3dly. In giving to each system a different organic arrangement, nature has also endowed them with different properties. You will see in the subsequent part of this work, that what we call _texture_ presents degrees infinitely varying, from the muscles, the skin, the cellular membrane, &c. which enjoy it in the highest degree, to the cartilages, the tendons, the bones, &c. which are almost destitute of it. Shall I speak of the vital properties? See the animal sensibility predominant in the nerves, contractility of the same kind particularly marked in the voluntary muscles, sensible organic contractility, forming the peculiar property of the involuntary, insensible contractility and sensibility of the same nature, which is not separated from it more than from the preceding, characterizing especially the glands, the skin, the serous surfaces, &c. &c. See each of these simple textures combining, in different degrees, more or less of these properties, and consequently living with more or less energy. There is but little difference arising from the number of vital properties they have in common; when these properties exist in many, they take in each a peculiar and distinctive character. This character is chronic, if I may so express myself, in the bones, the cartilages, the tendons, &c.; it is acute in the muscles, the skin, the glands, &c. Independently of this general difference, each texture has a particular kind of force, of sensibility, &c. Upon this principle rests the whole theory of secretion, of exhalation, of absorption, and of nutrition. The blood is a common reservoir, from which each texture chooses, that which is adapted to its sensibility, to appropriate and keep it, or afterwards reject it. Much has been said since the time of Bordeu, of the peculiar life of each organ, which is nothing else than that particular character which distinguishes the combination of the vital properties of one organ, from those of another. Before these properties had been analyzed with exactness and precision, it was clearly impossible to form a correct idea of this peculiar life. From the account I have just given of it, it is evident that the greatest part of the organs being composed of very different simple textures, the idea of a peculiar life can only apply to these simple textures, and not to the organs themselves.