46 INTRODUCTION. 



of decomposing itself* in every part of the body, 

 so as to leave to each the kind of particles adapted 

 to renovate and sustain it, is the standing miracle 

 of vegetative life. The only arrangement for the 

 nutriment of the solids is a grand subdivision of the 

 final branches of the arteries. The preparations for 

 producing the fluids are more various and compli- 

 cated; sometimes the final extremities most mi- 

 nutely ramified are spread over considerable sur- 

 faces, from which the fluid is exhaled. At other 

 times the liquid runs out from the bottom of small 

 cavities. But most commonly the arterial extremi- 

 ties, before they are changed into veins, form pecu- 

 liar vessels for the conveyance of the liquid pro- 

 duced, and which indeed appears to spring at the 

 precise point where the two sorts of vessels unite ; 

 there do the blood vessels and arteries form to- 

 gether, by their interlacing, certain bodies which 

 are denominated the conglomerate or secretory 

 glands. 



In animals destitute of circulation the various 

 parts are bathed, as it were, in the nutritious fluid f, 

 and each derives the particular particles necessary 

 for its support. If it be requisite that any particular 



* Or rather the facility with which the blood furnishes the par- 

 ticles requisite to sustain the integrity of the textures, owing to 

 the action exerted upon it by means of the vital influence, with 

 which the capillary vessels and the tissues are endowed. 



t The various parts of such animals, in consequence of the 

 vital principle with which they are endowed, imbibe and assimi- 

 late those particles of the nutritious fluid surrounding them, 

 which most readily supply the waste of their textures. 



