Biology Reference
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notion, this idea is to be found in the theory of the internal envi-
ronment. Bernard's developments on this subject can even be
applied here word for word. The following quotations are somewhat
long but they are important, given the confusion that reigns in
debates nowadays in biology.
“We have said that the living organism is an association of cells
or elements more or less modified and grouped into tissues, organs,
apparatus and systems. It is thus a vast mechanism resulting from
the assemblage of secondary mechanisms. From the monocellular
being to man, all degrees of complication are encountered in these
groupings; organs are added to organs, and the most highly devel-
oped animal possesses a great number of them that form the circu-
latory system, the respiratory system, the nervous system etc.
It has been believed for a long time that these superadded mech-
anisms had their own raison d'être or that they were the result of
the caprice of an artistic nature. Today we ought to see in them a
growing complexity regulated by law. Anatomy, restricting itself to
the observation of forms, did not succeed in deriving it. It is phys-
iology alone that can give an account of it.
Organs and systems do not exist for themselves; they
exist for the cells, for the innumerable anatomical elements
that form the organic edifice. 37 The vessels, the nerves, the res-
piratory organs appear as the histological framework becomes com-
plicated, so as to create around each element the environment and
the conditions that are necessary for this element, so as to dispense
to it in appropriate measure the materials that it needs; water, food,
air and, heat. In the living body these organs are like the factories
or the industrial establishments in an advanced society which pro-
vide the various members of this society with the means of clothing,
heating, feeding, and lighting themselves.
Thus the law of the structure of organisms and of
organic development is bound up with the law of cellular life.
It is to make possible and to regulate more closely the life
37 Original text not in bold.
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