Principles of human physiology / by William B. Carpenter ; edited by Henry Power.

  • William Benjamin Carpenter
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles of human physiology / by William B. Carpenter ; edited by Henry Power. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/1242
    OF LIFE, AND ITS CONDITIONS. 1. TfiE term Life has been used by different writers, Physiological and Ontological, in a great variety of significations; but these are for the most part capable of reduction to three categories,—Life being regarded either (1) as the aggregate of the 'pheno'niena exhibited by any Organized being from the commencement to the conclusion of its indi- vidual existence, or (2) as the mode of activity peculiar to such beings, whereby they are distinguished from inanimate bodies, or (3) as the special agency supposed to be inherent in every organism, and to be the efficient cause alike of its first development and of its subsequent main- tenance. The first is the sense in which the term is understood by Philosophers of the 'positive' school, who refuse to concern themselves with anything save phenomena that are immediately cognizable by the senses : while the last is the meaning attached to it by such as think that a great deal of trouble is saved by the assumption of a hypothetical entity, whose agency may at once account for everything not to be otherwise explained. To both these definitions it may be objected that they tend to limit inquiry into the essential nature of Vital Action. For by taking the former as a starting-point, we are led to fix our attention too exclusively on the material conditions presented in the structure of the Organism, and to ignore the forces by which its activitj'- is main- tained : just as if, in studying the operations of a Cotton-factory, we were to limit our attention to the mechanism of the carding, spinning, weaving, and other machines by whose instrumentality its products are elaborated, and were to neglect, as a condition not directly cognizable by our senses, the Motive Power without which those machines would all be inert. On the other hand, by resting in the assumption of a Vital Principle or Organic Agent as affording a sufficient account of aU that is mysterious in the nature of Life, we really remove it from the domain of scientific inquiry; just as if the visitor to a Cotton- factory were to give up in despair any attempt to acquaint himself with the meaning of the several processes that go on before his eyes, and were to regard it as a sufficient account of the transformation of raw cotton into woven calico, that ii takes place by the agency of a calico- making principle. 2. But if, on the other hand, the Physiologist takes as his stand- point the conception of Life as a peculiar mode of activity, he at once finds himself on a pathway of inquiry' marked out for him by the ante- cedent researches of the Physical philosopher. For as, in the study of that great cy cle of mutually-related changes which may be designated the Life of the Universe, the Physicist has been led in the first instance ]5