94 INTRODUCTION. 



OP THE ORGANISM. 



96. The human body, during life, presents many pheno- 

 mena of different kinds. In it, as in all bodies, mechanical and 

 chemical actions contantly occur; but they are modified by 

 those of life. There is, in fact, in the human body, as in all 

 such as are organized and living, the essential phenomena of 

 life, viz: nutrition and generation, organic actions, whose ex- 

 ercise is subordinate to other actions proper to animals, viz: 

 the muscular movements and the sensations, subordinate 

 themselves to the innervation. These animal actions are di- 

 rected by the functions of a superior order those of intelli- 

 gence. 



Besides this remarkable order of subordination in the phe- 

 nomena of life, there exists between them a connexion, so 

 that the functions of an inferior kind, also hold in dependance, 

 those of a more elevated one, and that all the functions are in 

 such a state of mutual dependance, that the phenomena of life 

 may be compared to a circle, which once traced, has neither 

 beginning nor end. As has been already stated, it is this en- 

 semble of organic actions that is called organism or life. 



97. We call function,* the action of an organ or of an 

 apparatus of organs having one common end. These functions 

 have been classed or distributed in several genera; not that 

 these divisions are perfectly exact, or that they are very useful 

 as aids to the memory, since the objects classed are by no 

 means numerous; but because in their study it is necessary to 

 follow some order or other, and it is better to follow a natural, 

 than an arbitrary one. The divisions of the ancients, adopted 

 with some slight modifications by Haller,Blumenbach, Chaus- 

 sier, and some other moderns, consist in the arrangement of 

 the functions in four classes : the vital, animal, natural or nu- 

 tritive, and the genital functions. Another division, also 

 taken from the ancients, since the first idea of it, is to be 

 found in Aristotle, which has been pointed out by Bufibn, 

 Grimaud, &c., and which has been adopted and developed by 



* See Chaussier, Table synoptique des f auctions. 



