70 THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LIFE 



book we have seen the conclusions which might be drawn 

 as an approximate law from the application of this artificial 

 method. But we have now to seek whether a natural 

 method of decomposition into functions may not give us 

 a more rigorously exact result from the biological point 

 of view. 



This idea of reaching a genuinely biological result some- 

 thing truly general and applying to all living beings without 

 exception is to guide us in our search. Indeed, when we 

 describe a phenomenon, if we bring in the flexion of the 

 forearm, we shall certainly find nothing equivalent to it 

 in an earth-worm or a sea-urchin having no articulated 

 forearms. Physiologists aim precisely at this when they 

 examine the great functions respiration, circulation, diges- 

 tion, etc. found in all living beings without exception. 



We have seen that such a method is artificial. That it 

 is also susceptible of generalization merely proves that we 

 can apply one and the same artificial method to the physiolo- 

 gical study of all living beings. We ought not to separate 

 from each other the different phenomena which take place 

 at the same moment in a given animal. We must therefore 

 resign ourselves to studying them all at once something 

 which demands a special synthetic language. 



A dog, a duck, a serpent, as I have said, are capable 

 of manifesting in a thousand different ways, according to 

 circumstances, their specific activity as dog or duck or 

 serpent. Yet their activity remains specific, that is, it goes on 

 according to the peculiar structure of their organism and, 

 under the same circumstances, a dog acts like a dog and a 

 duck acts like a duck. It would be convenient, at least as a 

 beginning, to create verbs corresponding with these different 

 specific activities. For example, we would say a dog dogs, 

 a duck ducks and so on ; and the question would be to know 



