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Other documents randomly have
different content
organs are alike in certain of their structures. All are furnished with
these appliances for nutrition, depuration and excitation: they have
all to be sustained, all to be stimulated, all to be kept clean. It has
finally to be remarked that the general structures which pervade all
the special structures at the same time pervade one another. The
universal nervous system has everywhere ramifying through it the
universal vascular system which feeds it; and the universal vascular
system is followed throughout all its ramifications by special nerves
which control it. The lymphatics forming a drainage-system run
throughout the other systems; and in each of these universal
systems is present the connective tissue holding their parts in
position.

§ 54f. So vast and varied a subject as organic structure, even though

the treatment of it is limited to the enunciation of principles, cannot,
of course, be dealt with in the space here assigned. Next to nothing
has been said about plant-structures, and in setting forth the leading
traits of animal-structures the illustrations given have been mostly
taken from highly-developed creatures. In large measure
adumbration rather than exposition is the descriptive word to be
applied.

Nevertheless the reader may carry away certain truths which,

exemplified in a few cases, are exemplified more or less fully in all
cases. There is the fundamental fact that the plants and animals
with which we are familiar—Metaphyta and Metazoa—are formed by
the aggregation of units homologous with Protozoa. These units,
often conspicuously showing their homology in early embryonic
stages, continue some of them to show it throughout the lives of the
highest type of Metazoa, which contain billions of units carrying on a
protozoon life. Of the protoplasts not thus active the great mass,
comparatively little transformed in low organisms, become more and
more transformed as the ascent to high organisms goes on; so that,
undergoing numerous kinds of metamorphoses, they lose all likeness
to their free homologues, both in shape and composition. The cell-
contained protoplasts thus variously changed are fused together into
tissues in which their individualities are practically lost; but they
nevertheless remain connected throughout by permeable strands of
protoplasm. Arising by complication of the outer and inner layers of
the embryo and growing more unlike as their units become more
obscured, these tissues are formed into systems, which develop into
sets of organs. Some of the resulting structures are localized and
special but others are everywhere interfused.

While the first named of these facts are displayed in every

Metazoon, and while the last named are visible only in Metazoa of
considerably developed structures, a gradual transition is shown in
intermediate kinds of Metazoa. Of this transition it remains to say
that it is effected by the progressive development of auxiliary
appliances. For example, the primitive foot-cavity is a sac with one
opening only; then comes a second opening through which the
waste-matter of the food is expelled. The alimentary canal between
these openings is at first practically uniform; afterwards in a certain
part of its wall arise numerous bile-cells; these accumulating form a
hollow prominence; and this, enlarging, becomes in higher types a
liver, while the hollow becomes its duct. In other gradual ways are
formed other appended glands. Meanwhile the canal itself has its
parts differentiated: one being limited to swallowing, another to
triturating, another to adding various solvents, another to absorbing
the prepared nutriment, another to ejecting the residue. Take again
the visual organ. The earliest form of it is a mere pigment-speck
below the surface. From this (saying nothing here of multiple eyes)
we rise by successive complications to a retina formed of
multitudinous sensory elements, lenses for throwing images upon it,
a curtain for shutting out more or less light, muscles for moving the
apparatus about, others for adjusting its focus; and, finally, added to
these, either a nictitating membrane or eyelids for perpetually wiping
its surface, and a set of eyelashes giving notice when a foreign body
is dangerously near. This process of elaborating organs so as to
meet additional requirements by additional parts, is the process
pursued throughout the body at large.

Of plant-structures, concerning which so little has been said, it may

here be remarked that their relative simplicity is due to the simplicity
of their relations to food. The food of plants is universally
distributed, while that of animals is dispersed. The immediate
consequences are that in the one case motion and locomotion are
superfluous, while in the other case they are necessary: the
differences in the degrees of structure being consequences.
Recognizing the locomotive powers of minute Algæ and the motions
of such other Algæ as Oscillatoria, as well as those movements of
leaves and fructifying organs seen in some Phænogams, we may
say, generally, that plants are motionless; but that they can
nevertheless carry on their lives because they are bathed by the
required nutriment in the air and in the soil. Contrariwise, the
nutriment animals require is distributed through space in portions: in
some cases near one another and in other cases wide apart. Hence
motion and locomotion are necessitated; and the implication is that
animals must have organs which render them possible. In the first
place there must be either limbs or such structures as those which in
fish, snakes, and worms move the body along. In the second place,
since action implies waste, there must be a set of channels to bring
repairing materials to the moving parts. In the third place there must
be an alimentary system for taking in and preparing these materials.
In the fourth place there must be organs for separating and
excreting waste-products. All these appliances must be more highly
developed in proportion as the required activity is greater. Then
there must be an apparatus for directing the motions and
locomotions—a nervous system; and as fast as these become rapid
and complex the nervous system must be largely developed, ending
in great nervous centres—seats of intelligence by which the activities
at large are regulated. Lastly, underlying all the structural contrasts
between plants and animals thus originating, there is the chemical
contrast; since the necessity for that highly nitrogenous matter of
which animals are formed, is entailed by the necessity for rapidly
evolving the energy producing motion. So that, strange as it seems,
those chemical, physical, and mental characters of animals which so
profoundly distinguish them from plants, are all remote results of the
circumstance that their food is dispersed instead of being
everywhere present.
 CHAPTER III.

