GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 257 



death if we can apply this term to the transformation of 

 living into effete matter of every tissue of the body is al- 

 ways, in the end, superior to the power of repair. There 

 seems, indeed, to be an antagonism of processes during life ; 

 a view so fully adopted by Bichat, that it led to his celebrated 

 definition of life ; " the ensemble of functions which resist 

 death." 1 Although death is thus inevitable, and, in the cir- 

 culation of material in Nature, the organic parts of the body 

 become changed in the arrangement of their ultimate ele- 

 ments and appropriated by the vegetable kingdom, during 

 adult life, certain anatomical elements, male and female, are 

 formed in the human subject, which, when they come to- 

 gether under proper conditions, develop into new beings, 

 who pass through the same course of existence as the par- 

 ents. By the concourse of two beings, new organisms come 

 into life, which perpetuate existence and preserve species. 

 The function by which this is accomplished is called genera- 

 tion, or reproduction. 



In our study of generation, we shall confine ourselves as 

 closely as possible to the process as it takes place in the hu- 

 man subject. There are many considerations of great interest 

 connected with the generation of the lowest orders of animal 

 organization, among the most prominent of which is the ques- 

 tion of so-called spontaneous generation. While this may 

 have a certain bearing upon the genesis of anatomical ele- 

 ments, it has little or nothing to do with the development of 

 the fecundated human ovum, and will, therefore, receive little 

 more than an incidental consideration. For similar reasons, 

 we shall not engage in a discussion of the development-theory 

 applied to the origin of species, which is exciting so much 

 controversy at the present day, nor shall we treat of genera- 



* BICHAT, Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la mort, Paris, 1829, p. 2. 



We do not quote Bichat's definition of life as one which we can unreservedly 

 adopt. For more elaborate reflections on this point, the reader is referred to 

 another volume, under the head of Nutrition. See vol. iii., Secretion, Nutrition, 

 Movements, p. 369. 



