198 LIFE AND DEATH. 



the external stimuli." He could not claim that this 

 was a distinguishing characteristic between living 

 bodies and brute bodies, and that all the less because 

 he always tried to efface on this point the distinctions 

 which were current in his time, and which were 

 established by Bichat and Cuvier. And so also Le 

 Dantec does not seem to have thoroughly grasped 

 the ideas of the celebrated physiologist on this point 

 when he asserts, as if he were thereby contradicting 

 the opinion of Claude Bernard and his school, that 

 irritability is not something peculiar to living bodies.^ 



^ These ideas are clearly brought to light in a series of 

 articles in the Revue Philosophiqiie, published in 1879 under 

 the title of " La probleme physiologique de la vie," and endorsed 

 by A. Dastre in his commentary on the Phc'nomenes comvnnts 

 aux animaux et aux plant es. 



