AND ANIMAL LIFE. 163 



that those animals, among the warm-blooded, 

 whose temperature is low, or whose susceptibility 

 to cold is great, from the peculiarity in the dis- 

 tribution of the blood, will have the heat of the 

 system so much reduced, as to enfeeble or almost 

 destroy, for the time, the organic functions. By 

 lessening the temperature of an animal, we im- 

 pair, or stop altogether, the digestive process ; 

 and, by the cessation of this, the numerous recre- 

 mentitious changes are affected to a correspond- 

 ing extent. But life can continue for a long time 

 without the ordinary assistance of these functions. 

 It exists when these are active, because there is an 

 expenditure in the system equivalent to the con- 

 tributions. If these were diminished, the excre- 

 mentitious powers remaining the same, the con- 

 stitution would soon perish. Therefore, life is 

 maintained in a vigorous state by a balance of the 

 corporeal faculties, whose office it is to assimilate 

 what is nutritious to the system, or remove what 

 is no longer required. As cold has the tendency to 

 diminish the generation of animal heat, it circum- 

 scribes immediately the desire of food and the power 

 of digestion, and, independently of the direct influ- 

 ence which the latter exercises on other parts of 

 the body, the capability or disposition to move 

 is diminished in the same ratio by the agency of 

 the same cause. In this view we have lessened 

 the contributions and their expenditure ; but as long 

 as a uniformity of action subsists between them, 



