1 1 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



follows that when such actions are arrested irretrievably, 

 the organism as an individual whole must die, although 

 its separate parts and anatomical elements may and 

 do perish much more slowly, after different intervals. 

 These perish simply by default because the conditions 

 suitable for the continuance of their life are no longer 

 forthcoming ; and not because they themselves as vital 

 units had received any damage at the time that the 

 organism as a whole ceased to live when the action of 

 the vital machine was stopped. Every anatomical ele- 

 ment of even the highest animal may fairly be said to 

 possess Life and a specific mode of action, each after its 

 own kind ; only, the vital manifestations of the whole of 

 these units are subordinated to the Life and, in health, 

 work towards the well-being of the higher organism of 

 which they form part. The death of the Organism as 

 a whole, results from the stoppage of its machinery ; 

 but the death of its component parts subsequently 

 follows as a consequence of the cessation of those 

 more general actions under whose influence they 

 were produced, and without whose existence they can 

 no longer live. If the medulla oblongata has been 

 punctured and the heart has ceased to beat, there is 

 a permanent stoppage of this function, without which 

 Life, in such a being as a mammalian vertebrate, 

 is impossible. It consequently dies. If the blood no 

 longer circulates, the anatomical elements, which are 

 absolutely dependent upon this fluid for their pabulum, 

 must also, after. a time, necessarily die. The individual 



