THE SYMPATHETIC SYSTEM 257 



exposition of each is all that is necessary to convince of 

 the difference." 



Certainly the arguments of Bichat, which try to prove 

 an animal symmetry and a vegetative symmetry seem 

 childish to us, nowadays, since histology and embryology 

 have shown us that primarily these various textures 

 are symmetrical whether belonging to the animal or to the 

 vegetative system. But in enumerating the tissues of 

 the vegetative system, in order to prove their symmetry, 

 Bichat gave a fairly accurate classification of the tissues 

 of vegetative life. As regards the general significance of 

 these two lives and their mechanism, Bichat leaves very 

 little to be said. 



"It seems as if the vegetative is the sketch, the canvas 

 of the animal, and to complete it, it has been necessary to 

 cover this canvas with an apparatus of external organs, 

 suitable to establish relations. From this result two 

 distinct animal functions. Some consist of routine 

 successions of assimilations and excretions by which 

 changes occur in its own body of neighboring molecules 

 and the injection of these molecules. By this function it 

 lives only in itself, by the other it exists outside of itself. 

 The animal is a dweller of the world and not like the plant 

 of the spot where it was born. It feels and sees what 

 surrounds it, thinks of its sensations, moves voluntarily 

 and often can communicate by means of the voice its 

 desires, fears, pleasures and sorrows. 



I call vegetative life the functions of the first group, 

 because all organic things, vegetable or animal, show it 

 to a more or less degree and an organic texture is all 

 that is necessary to its function. The various functions 

 found in the second group make up animal life, so called 

 because it is only to be found in the animal kingdom." 



A last point deserves to be brought up. 



17 



