_Law of the Constitution of Organs and Apparatus._—If we consider
more highly organized beings, the influence of the intrinsic
conditions appears quite as clearly. As we have seen, this is so that
the requisite fundamental materials may be spent by each element in
suitable proportions,—water, chemical compounds, air, and heat,—that
organs may be added to organs, and that apparatus may be set to work in
complex structures. Why a digestive apparatus? To prepare and introduce
into the internal medium liquid materials which are necessary to
life. Why a respiratory apparatus? To impart the vital gas necessary
to the cells, and to expel the gaseous excrement, the carbonic acid
which they reject. Why a circulatory apparatus? To transport and renew
this medium throughout. The apparatus, the functional wheels, the
vessels, the digestive and respiratory mechanisms do not exist for
themselves, like the random sketches of an artistic nature. They exist
for the innumerable anatomical elements which people the economy.
They are arranged to assist and more rigorously to regulate cellular
life with respect to the extrinsic conditions which it demands. They
are, in the living body, as in civilized society, the manufactories
and the workshops which provide for the different members of society
dress, warmth, and food. In a word, the _law of the construction of
organisms_ or of the _bringing to perfection of an organism_ is the
same as the law of cellular life. It is otherwise suggestive as the
law of _division of physiological labour_ formerly enunciated by Henry
Milne-Edwards; and in every case it has a more concrete significance.
Finally, it brings the organic functional activity into relation with
the conditions of the ambient medium.
_How Experiment acts on the Phenomena of Life._— The two orders of
conditions, the one provided by the being itself, the other by external
agents, are equally indispensable—and therefore of equal importance or
dignity. But they are not equally accessible to the experimentalist.
It is not easy to exercise on the organization direct and measurable
actions. On the contrary, the physical conditions are in the hands
and at the discretion of the experimenter. By them he may reach the
vital manifestations as they appear, stimulate or check them, defer
or precipitate them. Thus, for instance, the physiologist suspends
or re-establishes at his will full vital activity in a multitude of
reviviscent or hibernating beings, such as grains, the infusoria
capable of _encystment_, the vibrio, the tardigrade, the cold-blooded
animals, and perennial plants.
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