The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)Spencer, Herbert
Science
The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)
Spencer, Herbert
Biology
Recognition of this truth introduces what little has here to be said
concerning organs; for of course in a work limited to principles no
detailed account of these can be entered upon. This remainder truth is
that, different as they may be in the rest of their structures, all organs
are alike in certain of their structures. All are furnished with these
appliances for nutrition, depuration and excitation: they have all to be
sustained, all to be stimulated, all to be kept clean. It has finally to be
remarked that the general structures which pervade all the special
structures at the same time pervade one another. The universal nervous
system has everywhere ramifying through it the universal vascular system
which feeds it; and the universal vascular system is followed throughout
all its ramifications by special nerves which control it. The lymphatics
forming a drainage-system run throughout the other systems; and in each of
these universal systems is present the connective tissue holding their
parts in position.
§ 54f. So vast and varied a subject as organic structure, even though the
treatment of it is limited to the enunciation of principles, cannot, of
course, be dealt with in the space here assigned. Next to nothing has been
said about plant-structures, and in setting forth the leading traits of
animal-structures the illustrations given have been mostly taken from
highly-developed creatures. In large measure adumbration rather than
exposition is the descriptive word to be applied.
Nevertheless the reader may carry away certain truths which, exemplified in
a few cases, are exemplified more or less fully in all cases. There is the
fundamental fact that the plants and animals with which we are
familiar--_Metaphyta_ and _Metazoa_--are formed by the aggregation of units
homologous with _Protozoa_. These units, often conspicuously showing their
homology in early embryonic stages, continue some of them to show it
throughout the lives of the highest type of _Metazoa_, which contain
billions of units carrying on a protozoon life. Of the protoplasts not thus
active the great mass, comparatively little transformed in low organisms,
become more and more transformed as the ascent to high organisms goes on;
so that, undergoing numerous kinds of metamorphoses, they lose all likeness
to their free homologues, both in shape and composition. The cell-contained
protoplasts thus variously changed are fused together into tissues in which
their individualities are practically lost; but they nevertheless remain
connected throughout by permeable strands of protoplasm. Arising by
complication of the outer and inner layers of the embryo and growing more
unlike as their units become more obscured, these tissues are formed into
systems, which develop into sets of organs. Some of the resulting
structures are localized and special but others are everywhere interfused.
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