1 70 Same Acccnmt of M. Bichafs Theory of Life. 



tively; by the animal, tliat existence becomes a blessing or a 

 curse, a source of enjoyment or of suffering*. 



It is not at all pretended that the idea of this division was 

 entirely original with Bichat. Most physiologists have had 

 some faint conception of it, and others have more distinctly 

 recogaiised it under a somewhat different modification and with 

 a different title. But he has made it peculiarly his own by 

 the ingenious and novel manner in which he has stated, ex- 

 plained, and illustrated it; the detailed application, which he 

 has made of it, to the various phtenomena of the living system ; 

 and the beautiful and almost poetical air which he has, by 

 means of it, thrown around many of these phaenomena. 



In the first place, as he teaches us, the two lives differ, in 

 some important respects, as to the organs by which their func- 

 tions are performed. Those of the animal life present a sym- 

 metry of external form, strongly contrasted with the irregu- 

 larity, which is a prominent characteristic of those of organic 

 life. In the animal life, every function is either performed by 

 a pair of organs, perfectly similar in structure and size, si- 

 tuated one upon each side of the median dividing line of the 

 body, or else by a single organ divided into two similar and 

 perfectly symmetrical halves by that line. Thus the organs of 

 sight and hearing, and of locomotion, are double and similar ; 

 the nerves of the brain go off" in corresponding pairs ; the or- 

 gans of smell and taste and the brain are situated with a perfect 

 regard to this law. The organs of the organic life, on the con- 

 trary, present a picture totall}' different ; they are irregularly 

 formed, and irregularly arranged ; the stomach is disposed 



* After the death of Bichat, a work was published by M. F. R. Biiisson, 

 embracing the same parts of physiology as the Researches of Bichat, but 

 with some modification of his views, which, however, had been submitted 

 to his revisal, and met with liis approbation. Buisson was a particular 

 friend of Bichat, and one of the editors of the three posthumous volumes of 

 the Anatomic Descriptive. Man, he defines to be an intelligence administered 

 \servic\ by organs; and upon this view of his nature, founds a j)hysiological 

 classification, the same in effect as that of Bichat. The organs are of two 

 classes: 1. Those immediately subservient to the purposes of the intelli- 

 gence, such as the eve, the ear, the organs of locomotion, of voice, &c. and 

 these, taken together, form the active life: 2. Those not immediately con- 

 nected with the intelligence, and not untler its control, which are yet neces- 

 sarj- to it, from nourishing and preserving the instruments with w hich it 

 does irumediately operate, such as the stomach, the heart, the lungs, &c. 

 these form the nutritive fife. This division, it is obvious, does not differ 

 essentially from that of Bichat ; and, although perhaps a more original and 

 beautiful point of view, from which to look at man, as a subject of physio- 

 logy, it is less perfectly ai)plicable tc life, considered as a whole, and possessed 

 by a long series of animals and vegetables. 



without 



