Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/257

Rh of particles belongs properly to its internal vegetative side, its external side (for the very reason that it is turned immediately to the outer world) will appear as a perceptive and reciprocating activity. But since we may constantly recognise in every mutual relation of body as well as of action a threefold momentum, viz. action, reaction, and connexion or the indifference of both, these three elements must therefore be found also in each of the two sides of the animal organism. In fact we find them in the external (animal) side, as perception, motion, and the connexion of both through the nerves; in the internal vegetative side, as assimilation, secretion, and the connexion of both by circulation. But whatever is true of the bond which in these two spheres gives every form its centricity, the same must naturally be found in the so-called connecting nervous and vascular systems. Yet these two systems must not perhaps be considered as occasioning a real dualism in the organization, but as equally subordinate and reduced to a unity, namely the nervous system, as being the higher, because it belongs to the animal which includes the vegetative sphere.

Sixth consequence. As the plant is not merely occupied with its own change of particles and continual transformation, but when it has attained its perfect development produces the seed, as the representative of all its properties, the true reproduction of the species, we find in the animal likewise a similar reproduction of the species, in so far as even the animal is but a more perfect vegetable nature. The system thus established in respect to the animal, viz. the sexual system, possesses in its nature a polarity similar to that of the plant; for we find in the more perfectly organized animals, a female reproductive and a male impregnating organ. But, on the contrary, we find the lower animals, like the inferior plants (see p. 239), endowed with female organs only. The activity of this system, manifesting itself especially in assimilation, secretion, and (as the basis of these two momenta) in vascular action, belongs to the sphere of vegetation; and there is nothing to be compared with it in the animal sphere, except that activity by virtue of which, in the most perfect animal organism, that is the human, the idea of nature is reproduced by means of spiritual power, and truly developed through science and art.

We have now further to consider the composition and internal formation of the animal body, as well as the nature and direction of its active faculties of life. In the first point of view, we observe that it contains, like the organism of the earth and of the plant, a combination of solids, fluids, vapours, and gases, among which the fluids are again the sources of the rest. Its ultimate elements are principally hydrogen, oxygen, and