FUNCTION.

§ 55. Does Structure originate Function, or does Function originate

Structure? is a question about which there has been disagreement.
Using the word Function in its widest signification, as the totality of
all vital actions, the question amounts to this—does Life produce
Organization, or does Organization produce Life?

To answer this question is not easy, since we habitually find the two
so associated that neither seems possible without the other; and
they appear uniformly to increase and decrease together. If it be
said that the arrangement of organic substances in particular forms,
cannot be the ultimate cause of vital changes, which must depend
on the properties of such substances; it may be replied that, in the
absence of structural arrangements, the forces evolved cannot be so
directed and combined as to secure that correspondence between
inner and outer actions which constitutes Life. Again, to the
allegation that the vital activity of every germ whence an organism
arises, is obviously antecedent to the development of its structures,
there is the answer that such germ is not absolutely structureless.

But in truth this question is not determinable by any evidence now

accessible to us. The very simplest forms of life known (even the
non-nucleated, if there are any) consist of granulated protoplasm;
and granulation implies structure. Moreover since each kind of
protozoon, even the lowest, has its specific mode of development
and specific activity—even down to bacteria, some kinds of which,
otherwise indistinguishable, are distinguishable by their different
reactions on their media—we are obliged to conclude that there
must be constitutional differences between the protoplasms they
consist of, and this implies structural differences. It seems that
structure and function must have advanced pari passu: some
difference of function, primarily determined by some difference of
relation to the environment, initiating a slight difference of structure,
and this again leading to a more pronounced difference of function;
and so on through continuous actions and reactions.

§ 56. Function falls into divisions of several kinds according to our

point of view. Let us take these divisions in the order of their
simplicity.

Under Function in its widest sense, are included both the statical and
the dynamical distributions of force which an organism opposes to
the forces brought to bear on it. In a tree the woody core of trunk
and branches, and in an animal the skeleton, internal or external,
may be regarded as passively resisting the gravity and momentum
which tend habitually or occasionally to derange the requisite
relations between the organism and its environment; and since they
resist these forces simply by their cohesion, their functions may be
classed as statical. Conversely, the leaves and sap-vessels in a tree,
and those organs which in an animal similarly carry on nutrition and
circulation, as well as those which generate and direct muscular
motion, must be considered as dynamical in their actions. From
another point of view Function is divisible into the accumulation of
energy (latent in food); the expenditure of energy (latent in the
tissues and certain matters absorbed by them); and the transfer of
energy (latent in the prepared nutriment or blood) from the parts
which accumulate to the parts which expend. In plants we see little
beyond the first of these: expenditure being comparatively slight,
and transfer required mainly to facilitate accumulation. In animals
the function of accumulation comprehends those processes by which
the materials containing latent energy are taken in, digested, and
separated from other materials; the function of transfer
comprehends those processes by which these materials, and such
others as are needful to liberate the energies they contain, are
conveyed throughout the organism; and the function of expenditure
comprehends those processes by which the energy is liberated from
these materials and transformed into properly co-ordinated motions.
Each of these three most general divisions includes several more
special divisions. The accumulation of energy may be separated into
alimentation and aeration; of which the first is again separable into
the various acts gone through between prehension of food and the
transformation of part of it into blood. By the transfer of energy is to
be understood what we call circulation; if the meaning of circulation
be extended to embrace the duties of both the vascular system and
the lymphatics. Under the head of expenditure of energy come
nervous actions and muscular actions: though not absolutely co-
extensive with expenditure these are almost so. Lastly, there are the
subsidiary functions which do not properly fall within any of these
general functions, but subserve them by removing the obstacles to
their performance: those, namely, of excretion and exhalation,
whereby waste products are got rid of. Again, disregarding their
purposes and considering them analytically, the general physiologist
may consider functions in their widest sense as the correlatives of
tissues—the actions of epidermic tissue, cartilaginous tissue, elastic
tissue, connective tissue, osseous tissue, muscular tissue, nervous
tissue, glandular tissue. Once more, physiology in its concrete
interpretations recognizes special functions as the ends of special
organs—regards the teeth as having the office of mastication; the
heart as an apparatus to propel blood; this gland as fitted to
produce one requisite secretion and that to produce another; each
muscle as the agent of a particular motion; each nerve as the
vehicle of a special sensation or a special motor impulse.

