204 ZOOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY 



immersion of three-quarters of an tiour or even an hour, he is 

 asphyxiated to the extent that no movement whatever takes place 

 in his organs. Yet it may still be possible to restore him to active 

 life. 



If he is left in this condition without any assistance, orgasm and 

 irritability soon become extinct in his internal parts, and thereafter 

 the essential fluids and the softest parts begin to decompose, and this 

 is the sign of death ; but if, immediately after his extraction from the 

 water and before the extinction of irritability, the usual aid is adminis- 

 tered to him, if, in short, it is possible by means of the usual stimulants 

 to excite in time contractions in his internal parts, and produce move- 

 ments in his organs of circulation, then all the vital movements quickly 

 resume their course, and active life no longer remains in suspense but 

 is promptly restored. 



But when degenerations and disorders of a living body, either in 

 the order or in the state of its parts, are large enough to prevent these 

 parts from yielding to the influence of the exciting cause and producing 

 organic movements, then life is quickly extinguished, and the body 

 henceforth is no longer included among the living. 



From what I have just said, it follows that if in a body any disturb- 

 ance or degeneration affects the order and state of things which endow 

 it with active life, and if this disturbance is of a nature to prevent the 

 performance of organic movements or their restitution after suspension, 

 the body then loses its life, that is to say, it undergoes death. 



A disorder resulting in death may be brought about in a living body 

 through various accidental causes ; but nature becomes the necessary 

 cause at the end of a certain period ; and, in fact, it is a property of Ufe 

 to bring the organs imperceptibly to a condition in which they cannot 

 perform their functions, so that death inevitably ensues ; the reason 

 of this I shall explain. 



When therefore we affirm that life, in all bodies which possess it, 

 consists only of an order and state of things in the parts of the body, 

 by which these parts are subject to the influence of a stimulating cause 

 and carry out organic movements, we are not expressing a mere con- 

 jecture but a fact universally attested, susceptible of many proofs and 

 never liable to be seriously disputed. 



This being so, we are only concerned to know what is the order and 

 state of the parts which make a body capable of possessing active Ufe. 



But as no precise knowledge of this subject can be directly acquired, 

 let us first investigate the conditions essential to the existence of this 

 order and state of things in the parts of the body, in order that it may 

 possess hfe. 



