ON THE VITALISTIC VIEW OF NATURE. 



429 



37. 

 Properties 



its existing in peculiar conditions, is known as living 

 matter." ^ 



Thus, instead of trying to penetrate to the physio- 



' J o 1 L J Properties 



logical units and construct them through a process of oftheiiving 



o o i iiUDstance. 



imagination, this latter class of biological thinkers con- 

 fine themselves to the task of describing in the simplest 

 manner and as completely as possible the various proper- 

 ties of the livincr substance — i.e., its functions." And 



1 'Ency. Brit.,' article " Phy.si- 

 ology," vol. xix. p. 12. See also an 

 address delivered by Prof. Burdon 

 Sanderson at the meeting of the Brit. 

 Assoc, at Newcastle in 1889 ('Re- 

 port,' p. 604) : " During the last ten 

 or fifteen years histology has carried 

 her methods of research to such a 

 degree of jierfection that further 

 improvement scarcely seems pos- 

 sible. As compared with these 

 subtle refinements, the ' minute 

 anatomy ' of thirty years ago seems 

 coarse — the skill for which we once 

 took credit seems but clumsiness. 

 Notwithstanding, the problems of 

 the future from their very nature 

 lie as completely out of reach of the 

 one as the other. It is by different 

 methods of investigation that our 

 better -equipjied successors must 

 gain insight of those vital processes 

 of which even the ultimate results 

 of microscoi)ical analj'sis will ever 

 be as they are now, only the out- 

 ward and visible signs" (p. 608). 



^ As Prof. Iiurdon Sanderson puts 

 it in his ' Address,' it is a reversion 

 to a position which is not new in 

 the history of physiology. " The 

 departure from the traditions of 

 our science which this change of 

 direction seems to imi>Iy is indeed 

 more apparent than real. In tracing 

 the history of some of the greatest 

 advances, we find that the recogni- 

 tion of function has preceded the 

 knowledge of structure. Haller'.s 

 discovery of irritability was known 



and bore fruit long before anything 

 was known of the structure of 

 muscle " (p. 607). " . . .In nmch 

 more recent times the investigation 

 of the function of gland-cells, which 

 has been carried on with such re- 

 markable results by Prof. Heiden- 

 hain in Germany, and with equal 

 success by Mr Langley in this 

 country, has led to the discovery 

 of the structural changes which 

 they undergo in passing from the 

 state of repose to that of activit}' ; 

 nor could I mention a better ex- 

 ample than that afforded by Dr 

 Gaskell's recent and very important 

 discover}- of the anatomical difier- 

 ence between cerebro-spinal nerves 

 of different functions" (ibid.) What 

 has to a great extent worked this im- 

 portant change in the methods and 

 reasoning in ])hysiology is the re- 

 cognition of "plurality of function 

 with unity of structure," a princijile 

 urged strongly bj- the experimental 

 school of medicine, with Claude 

 Bernard as its greatest representa- 

 tive. Notably this was tlie effect of 

 his "demonstration that the liver 

 had other things to do in the animal 

 economy besides secreting bile. 

 This, at one blow, destroyed the 

 then dominant conception that the 

 animal body was to be regarded as 

 a bundle of organs, each with its 

 approjtriate function — a concejition 

 which did much to narrow inquiry, 

 since when a suitable function had 

 once been assigned to au organ 



