ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 233 



sively to plants and animals, and here the term was first 

 applied. In order to bring some kind of method into 

 the perplexing study of living forms, two ways presented 

 themselves ; and they were consciously or unconsciously 

 followed by morphologists with more or less success. As 

 I mentioned above, one of the chief interests which 

 led to zoological and also to botanical studies was the 

 medical interest. Animals were dissected and observed, 

 as affording by analogy an insight into the structure and 

 processes of the human body. Physiology, the science 

 which deals with the actions of the different parts 

 of the animal or human frame, termed from an early 

 period the functions of the different organs, had made 

 considerable progress during the eighteenth century. It 

 was then found convenient to study the whole organism 

 as an assemblage of different organs or machines, each of 

 which performs a certain function. Thus we have the 

 mechanism on which voluntary motion depends, the 

 mechanism of respiration and of the circulation of the 

 blood through the body, the mechanism of digestion, the 

 mechanism of reproduction, and finally, the mechanism 

 of the nervous system with its specified and localised 

 optical, auditory, and other organs of sense. All these ^ ^^^^2s 

 parts or organs could to a great extent be separately H^Hf^ 

 studied and described in their mechanical, chemical, and 

 electrical actions. These studies had, since the time 

 of Harvey in England and Haller in Germany, made 

 great progress. The application of chemistry to the 

 processes of respiration and digestion, and finally, the 

 discovery of the galvanic current by Galvani, had given 

 a great impetus to the physiological study of the different 