It is clear that dealing with Biology only in its larger aspects,

specialities of function do not concern us; except in so far as they
serve to illustrate, or to qualify, its generalities.

§ 57. The first induction to be here set down is a familiar and

obvious one; the induction, namely, that complexity of function is
the correlative of complexity of structure. The leading aspects of this
truth must be briefly noted.

Where there are no distinctions of structure there are no distinctions

of function. A Rhizopod will serve as an illustration. From the outside
of this creature, which has not even a limiting membrane, there are
protruded numerous processes. Originating from any point of the
surface, each of these may contract again and disappear, or it may
touch some fragment of nutriment which it draws with it, when
contracting, into the general mass—thus serving as hand and
mouth; or it may come in contact with its fellow-processes at a
distance from the body and become confluent with them; or it may
attach itself to an adjacent fixed object, and help by its contraction
to draw the body into a new position. In brief, this speck of
animated jelly is at once all stomach, all skin, all mouth, all limb, and
doubtless, too, all lung. In organisms having a fixed distribution of
parts there is a concomitant fixed distribution of actions. Among
plants we see that when, instead of a uniform tissue like that of
many Algæ, everywhere devoted to the same process of
assimilation, there arise, as in the higher plants, root and stem and
leaves, there arise correspondingly unlike processes. Still more
conspicuously among animals do there result varieties of function
when the originally homogeneous mass is replaced by
heterogeneous organs; since, both singly and by their combinations,
modified parts generate modified changes. Up to the highest organic
types this dependence continues manifest; and it may be traced not
only under this most general form, but also under the more special
form that in animals having one set of functions developed to more
than usual heterogeneity there is a correspondingly heterogeneous
apparatus devoted to them. Thus among birds, which have more
varied locomotive powers than mammals, the limbs are more widely
differentiated; while the higher mammals, which rise to more
numerous and more involved adjustments of inner to outer relations
than birds, have more complex nervous systems.
§ 58. It is a generalization almost equally obvious with the last, that
functions, like structures, arise by progressive differentiations. Just
as an organ is first an indefinite rudiment, having nothing but some
most general characteristic in common with the form it is ultimately
to take; so a function begins as a kind of action that is like the kind
of action it will eventually become, only in a very vague way. And in
functional development, as in structural development, the leading
trait thus early manifested is followed successively by traits of less
and less importance. This holds equally throughout the ascending
grades of organisms and throughout the stages of each organism.
Let us look at cases: confining our attention to animals, in which
functional development is better displayed than in plants.

The first differentiation established separates the two fundamentally-

opposed functions above named—the accumulation of energy and
the expenditure of energy. Passing over the Protozoa (among which,
however, such tribes as present fixed distributions of parts show us
substantially the same thing), and commencing with the lowest
Cœlenterata, where definite tissues make their appearance, we
observe that the only large functional distinction is between the
endoderm, which absorbs nutriment, and the ectoderm which, by its
own contractions and those of the tentacles it bears, produces
motion: the contractility being however to some extent shared by
the endoderm. That the functions of accumulation and expenditure
are here very incompletely distinguished, may be admitted without
affecting the position that this is the first specialization which begins
to appear. These two most general and most radically-opposed
functions become in the Polyzoa, much more clearly marked-off from
each other: at the same time that each of them becomes partially
divided into subordinate functions. The endoderm and ectoderm are
no longer merely the inner and outer walls of the same simple sac
into which the food is drawn: but the endoderm forms a true
alimentary canal, separated from the ectoderm by a peri-visceral
cavity, containing the nutritive matters absorbed from the food. That
is to say, the function of accumulating force is exercised by a part
distinctly divided from the part mainly occupied in expending force:
the structure between them, full of absorbed nutriment, effecting in
a vague way that transfer of force which, at a higher stage of
evolution, becomes a third leading function. Meanwhile, the
endoderm no longer discharges the accumulative function in the
same way throughout its whole extent; but its different portions,
œsophagus, stomach and intestine, perform different portions of this
function. And instead of a contractility uniformly diffused through the
ectoderm, there have arisen in the intermediate mesoderm some
parts which have the office of contracting (muscles), and some parts
which have the office of making them contract (nerves and ganglia).
As we pass upwards, the transfer of force, hitherto effected quite
incidentally, comes to have a special organ. In the ascidian,
circulation is produced by a muscular tube, open at both ends,
which, by a wave of contraction passing along it, sends out at one
end the nutrient fluid drawn in at the other; and which, having thus
propelled the fluid for a time in one direction, reverses its movement
and propels it in the opposite direction. By such means does this
rudimentary heart generate alternating currents in the nutriment
occupying the peri-visceral cavity. How the function of transferring
energy, thus vaguely indicated in these inferior forms, comes
afterwards to be the definitely-separated office of a complicated
apparatus made up of many parts, each of which has a particular
portion of the general duty, need not be described. It is sufficiently
manifest that this general function becomes more clearly marked-off
from the others, at the same time that it becomes itself parted into
subordinate functions.

