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PART I. 



THE MECHANICAL FUNCTIONS. 



Chapter I. — Organic Mechanism. 



§ 1 . Organization in General. 



Life, which consists of a continued series of 

 actions directed to particular purposes, cannot 

 be carried on but by the instrumentality of those 

 peculiar and elaborate structures and combina- 

 tions of material particles which constitute or- 

 ganization. All these arrangements, both as 

 respects the mechanical configuration and the 

 chemical constitution of the elements of which 

 the organized body is composed, even when 

 apparently most simple, are, in reality, complex 

 and artificial in the highest possible degree. 

 Let us take as a specimen the crystalline lens, 

 or hard central part, of the eye of a cod fish, 

 which is a perfectly transparent, and to all 

 appearance homogeneous, spherule. No one, 

 unaccustomed to explore the wonders of nature, 

 would suspect that so simple a body, which he 



