284 Attempt to systematixe (Ocr. 
of generation, before the glands whence they derive the generative 
liquid ; the glands, before the arteries whence is received the liquid 
they transmute ; the arteries, before the heart which is the source 
of the blood they circulate ; the heart, before the absorbents whence 
the materials of the blood—the chyle and lymph, are derived; the 
absorbents, before the stomach where is digested the food whence 
the chyle and lymph are elaborated; or the muscles, before the 
ligaments, by which their motions are limited, and without which 
they cannot be understood. Yet are more or less of these errors 
committed by Scemmerring, Blumenbach, Hildebrandt, Winslow, 
Sabatier, Cuvier, Chaussier, Boyer, Dumas and all the best anato- 
mical and physiological writers. 
Nor is this all: not only do they, with regard to the organs and 
functions, reverse, often to a great extent, the order of their de- 
pendance, but they widely separate objects which are in nature 
closely connected, and blend together others which, belonging even 
to distinct classes, have little natural relation. If the arrangement 
of the author of the Tables Synoptiques de |’Anatomie, in parti- 
cular, were to be considered, as all arrangement ought to be, 
namely, as indicating the relations and dependance of the functions, 
so absurb is it, that absorption, instead of the cause, would be the 
result, of nutrition; generation, the result of absorption; and 
digestion, the result of generation. 
Thus by arranging effects in the place of causes do physiologists 
confound the relations of the functions, and reverse the very order 
of their dependance. 
= ERAT 
The general arrangement of the functions into external, relative, 
or animal, and internal, assimilating, or vegetative, as anciently 
proposed by Aristotle, and successively adopted by Buffon, Grimaud, 
and Richerand, is replete with error. 
For, first, under the term external, relative, or animal functions, 
are thus involved, not only the intellectual actions, consisting of 
sensation, thought and volition, but the locomotive actions by which 
we move from place to place; yet these actions differ from each 
other in every respect. They do not resemble each other in their 
intimate nature; for the intellectual take place longitudinally,* and 
are altogether invisible; while the locomotive are performed angu- 
larly by means of levers, + and are of the most conspicuous kind. 
Neither do they agree in being both external; for the locomotive can 
alone be considered so, while the intellectual are as internal as the 
animal or vital, on which these physiologists have improperly con- 
ferred that epithet. ‘True it is that the eye and the ear, which are 
intellectual organs, receive impressions from external objects ; but 
so do the absorbent surfaces, which are vital organs. If it be urged 
that the absorbed matter is carried inward to the heart, so must it 
* In the tubes of the neurilema, ° + The bones, 
BY 
