CHAPTER XIX 

 FUNCTIONS OF THE MECHANISM AS A WHOLE 



AT the beginning of the fourth part of our work, we estab- 

 lished the fact that the decomposition into functions of 

 the total activity of a complex individual like a man or 

 dog may be made in any number of ways as the observer 

 wishes. Such functions, thus fancifully defined, have no 

 other than a descriptive interest. Moreover, their defini- 

 tion is itself a danger, for the sum of all these functions 

 separately defined will not represent the total activity of the 

 individual analysed unless we take into account the 

 inevitable relations which unite each of the partial functions 

 to all the others. 



Nevertheless, we have drawn a certain advantage from 

 considering functions of protoplasmic mechanism as defined, 

 each on its own account, by a factor taken by itself in the 

 environing circumstances. This has enabled us to bring 

 under a general formula the numerous experimental facts 

 gathered during the past twenty years in laboratories of 

 experimental pathology. 



The animal organism can be considered as a mechanism 

 from several points of view, according to several scales 

 of dimension. There pass in it chemical phenomena and 

 colloid phenomena ; and we know that the colloid or 



protoplasmic mechanism has its influence on the chemical 



no 



