THE PROCESS OF DEATH. 319 



activity. This constitution may be some day imitated 

 by the devices of experiment When that result is 

 achieved the anatomical element will live in isolation 

 exactly as it lives in the organic association, and the 

 mysterious bond which causes its solidarity with the 

 rest of the economy will become intelligible. In fact, 

 we may defer more or less the maturity of this 

 prophecy, but there is no doubt that we are daily 

 nearing its fulfilment. 



The general life of the complex being is therefore 

 the more or less perfect synergy, the ordered process of 

 elementary lives. General death is the destruction of 

 these partial lives. The nervous system, the instru- 

 ment of this harmony of the parts, represents the 

 social bond. It keeps most of the partial elements 

 under its sway, and is thus the intermediary of their 

 relations. The closer this dependence, the higher the 

 development of the nervous apparatus, and the better, 

 also, is assured the universal solidarity and therefore 

 the unity of the organism. Cellular federation 

 assumes the characteristic of a unique individuality 

 in proportion to the development of this nervous 

 centralization. With an ideal perfect nervous system 

 the correlation of the parts would also attain per- 

 fection. As Cuvier said : " None could experience 

 change without a change in the rest" 



But no animal possesses this extreme solidarity of 

 the parts of the living economy. It is a philosopher's 

 dream. It is the dream of Kant, to whom the perfect 

 organism would be "a teleological system," a system 

 of reciprocal ends and means, a sum total of parts 

 each existing for and by the rest, for and by the 

 whole. An organism so completely connected would 

 be unlikely to live. In fact, living organisms show a 



