Some Account ofM.Bichat' s Theory of Life. 178 



on, according to the nature and degree of the passion excited. 

 In various emotions we experience peculiar sensations in the 

 epigastrium, a sharp pain, a sense of fulness or of sinking; in 

 other cases moral decided effects are produced, a spasmodic 

 vomituig, a copious secretion from the liver or the mucous 

 membrane of the intestines, producing a diarrhoea. All the 

 natural gestures by which we attempt to exj^ress the intellec- 

 tual and moral affections, are so many proofs of the correct- 

 ness of these views. If we wish to indicate any of the phae- 

 nomena of the intellect, relating, for instance, to memory, to 

 perception, or to judgement, we carry the hand spontaneously 

 to the head; but if we would express love, joy, sadness, hatred, 

 &c. we mvoluntarily place it upon the breast, or the stomach. 

 We say a strong head, a well organized head, to express the 

 perfection of understanding ; a good heart, or a feeling heart, 

 to expi'ess moral perfection. IVIany of the phaenomena of dis- 

 ease indicate the same relations between the organic viscera 

 and our moral affections. In the diseases of some organs, the 

 jnind is cheerful and happy, taking always a favourable view 

 of things, and this, even when the disease lies at the very root 

 of existence ; and on the contrary, when some other organs are 

 affected, it is invariably gloomy and apprehensive, anticipating 

 the most fearful results, and even in trivial complaints expecting 

 the most fatal consequences. 



The two lives differ also in the mode and epoch of their 

 origin. The organic is in activity from the very first period 

 of conception ; the animal enters into exercise only at birth, 

 when external objects offer to the new individual means of 

 connexion and relation. In the foetal state, the oeconomy i? 

 solely occupied in the formation and nutrition of the organs; 

 this is the preparative stage of existence. The organs, which 

 are to perform the functions of the animal life, are created and 

 perfected, but they are not exercised ; they are not accessible 

 to the operation of the agents whose excitement is necessary 

 to bring them into action, and of coiu'se they remain in a state 

 of profound repose, until the stinudus, first of the air, and 

 afterwards of food, light, and sounds, is applied to the appro- 

 priate organs. At birth, then, a great change takes place in 

 the physiological state of man. His animal life is first brouglit 

 into existence, and liis organic life becomes more fully deve- 

 loped and more complicated, in order to accommodate itself 

 to the increased demands which this change necessarily brings 

 upon it. But from this moment, there is no further altera- 

 tion or improvement in the functions of the organic life. They 

 are as perfect in the infant as in the adult, they are not sus- 

 ceptible of education. But in those of the animal life every 



thinji 