In a developing embryo, the functions or more strictly the structures

which are to perform them, arise in the same general order. A like
primary distinction very early appears between the endoderm and
the ectoderm—the part which has the office of accumulating energy,
and the part out of which grow those organs that are the great
expenders of energy. Between these two there presently arises the
mesoderm in which becomes visible the rudiment of that vascular
system, which has to fulfil the intermediate duty of transferring
energy. Of these three general functions, that of accumulating
energy is carried on from the outset: the endoderm, even while yet
incompletely differentiated from the ectoderm, absorbs nutritive
matters from the subjacent yelk. The transfer of energy is also to
some extent effected by the rudimentary vascular system, as soon
as its central cavity and attached vessels are sketched out. But the
expenditure of energy (in the higher animals at least) is not
appreciably displayed by those ectodermic and mesodermic
structures that are afterwards to be mainly devoted to it: there is no
sphere for the actions of these parts. Similarly with the chief
subdivisions of these fundamental functions. The distinction first
established separates the office of transforming other energy into
mechanical motion, from the office of liberating the energy to be so
transformed. While in the layer between endoderm and ectoderm
are arising the rudiments of the muscular system, there is marked
out in the ectoderm the rudiment of the nervous system. This
indication of structures which are to share between them the general
duty of expending energy, is soon followed by changes that
foreshadow further specializations of this general duty. In the
incipient nervous system there begins to arise that contrast between
the cerebral mass and the spinal cord, which, in the main, answers
to the division of nervous actions into directive and executive; and,
at the same time, the appearance of vertebral laminæ foreshadows
the separation of the osseous system, which has to resist the strains
of muscular action, from the muscular system, which, in generating
motion, entails these strains. Simultaneously there have been going
on similar actual and potential specializations in the functions of
accumulating energy and transferring energy. And throughout all
subsequent phases the method is substantially the same.

This progress from general, indefinite, and simple kinds of action to

special, definite, and complex kinds of action, has been aptly termed
by Milne-Edwards, "the physiological division of labour." Perhaps no
metaphor can more truly express the nature of this advance from
vital activity in its lowest forms to vital activity in its highest forms.
And probably the general reader cannot in any other way obtain so
clear a conception of functional development in organisms, as he
can by tracing out functional development in societies: noting how
there first comes a distinction between the governing class and the
governed class; how while in the governing class there slowly grow
up such differences of duty as the civil, military, and ecclesiastical,
there arise in the governed class fundamental industrial differences
like those between agriculturists and artizans; and how there is a
continual multiplication of such specialized occupations and
specialized shares of each occupation.

§ 59. Fully to understand this change from homogeneity of function

to heterogeneity of function, which accompanies the change from
homogeneity of structure to heterogeneity of structure, it is needful
to contemplate it under a converse aspect. Standing alone, the
above exposition conveys an idea that is both inadequate and
erroneous. The divisions and subdivisions of function, becoming
definite as they become multiplied, do not lead to a more and more
complete independence of functions; as they would do were the
process nothing beyond that just described; but by a simultaneous
process they are rendered more mutually dependent. While in one
respect they are separating from each other, they are in another
respect combining with each other. At the same time that they are
being differentiated they are also being integrated. Some illustrations
will make this plain.

