36 NATURAL BODIES. 



the animal and the vegetable, we find substances, also called elements, 

 but with the epithet organic prefixed, because they are only found in 

 organized bodies; and are therefore the exclusive products of organi- 

 zation and life. For example, in both animals and vegetables we meet 

 with oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and different metallic sub- 

 stances : these are chemical or inorganic elements. We further meet 

 with albumen, gelatin, fibrin, osmazome, &c., substances which consti- 

 tute the various organs, and have, therefore, been termed organic ele- 

 ments or compounds of organization; yet they are capable of decom- 

 position ; and in one sense, therefore, not elementary. 



In the inorganic body, all the elements, that constitute it, are formed 

 by the agency of general chemical affinities ; but, in the organized, 

 the formation is produced by the force that presides over the formation 

 of the organic elements themselves, the force of life. Hence, the 

 chemist is able to recompose many inorganic bodies; whilst the products 

 of organization and life set his art at defiance. 



The different parts of an inorganic body enjoy an existence inde- 

 pendent of each other ; whilst those of the organized are materially 

 dependent. No part can, indeed, be injured without the mass and the 

 separated portion being more or less affected. If we take a piece of 

 marble, which is composed of carbonic acid and lime, and break it 

 into a thousand fragments, each portion will be found to consist of 

 carbonic acid and lime. The mass will be destroyed ; but the pieces 

 will not suffer from the disjunction. They will continue as fixed and 

 unmodified as at first. Not so with an organized body. If we tear 

 the branch from a tree, the stem itself participates more or less in the 

 injury; the detached branch speedily undergoes striking changes; it 

 withers ; becomes shrivelled ; and, in the case of the succulent vege- 

 table, undergoes decomposition ; certain of its constituents, no longer 

 held in control by vital agency, enter into new combinations, are given 

 off in the form of gas, and the remainder sinks to earth. 



Changes, no less impressive, occur in the animal when a limb is 

 separated from the body. The parent trunk suffers ; the system recoils 

 at the first infliction of the injury, but subsequently arouses itself to a 

 reparatory effort, at times with such energy as to destroy its own 

 vitality. The separated limb, like the branch, is given up, uncontrolled, 

 to new affinities ; and putrefaction soon reduces the mass to a state 

 in which its previously admirable organization is no longer perceptible. 

 Some of the lower classes of animals may, indeed, be divided with im- 

 punity; and with no other effect than that of multiplying the animal 

 in proportion to the number of sections ; but these cases are exceptions; 

 and we may regard the destructive process, set up when parts of 

 organized bodies are separated, as one of the best modes of distinction 

 between the inorganic and organized classes. 



5. Texture. In this respect the inorganic and organized differ con- 

 siderably, a difference which has given rise to their respective appel- 

 lations. To the structure of the latter class only can the term texture 

 be with propriety applied. If we examine a vegetable or animal sub- 

 stance with attention, we find, that it has a regular and determinate 

 arrangement or structure ; and readily discover, that it consists of va- 



