1315.) Anatomy, Physiclogy, and Pathology. 287 
perfectly recollecting any more, he perhaps adds)—and of various 
viscera.* If you wish to know what these viscera are, he probably 
tells you that they are such parts as the heart and lungs, the stomach 
and the intestines; and in innumerating these intestines, which he 
finishes with the rectum, he perhaps adds, that the drain also, and 
the eye, and the ear, are called viscera—that, in short, it is a name 
expressing many objects of that kind, which it is unnecessary for 
him to enter into.a minute detail of. Perhaps, after all, he recol- 
lects that in enumerating the organs, he might indeed have men- 
tioned some such parts as absorbents, and cartilages, and mem- 
branes, and so forth—in fine, rather perplexed, and slightly 
ashamed—he scarce knows why—of the account he has given, he 
in general very properly adds, that such enumerations are of no great 
use, and that, in order to understand any thing of anatomy, it dis 
necessary to enter into a particular study of it. 
True it is, that such enumerations (and the very best which are 
given in books are no better) can be of no use. But it is not less 
true that, in fewer words, as will be seen in the sequel, a very simple 
and satisfactory notion may be given of the animal system, 
-—i 
The developement of the relations of the organs and functions to, 
and of their dependance upon, one another, is the basis of the 
system I propose. 
In viewing, then, the organs in a general manner, a class at once 
obtrudes itself, from its consisting of an apparatus of levers, from 
its performing motion from place to place, or locomotion, and from 
these motions being of the most obvious kind.—A little more obser- 
vation presents to us another class, which is distinguished from the 
preceding by its consisting of cylindrical tubes, by its transmitting 
and transmuting liquids, or performing vascular action, and by its 
motions being barely apparent,—Futther investigation discovers a 
third, which differs essentially from both these, in its consisting of 
nervous particles, in its transmitting impressions from external ob- 
jects, or performing mervous action, and in that action being alto- 
gether invisible. 
Thus each of these classes is distinguished from another by the 
STRUCTURE Of its parts, by the puRPosES which it serves, and by 
the greater or less opviousNess of its motions. ‘The first consists 
of levers ; the second, of cylindrical /ubes ; and the third, of nervous 
‘particles. ‘The first performs motion from place to place, or loco- 
motion; the second, transmits and transmutes liguids, or performs 
vascular action ; and the third, transmits impressions from external 
objects, or performs nervous action. ‘The motion of the first is ex 
tremely obvious ; that of the second is Larcly apparent; and that of 
the third is altogether invisible. 
Not one of them can be confounded with another : for that which 
* This isa term so absurdly applied, as to admitof no nseful definition, 
