The Simplicity of Life, an Introductory Chapter to Pathology (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 Excerpt: ... student will do well, in all such dubious expressions by authors, to substitute for Vital Principle the words Vital State or Vital Action." "The primary idea of Life," he remarks, "in our language, signifies motion--and if we analyze the idea, as it arises in our minds, we shall find that an inherent or independent power of motion, accompanied by frequent, actual, appreciable motion, constitutes the whole of our notion of Life, before it is adulterated by the study of the natural sciences, and the writings of philosophers." ( Translation of Magendie's Comp. of Physiol., 1823, note to p. 9, 1. Majo. 16) Mr. Mayo again says, almost in the words of Lawrence, "the term Life is a collective expression for an assemblage of phenomena." Outlines of Physiology, 1827, p. 8, and 1833, p. 2) But the author who in modern times has most systematically and successfully taken up the cudgels against the substantialists is Dr, Prichard. Prichard, who, after ennmerating, in a masterly manner, the chief phenomena to explain which a substantial Vital Principle has been so unnecessarily put in requisition, and showing the polypragmatical and often inconsistent nature of the part assigned to it, concludes "that the hypothesis of a Vital Principle has been proved, by a careful examination, to be wanting in every characteristic of a legetimate theory." On the Vital Principle, 1829, p. 132) Dr. Prichard is somewhat too fond of chemical and mechanical ex elasticity of one that is elastic, displays itself only when the former is subjected under favourable circumstances planations of vital processes, but, in as far as he admits of Vitality at all, seems to be persuaded that it results from organism; and it is only from having fallen into th...