REPORT ON ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY. 115 



others which may be still latent. In the lower creature, a par- 

 ticular organ or set of organs attain their purpose and are com- 

 plete ; in the imperfect state of the higher, the corresponding 

 organs may in general resemble them, and may even perform a 

 similar office, yet still they are seen to be more than sufficient for 

 this lower purpose : in the midst even of this general similarity, 

 the indication of a higher destiny, yet unattained, is apparent. 



We are disposed to conclude, then, generally, that all the 

 families, genera, and species of animated things were originally 

 created in such forms as we observe them in at present ; and 

 that they continue to produce the organs which are the instru- 

 ments and the expression of their several powers by the process 

 of assimilation as a proxiinate cause. Amongst these different 

 organs the brain is peculiarly distinguished. We are sensible 

 in ourselves of ideas, of emotions, of desires — of powers which 

 present themselves to us as pure energies, without any interme- 

 dium : we have self-consciousness. These activities are excited 

 by our own will; we cannot contemplate them as observable 

 processes in any other person. On the contrary, the energies 

 of all the other organs are totally independent of our will ; we 

 are aware of them only as their effects are matters of obser- 

 vation by means of our outward senses, and we observe them 

 better in other individuals than in ourselves. Life, thus pre- 

 senting such remarkable differences in these two respects, has 

 been distinguished as two forms. And this distinction is not 

 merely logical, for in the vegetable kingdom we have an instance 

 in which the one form of life exists totally separate from the other. 

 But we find that even the higher form, the intellectual or purely 

 animal life, requires for its manifestation a body*. In living 

 creatures the two factors, though logically separable, exist as 

 one reality. The two spheres approach and intermingle in va- 

 rious degrees in the different families of the earth, the animal 

 powers depending upon the vegetative for the formation of their 

 material organ. The life of the lowest animal scarcely appears 

 to differ from that of the vegetable. " From these animals, 

 which obtain food without any act of volition, we come to those 

 which can only obtain it by such an act, but who still, without 

 any act of this kind, obtain the influence of air, yet more imme- 

 diately necessary to their existence. We arrive at length at the 

 most perfect class, which can neither obtain food nor air except 

 by an act of the sensorium. In them the sensorial power is as 

 necessary for the inhalation of air, as the ingestion of foodf." 



* Burdach, vol. iv. p. ."3. Burdach notices tlie impropriety of calling, with 

 Bichat, the animal life ' vie externe,' and the organic ' interne.' 

 t Wilson Philip, Phil. Tram. 1834. 



