INORGANIC AND ORGANIZED. 37 



rious parts ; in the vegetable, of wood, bark, leaves, roots, flowers, 

 &c. ; and in the animal, of muscles, nerves, vessels, &c. ; all of which 

 appear to be instruments or organs for special purposes in the economy. 

 Hence, the body is said to be organized, and the result, as well as the 

 process, is often called organization. Properly, organization means 

 the process by which an organized being is formed; organism, the result 

 of such process, or organic structure. 



The particles of matter in an organized body, in many instances, 

 constitute fibres, which interlace and intersect each other in all direc- 

 tions, and form a spongy areolar texture or tissue, of which the various 

 organs of the body are composed. These fibres, and indeed every or- 

 ganized structure, are considered by modern histologists to be formed 

 originally from cellgerms or cytoblasts : the resulting cells assuming 

 an arrangement appropriate to the particular tissue. " A texture," says 

 Mr. Goodsir, 1 " maybe considered either by itself, or in connexion with 

 the parts which usually accompany it. These subsidiary parts may be 

 entirely removed without interfering with the anatomical constitution 

 of the texture. It is essentially non-vascular ; neither vessels nor 

 nerves entering into its intimate structure. It possesses in itself those 

 powers by which it is nourished, produces its kind, and performs the 

 actions for which it is destined, the subsidiary or superadded parts sup- 

 plying it with materials, which it appropriates by its own inherent 

 powers, or connecting it in sympathetic and harmonious action with 

 other parts of the organism to which it belongs. In none of the tex- 

 tures are these characters more distinctly seen than in the osseous. A 

 well-macerated bone is one of the most easily made, and at the same 

 time one of the most curious of anatomical preparations. It is a per- 

 fect example of a texture completely isolated ; the vessels, nerves, mem- 

 branes, and fat, are all separated ; and nothing is left but the non- 

 vascular osseous substance." 



In the inorganic substance the mass is homogeneous ; the smallest 

 particle of marble consists of carbonic acid and lime ; and all the par- 

 ticles concur alike in its formation and preservation. 



Lastly, while an inorganic body, of a determinate species, has always 

 a fixed composition, the living being, although constituting a particular 

 species, may present individual differences, which give rise in the animal, 

 to various temperaments, constitutions, go. 



6. Mode of preservation. Preservation of the species is, in organ- 

 ized bodies, the effect of reproduction. As regards individual preser- 

 vation, that of the mineral is dependent upon the same actions that 

 effected its formation ; on the persistence of the affinities of cohesion 

 and combination that united its various particles. The animal and the 

 vegetable, on the other hand, are maintained by a mechanism peculiar 

 to themselves. From the bodies surrounding them they lay hold of 

 nutritious matter, which, by a process of elaboration, they assimilate to 

 their own composition ; at the same time, they are constantly absorbing 



. * Anatomical and Pathological Observations, p. 64, Edinburgh, 1845. See also Schwann, 

 Microscopical Researches into the Accordance in the Structure and Growth of Animals and 

 Plants; translated by Henry Smith. Sydenham Society edit. Lond. 1847. 



