THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 19 



"studying general physiology or the most universal laws of 

 "life, before applying to any particular branch." This pur- 

 pose was thus vindicated in the article, which did not 

 appear until July, 1837. 



We should be glad to see the science of physiology based 

 upon a more extensive generalization of the phenomena of 

 vitality than has usually been thought necessary : the study of 

 comparative anatomy is now recognized as the surest means 

 of arriving at accurate results on many disputed questions, 

 since the different forms of animals may be regarded, to use 

 the language of Cuvier, as " so many kinds of experiments 

 "ready prepared by Nature." Vegetables present us with a 

 greater simplification of the vital functions than is afforded by 

 the lowest animal, since all the changes necessary to the sup 

 port of the individual and the continuance of the species are 

 performed without the influence or interference of those powers 

 which are possessed in a greater or less degree by the whole 

 animal kingdom. Hence the physiologist may advantageously 

 resort to the study of vegetable life for the explanation of many 

 of the proximate causes of those phenomena which are com- 

 plicated in the higher forms of organized beings by so great 

 a variety of secondary influences. 



The purpose here implied received further illustration 

 in two essays, produced in March and April, 1837, on 

 " The Voluntary and Instinctive Actions of Living Beings," 

 and on " The Unity of Function in Organized Beings." In 

 the first of these, William Carpenter (who had now become 

 President of both the Royal Medical and the Royal Physi- 

 cal Societies) sought a common ground of action in the 

 irritability or contractility which he recognized as a vital 

 property of vegetable tissues equally with those of 

 animals. But the paper was further remarkable for its 

 analysis of the functions of the nervous system in the higher 

 vertebrates, in which the writer opened a path for his future 

 researches in " mental physiology." The second paper was 

 designed to apply \.o fitnction one of the laws propounded 