In animals which display little beyond the primary differentiation of

functions, the activity of that part which absorbs nutriment or
accumulates energy, is not immediately bound up with the activity of
that part which, in producing motion, expends energy. In the higher
animals, however, the performance of the alimentary functions
depends on the performance of various muscular and nervous
functions. Mastication and swallowing are nervo-muscular acts; the
rhythmical contractions of the stomach and the allied vermicular
motions of the intestines, result from the reflex stimulation of certain
muscular coats caused by food; the secretion of the several digestive
fluids by their respective glands, is due to nervous excitation of
them; and digestion, besides requiring these special aids, is not
properly performed in the absence of a continuous discharge of
energy from the great nervous centres. Again, the function of
transferring nutriment or latent energy, from part to part, though at
first not closely connected with the other functions, eventually
becomes so. The short contractile tube which propels backwards and
forwards the blood contained in the peri-visceral cavity of an
ascidian, is neither structurally nor functionally much entangled with
the creature's other organs. But on passing upwards through higher
types, in which this simple tube is replaced by a system of branched
tubes, that deliver their contents through their open ends into the
tissues at distant parts; and on coming to those advanced types
which have closed arterial and venous systems, ramifying minutely in
every corner of every organ; we find that the vascular apparatus,
while it has become structurally interwoven with the whole body, has
become unable properly to fulfil its office without the help of offices
that are quite separated from its own. The heart, though mainly
automatic in its actions, is controlled by the nervous system, which
takes a share in regulating the contractions both of the heart and
the arteries. On the due discharge of the respiratory function, too,
the function of circulation is directly dependent: if the aeration of the
blood is impeded the vascular activity is lowered; and arrest of the
one very soon causes stoppage of the other. Similarly with the duties
of the nervo-muscular system. Animals of low organization, in which
the differentiation and integration of the vital actions have not been
carried far, will move about for a considerable time after being
eviscerated, or deprived of those appliances by which energy is
accumulated and transferred. But animals of high organization are
instantly killed by the removal of these appliances, and even by the
injury of minor parts of them: a dog's movements are suddenly
brought to an end, by cutting one of the main canals along which
the materials that evolve movements are conveyed. Thus while in
well-developed creatures the distinction of functions is very marked,
the combination of functions is very close. From instant to instant
the aeration of blood implies that certain respiratory muscles are
being made to contract by nervous impulses passing along certain
nerves; and that the heart is duly propelling the blood to be aerated.
From instant to instant digestion proceeds only on condition that
there is a supply of aerated blood, and a due current of nervous
energy through the digestive organs. That the heart of a mammal
may act, its muscle substance must be continuously fed with an
abundant supply of arterial blood.

It is not easy to find an adequate expression for this double re-

distribution of functions. It is not easy to realize a transformation
through which the functions thus become in one sense separated
and in another sense combined, or even interfused. Here, however,
as before, an analogy drawn from social organization helps us. If we
observe how the increasing division of labour in societies is
accompanied by a closer co-operation; and how the agencies of
different social actions, while becoming in one respect more distinct,
become in another respect more minutely ramified through one
another; we shall understand better the increasing physiological co-
operation that accompanies increasing physiological division of
labour. Note, for example, that while local divisions and classes of
the community have been growing unlike in their several
occupations, the carrying on of their several occupations has been
growing dependent on the due activity of that vast organization by
which sustenance is collected and diffused. During the early stages
of social development, every small group of people, and often every
family, obtained separately its own necessaries; but now, for each
necessary, and for each superfluity, there exists a combined body of
wholesale and retail distributors, which brings its branched channels
of supply within reach of all. While each citizen is pursuing a
business that does not immediately aim at the satisfaction of his
personal wants, his personal wants are satisfied by a general agency
which brings from all places commodities for him and his fellow-
citizens—an agency which could not cease its special duties for a few
days, without bringing to an end his own special duties and those of
most others. Consider, again, how each of these differentiated
functions is everywhere pervaded by certain other differentiated
functions. Merchants, manufacturers, wholesale distributors of their
several species, together with lawyers, bankers, &c., all employ
clerks. In clerks we have a specialized class dispersed through
various other classes; and having its function fused with the different
functions of these various other classes. Similarly commercial
travellers, though having in one sense a separate occupation, have
in another sense an occupation forming part of each of the many
occupations which it aids. As it is here with the sociological division
of labour, so is it with the physiological division of labour above
described. Just as we see in an advanced community, that while the
magisterial, the clerical, the medical, the legal, the manufacturing,
and the commercial activities, have grown distinct, they have yet
their agencies mingled together in every locality; so in a developed
organism, we see that while the general functions of circulation,
secretion, absorption, excretion, contraction, excitation, &c., have
become differentiated, yet through the ramifications of the systems
apportioned to them, they are closely combined with one another in
every organ.

§ 60. The physiological division of labour is usually not carried so far

as wholly to destroy the primary physiological community of labour.
As in societies the adaptation of special classes to special duties,
does not entirely disable these classes from performing one
another's duties on an emergency; so in organisms, tissues and
structures that have become fitted to the particular offices they have
ordinarily to discharge, often remain partially able to discharge other
offices. It has been pointed out by Dr. Carpenter, that "in cases
where the different functions are highly specialized, the general
structure retains, more or less, the primitive community of function
which originally characterized it." A few instances will bring home
this generalization.

