Leçons d'anatomie comparée de G. Cuvier ... recueillées et publiées sous ses yeux par C. Dumeril ... 8vo, Paris, an VIII.

Date:
1801
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Leçons d'anatomie comparée de G. Cuvier ... recueillées et publiées sous ses yeux par C. Dumeril ... 8vo, Paris, an VIII. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ed to us by the obfcrvation of phenomena that lucceed in regular and correfponding trains. Having obferved in our own bodies, and in many bodies fimilar to our own in form and ltrudlure, a power of refilling, for a certain period, the laws which regulate un- organized bodies, and even of adding upon other bodies in oppofition to thefe laws, we employ the terms Life, vitality, vital power, to exprefs thefe apparent exceptions from the ordinary courfe of nature. The general and common charadteriltics of all organized beings are, an origin by genera- tion, an increafe by nutrition, and a termina- tion by death. The functions exercifed by organized beings, are reduced under three orders. The firlt confifts of the fundtions which are effential to animal life, which qua- lify animals to fulfil the part affigned to them by nature in the general arrangement of the univerfe, and which would fuffice for their exillence, if it were to be of only momentary duration. Senlation and voluntary motion form this firlt order of fundtions, and are termed the Animal fundlions. But animated machines polfefs an internal principle of fup- Vol. I.—L. 2. 1* port