The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)Spencer, Herbert
Science
The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)
Spencer, Herbert
Biology
genesis of internal forces corresponding in number, directions, and
amounts, to the external incident forces--as many inner functions, single
or combined, as there are single or combined outer actions to be met." It
was shown, too, that the relations among ideas are ever in progress towards
a better adjustment between mental actions and those actions in the
environment to which conduct must be adjusted. So that this continuous
correspondence between inner and outer relations which constitutes Life,
and the perfection of which is the perfection of Life, answers completely
to that state of organic moving equilibrium which we saw arises in the
course of Evolution and tends ever to become more complete.
CHAPTER VI^A.
THE DYNAMIC ELEMENT IN LIFE.
§ 36a. A critical comparison of the foregoing formula with the facts proves
it to be deficient in more ways than one. Let us first look at vital
phenomena which are not covered by it.
Some irritant left by an insect's ovipositor, sets up on a plant the morbid
growth named a gall. The processes in the gall do not correspond with any
external co-existences or sequences relevant to the plant's life--show no
internal relations adjusted to external relations. Yet we cannot deny that
the gall is alive. So, too, is it with a cancer in or upon an animal's
body. The actions going on in it have no reference, direct or indirect, to
actions in the environment. Nevertheless we are obliged to say that they
are vital; since it grows and after a time dies and decomposes.
A kindred lesson meets us when from pathological evidence we turn to
physiological evidence. The functions of some important organs may still be
carried on for a time apart from those of the body as a whole. An excised
liver, kept at a fit temperature and duly supplied with blood, secretes
bile. Still more striking is the independent action of the heart. If
belonging to a cold-blooded animal, as a frog, the heart, when detached,
continues to beat, even until its integuments have become so dry that they
crackle. Now though under such conditions its pulsations, which ordinarily
form an essential part of the linked processes by which the correspondence
between inner and outer actions is maintained, no longer form part of such
processes, we must admit that the continuance of them implies a vital
activity.
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