The roots and leaves of plants are widely differentiated in their

functions: by the roots, water and mineral substances are absorbed;
while the leaves take in, and decompose, carbonic acid.
Nevertheless, by many botanists it is held that some leaves, or parts
of them, can absorb water; and in what are popularly called "air-
plants," or at any rate in some kinds of them, the absorption of
water is mainly and in some cases wholly carried on by them and by
the stems. Conversely, the underground parts can partially assume
the functions of leaves. The exposed tuber of a potato develops
chlorophyll on its surface, and in other cases, as in that of the turnip,
roots, properly so called, do the like. In trees the trunks, which have
in great measure ceased to produce buds, recommence producing
them if the branches are cut off; sometimes aerial branches send
down roots to the earth; and under some circumstances the roots,
though not in the habit of developing leaf-bearing organs, send up
numerous suckers. When the excretion of bile is arrested, part goes
to the skin and some to the kidneys, which presently suffer under
their new task. Various examples of vicarious functions may be
found among animals. The excretion of carbonic acid and absorption
of oxygen are mainly performed by the lungs, in creatures which
have lungs; but in such creatures there continues a certain amount
of cutaneous respiration, and in soft-skinned batrachians like the
frog, this cutaneous respiration is important. Again, when the
kidneys are not discharging their duties a notable quantity of urea is
got rid of by perspiration. Other instances are supplied by the higher
functions. In man the limbs, which among lower vertebrates are
almost wholly organs of locomotion, are specialized into organs of
locomotion and organs of manipulation. Nevertheless, the human
arms and legs do, when needful, fulfil, to some extent, each other's
offices. Not only in childhood and old age are the arms used for
purposes of support, but on occasions of emergency, as when
mountaineering, they are used by men in full vigour. And that legs
are to a considerable degree capable of performing the duties of
arms, is proved by the great amount of manipulatory skill reached by
them when the arms are absent. Among the perceptions, too, there
are examples of partial substitution. The deaf Dr. Kitto described
himself as having become excessively sensitive to vibrations
propagated through the body; and as so having gained the power of
perceiving, through his general sensations, those neighbouring
concussions of which the ears ordinarily give notice. Blind people
make hearing perform, in part, the office of vision. Instead of
identifying the positions and sizes of neighbouring objects by the
reflection of light from their surfaces, they do this in a rude way by
the reflection of sound from their surfaces.

We see, as we might expect to see, that this power of performing

more general functions, is great in proportion as the organs have
been but little adapted to their special functions. Those parts of
plants which show so considerable an ability to discharge each
others' offices, are not widely unlike in their minute structures. And
the tissues which in animals are to some extent mutually vicarious,
are tissues in which the original cellular composition is still
conspicuous. But we do not find evidence that the muscular,
nervous, or osseous tissues are able in any degree to perform those
processes which the less differentiated tissues perform. Nor have we
any proof that nerve can partially fulfil the duty of muscle, or muscle
that of nerve. We must say, therefore, that the ability to resume the
primordial community of function, varies inversely as the established
specialization of function; and that it disappears when the
specialization of function becomes great.

§ 61. Something approaching to a priori reasons may be given for

the conclusions thus reached a posteriori. They must be accepted for
as much as they seem worth.
It may be argued that on the hypothesis of Evolution, Life
necessarily comes before organization. On this hypothesis, organic
matter in a state of homogeneous aggregation must precede organic
matter in a state of heterogeneous aggregation. But since the
passing from a structureless state to a structured state, is itself a
vital process, it follows that vital activity must have existed while
there was yet no structure: structure could not else arise. That
function takes precedence of structure, seems also implied in the
definition of Life. If Life is shown by inner actions so adjusted as to
balance outer actions—if the implied energy is the substance of Life
while the adjustment of the actions constitutes its form; then may
we not say that the actions to be formed must come before that
which forms them—that the continuous change which is the basis of
function, must come before the structure which brings function into
shape? Or again, since in all phases of Life up to the highest, every
advance is the effecting of some better adjustment of inner to outer
actions; and since the accompanying new complexity of structure is
simply a means of making possible this better adjustment; it follows
that the achievement of function is, throughout, that for which
structure arises. Not only is this manifestly true where the
modification of structure results by reaction from modification of
function; but it is also true where a modification of structure
otherwise produced, apparently initiates a modification of function.
For it is only when such so-called spontaneous modification of
structure subserves some advantageous action, that it is
permanently established. If it is a structural modification that
happens to facilitate the vital activities, "natural selection" retains
and increases it; but if not, it disappears.

The connexion which we noted between heterogeneity of structure

and heterogeneity of function—a connexion made so familiar by
experience as to appear scarcely worth specifying—is clearly a
necessary one. It follows from the general truth that in proportion to
the heterogeneity of any aggregate, is the heterogeneity it will
produce in any incident force (First Principles, § 156). The energy
continually liberated in the organism by decomposition, is here the
incident force; the functions are the variously modified forms
produced in its divisions by the organs they pass through; and the
more multiform the organs the more multiform must be the
differentiations of the force passing through them.

