the dead body, and it is occasioned by the 

 elective attraction of these various agents for 



