Ox\ THE VITALISTIC VIEW UF NATURE. 



441 



organisms, it is divided into many stages, allocated to 

 special cells or to (juite distinct classes of beings, some 

 of which, like plants, take upon tliemselves the first 

 important steps of the anabolism, so that others — the 

 animals — may carry it a stage higher, preparing a dis- 

 charge, or catabolism, which becomes more and more 

 effective, till it reaches the unique nervous function 

 which accompanies the highest phenomenon of animal 

 activity — the mental process. Claude Piernard ^ has 

 put into classical words the rationale of this i)rocess. 

 " If, in the language of a mechanic, the vital phenomena 

 — namely, the construction and destruction of organic 

 substance — may be compared to the rise and fall of a 

 weight, then we may say that the rise and fall are 

 accomplished in all cells, both plant and animal, but 

 with this difference, that the animal element finds its 

 weight "' already raised up to a certain level, and that 

 hence it has to be raised less than it subsequently falls. 



' ' Ph(5noniene.s de la vie,' &c. , 

 vol. ii. p. 513. It is oue of Claude 

 Bernard's greatest merits to have 

 corrected the earlier formula in 

 which the circulation of matter had 

 been expressed. Dumas and Bous- 

 singault had said : '" L'oxygene en- 

 leve par ies auimaux est restitue 

 par Ies vegotaux. Les premiers 

 consomment de I'oxj'geue ; les 

 seconds produisent de l'oxygene. 

 Les premiers brulent du carbone ; 

 les seconds produisent du carbone. 

 Les premiers exhalent de I'acide 

 carbonique ; les seconds fixent de 

 I'acide carbonique." On this pass- 

 age Claude Bernard has the fol- 

 lowing comment : " Cette loi qui 

 sous la forme j)rdcddente ex prime 

 avec v(5rit<5 le mucanisme d'une des 

 ])lus gnmdcs harmonies do la nature 

 est une loi cosmique et noii une loi 



physiologique. Ajjplicjuc'e ea ph^'- 

 siologie, elle n'explique pas les 

 phdnomtnes individuels : elle ex- 

 prime comment I'ensemble des 

 animaux et I'ensemble des plantes 

 se comportent en definitive par 

 rapport au milieu ambiant. La loi 

 ctablit la balance autre la sonnue 

 de tons les phenoniencs de la vie 

 animale et de la vie vegetale : elle 

 n'est point I'expression de ce qui 

 se passe en p.articulier dans un 

 animal ou une plantc donni's " (p. 

 512). This false direction, wiiich 

 had been introduced into physio- 

 logy a generation earlier, Claude 

 Bernard corrected by the view that 

 the circulation of matter takes 

 place not only between the two 

 kingdoms of nature but in every 

 elementai-y organism. 

 '- Or its potential. 



