108 LIFE AND HABIT. 



" The functional independence of the dements or units 

 of the body. Physiologists agree that the whole 

 organism consists of a multitude of elemental parts, 

 which are to a great extent independent of one another. 

 Each organ, says Claude Bernard, has its proper life, 

 its autonomy; it can develop and reproduce itself 

 independently of the adjoining tissues. A great 

 German authority, Virchow, asserts still more emphati- 

 cally that each system consists of ' an enormous mass 



of minute centres of action Every element has 



its own special action, and even though it derive its 

 stimulus to activity from other parts, yet alone effects 



the actual performance of duties Every single 



epithelial and muscular fibre-cell leads a sort of 

 parasitical existence in relation to the rest of the body. 

 . . . Every single bone corpuscle really possesses 

 conditions of nutrition peculiar to itself.' Eacli 

 element, as Sir J. Paget remarks, lives its appointed 

 time, and then dies, and is replaced after being cast 

 off and absorbed. I presume that no physiologist 

 doubts that, for instance, each bone corpuscle of the 

 finger differs from the corresponding corpuscle of the 

 corresponding joint of the toe," &c., &c. (" Plants and 

 Animals under Domestication," vol. ii. pp. 364, 365, 

 ed. 1875). 



In a work on heredity by M. Eibot, I find him say- 

 ing, " Some recent authors attribute a memory " (and 

 if so, surely every attribute of complete individuality) 

 "to every organic element of the body;" among them 

 Dr. Maudsley, who is quoted by M. Ribot, as saying, 

 " The permanent effects of a particular virus, such as 



