583 ; Attempt to systematize [Ocr. 
performs locomotion neither transmits liquids nor sensations ; that 
which transmits liquids neither performs motion from place to place, 
nor is the means of sensibility; and that which is the means of 
sensibility neither performs locomotion nor transmits liquids. 
Now the organs employed in tocomorion are the ones, liga- 
ments and muscles; those employed in transmitting Lrq@urDs are 
the absorbent, circulating and secreting vessels; and those employed 
about SENSATIONS are the organs of sense, cerebrum and cerebellum, 
with the nerves which connect them. ‘The first class of organs may 
therefore be termed locomotive or (from their very obvious action) 
mechanical; the second, vascular, or (as even vegetables from their 
possessing vessels have life) they may be termed vital ; and the third 
may be named nervous or intellectual. 
Mechanical action, indeed, appears to be only less minute than 
vital action; and it is probable that nervous, as well as chemical, 
action are only yet more evanescent. All the organs and funetions, 
therefore, may perhaps be termed mechanical. But whether this 
be so or not is of little consequence in this case; since, in adopting 
these terms, | mean them merely to express the obvious and im- 
portant distinctions which are mentioned above. 
An arrangement of anatomy and physiology, however, according 
to a precise dependaace of these systems, is not possible: for, 
though the nervous system, being considerably independent of the 
muscular and vascular, might with this view be placed first, yet we 
cannot, consistently with maintaining this precise order, next men- 
tion the muscular, because all muscular action is in a certain mea- 
sure dependant on the action of vessels ; nor can we next mention 
the vascular, because all vascular action is in a certain measure de- 
pendant on the action of muscles. In short, in animals all the 
systems influence one another, just as in vegetables the two which 
exist in them—the mechanical and vital, are reciprocally affected. 
The order, then, of greatest independence, is that which places 
the mechanical organs first, because in minerals, the simplest beings, 
where mechanical structure alone exists, it is uninfluenced by any 
vital ; the vital organs next, because in vegetables—the beings next 
in complexity, they are uninfluenced by any intellectual ; and the 
intellectual last, because they exist only in animals. This, then, is 
the order of their greatest independence. 
' The advantages of this arrangement are, first, its enumerating 
the organs in the order of the obviousness of their functions: 
secondly, its enumerating them in the order of the three natural 
classes of beings—minerals having mechanical structure; vegetables, 
mechanical and vital ; and animals, mechanical, vital and intellec- 
tual: thirdly, its connecting this portion of science with science in 
general; fer, from the mechanical and vital organs, common to 
animals with the inferior classes, we pass through the intellectual 
which are proper to them, to the consideration of intellect itself, 
and of those signs of ideas which language affords. ‘Thus we pass 
naturally from the last of the physical sciences, considering’ the 
