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On Unity of Function hi Organized Beings. By William 

 B. Caepenter, M. R. C. S., Senior President of the Royal 

 Medical Society, and President of the Royal Physical So- 

 ciety, Edinburgh.* Communicated by the Author. 



Theue are few things more interesting to those who feel 

 pleasure in watching the extraordinary advancement of almost 

 every department of knowledge at the present time, than the 

 rapid progress of philosophical views in sciences which have 

 liitherto been too much confined to mere observation. The in- 

 sulated facts wliich have been gradually collected by various 

 labourers in the vast fields of comparative anatomy and physio- 

 logy, are now made the basis of generalisations alike important 

 from their extensive range, and interesting from the unexpected 

 nature of the results to which they frequently lead ; and though 

 the application of the laws thus obtained may sometimes appear 

 forced, and inconsistent with the usual simplicity of nature, 

 further investigation will generally shew that the difficulty is 

 more apparent than real (frequently arising solely from our 

 own prejudices), and that it is in many cases the result of that 

 combination of unity and variety by which is produced the 

 endless diversity and yet harmony of forms so remarkable in 

 the animated world. 



The object of the present essay, which has been partly sug- 

 gested by Dr Barry's valuable papers in the last two numbers 

 of this Journal, is to carry out to particulars some of the ge- 

 neral principles there laid down, with the addition of others 

 which had previously suggested themselves to me. It is far 

 from my present intention to enter into a critical examination 

 of those papers, more especially as they have in view the lau- 

 dable object of exciting the attention of English physiologists 

 to a branch of study which has by no means received from them 

 that consideration which its importance demands. 



The time has long gone by when similarity in function and 

 external form were considered sufficient for the recognition of 

 analogies between oi'gans ; anatomists are now aware of the 



• The above essaj' was read as a communication to the Royal Medical So- 

 ciety, 14th April 1837. 



