26 GENERAL VIEW OF THE FUNCTIONS. 



without our assistance/ But although we never acquire the least 

 direct voluntary power over the actions of organic contractility, 

 over the peristaltic motion of the intestines or the contractions of 

 the heart, yet every organ of the organic functions may have its 

 organic sensibility heightened into animal sensibility, as inflamma- 

 tion, for instance, of the pleura and the joints, daily demonstrates; 

 indeed, in some organs of that class of functions, we invariably 

 have sensation; the stomach is the seat of hunger; in the lungs 

 we experience an uneasy sensation nearly as soon as their air is 

 expelled. 



The nerves of the animal functions run to the brain or spinal 

 marrow ; those of the organic chiefly to ganglia ; but, as might 

 be expected, the two nervous systems have abundant commu- 

 nications. 



The animal functions have not only a shorter existence than 

 the organic, from their necessity of alternate repose g , but they 

 flourish for a shorter duration, they do not commence till birth, 

 they decline, and, in the natural course of events, terminate, 

 earlier, v. c. the organs of sense and the mental faculties fail be- 

 fore the action of the heart and capillaries. But the decay of the 

 animal functions must, in truth, be only the consequence of the 

 decay of the organic, because there are fundamentally in every 

 part organic functions, circulation, nutrition, &c.; and the per- 

 fect performance of these in the organs of the animal functions is 

 indispensable to the perfect performance of the animal functions. 

 Hence the impairment of these organic functions, even to a small 

 extent, must derange or diminish the animal functions, and the 

 decline of the latter is really owing to the decline of the former, 

 although these still remain vigorous enough to appear unimpaired. 



f There is no proof of feeling. There can be no feeling. We see them act 

 in consequence of the stimulus, and say they feel. The expression is only 

 admissible figuratively, but as all figurative terms in physiology are continually 

 accepted literally, and establish the most absurd notions, especially among the 

 vulgar, it had much better be explained by a mere expression of the fact, by the 

 word excitement. 



8 It is said that the heart has the same repose as the brain, the auricles and 

 ventricles acting in succession, and a pause occurring before their action is 

 renewed. The function, however, of the heart as a whole organ, constantly 

 goes on ; while that of the brain, at least if it is only an organ of the mind, entirely 

 intemits in sound sleep. 