It follows obviously from this, that if structure progresses from the

homogeneous, indefinite, and incoherent, to the heterogeneous,
definite, and coherent, so too must function. If the number of
different parts in an aggregate must determine the number of
differentiations produced in the energies passing through it—if the
distinctness of these parts from one another, must involve
distinctness in their reactions, and therefore distinctness between
the divisions of the differentiated energy; there cannot but be a
complete parallelism between the development of structure and the
development of function. If structure advances from the simple and
general to the complex and special, function must do the same.
 CHAPTER IV.

WASTE AND REPAIR.

§ 62. Throughout the vegetal kingdom, the processes of Waste and

Repair are comparatively insignificant in their amounts. Though all
parts of plants save the leaves, or other parts which are green, give
out carbonic acid; yet this carbonic acid, assuming it to indicate
consumption of tissue, or rather of the protoplasm contained in the
tissue, indicates but a small consumption. Of course if there is little
waste there can be but little repair—that is, little of the interstitial
repair which restores the integrity of parts worn by functional
activity. Nor, indeed, is there displayed by plants in any considerable
degree, if at all, that other species of repair which consists in the
restoration of lost or injured organs. Torn leaves and the shoots that
are shortened by the pruner, do not reproduce their missing parts;
and though when the branch of a tree is cut off close to the trunk,
the place is in course of years covered over, it is not by any
reparative action in the wounded surface but by the lateral growth of
the adjacent bark. Hence, without saying that Waste and Repair do
not go on at all in plants, we may fitly pass them over as of no
importance.

There are but slight indications of waste in those lower orders of

animals which, by their comparative inactivity, show themselves least
removed from vegetal life. Actiniæ kept in an aquarium, do not
appreciably diminish in bulk from prolonged abstinence. Even fish,
though much more active than most other aquatic creatures, appear
to undergo but little loss of substance when kept unfed during
considerable periods. Reptiles, too, maintaining no great
temperature, and passing their lives mostly in a state of torpor,
suffer but little diminution of mass by waste. When, however, we
turn to those higher orders of animals which are active and hot-
blooded, we see that waste is rapid: producing, when unchecked, a
notable decrease in bulk and weight, ending very shortly in death.
Besides finding that waste is inconsiderable in creatures which
produce but little insensible and sensible motion, and that it
becomes conspicuous in creatures which produce much insensible
and sensible motion; we find that in the same creatures there is
most waste when most motion is generated. This is clearly proved
by hybernating animals. "Valentin found that the waking marmot
excreted in the average 75 times more carbonic acid, and inhaled 41
times more oxygen than the same animal in the most complete state
of hybernation. The stages between waking and most profound
hybernation yielded intermediate figures. A waking hedgehog
yielded about 20.5 times more carbonic acid, and consumed 18.4
times more oxygen than one in the state of hybernation."[22] If we
take these quantities of absorbed oxygen and excreted carbonic
acid, as indicating something like the relative amounts of consumed
organic substance, we see that there is a striking contrast between
the waste accompanying the ordinary state of activity, and the waste
accompanying complete quiescence and reduced temperature. This
difference is still more definitely shown by the fact, that the mean
daily loss from starvation in rabbits and guinea-pigs, bears to that
from hybernation, the proportion of 18.3:1. Among men and
domestic animals, the relation between degree of waste and amount
of expended energy, though one respecting which there is little
doubt, is less distinctly demonstrable; since waste is not allowed to
go on uninterfered with. We have, however, in the lingering lives of
invalids who are able to take scarcely any nutriment but are kept
warm and still, an illustration of the extent to which waste
diminishes as the expenditure of energy declines.

Besides the connexion between the waste of the organism as a

whole and the production of sensible and insensible motion by the
organism as a whole, there is a traceable connexion between the
waste of special parts and the activities of such special parts.
Experiments have shown that "the starving pigeon daily consumes in
the average 40 times more muscular substance that the marmot in
the state of torpor, and only 11 times more fat, 33 times more of the
tissue of the alimentary canal, 18.3 times more liver, 15 times more
lung, 5 times more skin." That is to say, in the hybernating animal
the parts least consumed are the almost totally quiescent motor-
organs, and the part most consumed is the hydro-carbonaceous
deposit serving as a store of energy; whereas in the pigeon, similarly
unsupplied with food but awake and active, the greatest loss takes
place in the motor-organs. The relation between special activity and
special waste, is illustrated, too, in the daily experiences of all: not
indeed in the amount of decrease of the active parts in bulk or
weight, for this we have no means of ascertaining; but in the
diminished ability of such parts to perform their functions. That legs
exerted for many hours in walking and arms long strained in rowing,
lose their powers—that eyes become enfeebled by reading or writing
without intermission—that concentrated attention, unbroken by rest,
so prostrates the brain as to incapacitate it for thinking; are familiar
truths. And though we have no direct evidence to this effect, there is
little danger in concluding that muscles exercised until they ache or
become stiff, and nerves of sense rendered weary or obtuse by
work, are organs so much wasted by action as to be partially
incompetent.

