24 INTRODUCTION. 



life might exist, it was necessary that there should be solids 

 to preserve the form and fluids to keep up motion, in a word, 

 an organization; and inprder that the latter should be enabled 

 to exist in the midst of causes, all tending to its destruction, 

 it was requisite that there should be a continual motion and 

 renewal of its parts. Organized bodies are born alive from 

 bodies alike to themselves, i. e. they are viviparous; in all, 

 and during the whole term of their existence, the vital phe- 

 nomena are in exact proportion to the state of organization; 

 and when this latter is altered, either from the mere fact of 

 possessing life, or from accidental circumstances, life lan- 

 guishes and ceases, and organization is destroyed by the che- 

 mical action of its own elements. Among all those who ob- 

 serve the phenomena of nature, no one has ever been able to 

 detect matter in the very act of organizing itself, or life estab- 

 lishing itself, either spontaneously or by external causes, else- 

 where than in bodies, already living and organized. Life, in 

 fact, does not solely consist in a reunion of molecules which 

 were before separated, as occurs in the case of chemical at- 

 traction, nor simply in an expulsion of the elements previous- 

 ly combined, as in that which is produced by the repulsive 

 action of caloric; but in a movement of temporary formation, 

 in which some elements remain united, which would sepa- 

 rate should life cease, and in which the elementary parts are 

 separated, without the action of caloric; now, this vital action 

 exists only in organized bodies. This close and reciprocal 

 connexion of organization and life, is the reason why they 

 have been by turns considered as being the cause or the ef- 

 fect of each other. This, doubtless, is wrong; organization 

 and life are a complex idea, which should no more be divided, 

 (unless abstractedly), than these two things themselves, which 

 are inseparable. Life is organization in action, or, according 

 to the happy expression of Stahl, is the organism. The ob- 

 ject of this work, however, being the examination of orga- 

 nization in a state of rest, life will be merely alluded to.* 

 8. Organized bodies having a heterogeneous structure, 



* See Richerand's Elements of Physiology. 



