NOTE. 261 



tion, and from the fibrous arrangements of the elements. I 

 term that an animated substance " of which the parts being 

 separated by external agency alter their state of composition 

 after the separation, all other and external relations con- 

 tinuing the same/' This definition is merely the enunciation 

 of a fact. The equilibrium of the elements in animated or 

 organic matter is preserved by their being parts of a whole. 

 One organ determines another, one gives to another its 

 temperature and tone or disposition, in all which, these, and 

 no other, affinities are operative. Thus in organised beings 

 all is reciprocally means and end. The rapidity with which 

 organic parts, separated from a complete living organism, 

 change their state of combination, differs greatly, according 

 to the degree of their original dependence, and to the 

 nature of the substance. Blood of animals, which varies 

 much in the different classes, suffers change sooner than 

 the juices of plants. Funguses generally decay sooner than 

 leaves of trees, and muscle more easily than the cutis. 



Bones, the elementary structure of which has been 

 very recently recognised, hair of animals, wood in plants 

 or trees, the feathery appendages of seeds of plants 

 (Pappus), are not inorganic or without life ; but even in life 

 they approximate to the state in which they are found after 

 their separation from the rest of the organism. The higher 

 the degree of vitality or susceptibility of an animated sub- 

 stance, the more rapidly does organic change in its compo- 

 sition ensue after separation. ' ' The aggregate total of the 

 cells is an organism, and the organism lives so long as the 

 parts are active in subservience to the whole. In oppo- 