Repair is everywhere and always making up for waste. Though the

two processes vary in their relative rates both are constantly going
on. Though during the active, waking state of an animal waste is in
excess of repair, yet repair is in progress; and though during sleep
repair is in excess of waste, yet some waste is necessitated by the
carrying on of certain never-ceasing functions. The organs of these
never-ceasing functions furnish, indeed, the most conclusive proofs
of the simultaneity of repair and waste. Day and night the heart
never stops beating, but only varies in the rapidity and vigour of its
beats; and hence the loss of substance which its contractions from
moment to moment entail, must from moment to moment be made
good. Day and night the lungs dilate and collapse; and the muscles
which make them do this must therefore be kept in a state of
integrity by a repair which keeps pace with waste, or which
alternately falls behind and gets in advance of it to a very slight
extent.

On a survey of the facts we see, as we might expect to see, that the

progress of repair is most rapid when activity is most reduced.
Assuming that the organs which absorb and circulate nutriment are
in proper order, the restoration of the body to a state of integrity,
after the disintegration consequent on expenditure of energy, is
proportionate to the diminution in expenditure of energy. Thus we all
know that those who are in health, feel the greatest return of vigour
after profound sleep—after complete cessation of motion. We know
that a night during which the quiescence, bodily and mental, has
been less decided, is usually not followed by that spontaneous
overflow of energy which indicates a high state of efficiency
throughout the organism. We know, again, that long-continued
recumbency, even with wakefulness (providing the wakefulness is
not the result of disorder), is followed by a certain renewal of
strength; though a renewal less than that which would have
followed the greater inactivity of slumber. We know, too, that when
exhausted by labour, sitting brings a partial return of vigour. And we
also know that after the violent exertion of running, a lapse into the
less violent exertion of walking, results in a gradual disappearance of
that prostration which the running produced. This series of
illustrations conclusively proves that the rebuilding of the organism is
ever making up for the pulling down of it caused by action; and that
the effect of this rebuilding becomes more manifest, in proportion as
the pulling down is less rapid. From each digested meal there is
every few hours absorbed into the mass of prepared nutriment
circulating through the body, a fresh supply of the needful organic
compounds; and from the blood, thus occasionally re-enriched, the
organs through which it passes are ever taking up materials to
replace the materials used up in the discharge of functions. During
activity the reintegration falls in arrear of the disintegration; until, as
a consequence, there presently comes a general state of functional
languor; ending, at length, in a quiescence which permits the
reintegration to exceed the disintegration, and restore the parts to
their state of integrity. Here, as wherever there are antagonistic
actions, we see rhythmical divergences on opposite sides of the
medium state—changes which equilibrate each other by their
alternate excesses. (First Principles, §§ 85, 173.)

Illustrations are not wanting of special repair that is similarly ever in

progress, and similarly has intervals during which it falls below waste
and rises above it. Every one knows that a muscle, or a set of
muscles, continuously strained, as by holding out a weight at arm's
length, soon loses its power; and that it recovers its power more or
less fully after a short rest. The several organs of the special
sensations yield us like experiences. Strong tastes, powerful odours,
loud sounds, temporarily unfit the nerves impressed by them for
appreciating faint tastes, odours, or sounds; but these incapacities
are remedied by brief intervals of repose. Vision still better illustrates
this simultaneity of waste and repair. Looking at the Sun so affects
the eyes that, for a short time, they cannot perceive the things
around with the usual clearness. After gazing at a bright light of a
particular colour, we see, on turning the eyes to adjacent objects, an
image of the complementary colour; showing that the retina has, for
the moment, lost the power to feel small amounts of those rays
which have strongly affected it. Such inabilities disappear in a few
seconds or a few minutes, according to circumstances. And here,
indeed, we are introduced to a conclusive proof that special repair is
ever neutralizing special waste. For the rapidity with which the eyes
recover their sensitiveness, varies with the reparative power of the
individual. In youth the visual apparatus is so quickly restored to its
state of integrity, that many of these photogenes, as they are called,
cannot be perceived. When sitting on the far side of a room, and
gazing out of the window against a light sky, a person who is
debilitated by disease or advancing years, perceives, on transferring
the gaze to the adjacent wall, a momentary negative image of the
window—the sash-bars appearing light and the squares dark; but a
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