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Leader (1850-1860), 31st July 1852, Edition Country of 2, Page 19

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      July 31, 1852.] The Lead E R. 735 Uninte...

      July 31 , 1852 . ] THE LEAD E R . 735 unintelliible in such

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      We Should Do Our Utmost To Encourage The...

      We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourage itself . —Goethe .

      Comte's Positive Philosophy. By G. H. Le...

      COMTE'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY . By G . H . Lewes . Part XVI . — -Philosophical Anatomy . Having indicated , though briefly , the most important generalities with respect to the object , scope , and Method of the study of living beings , we may now glance at Comte ' s division of the subject into its statical and dynamical elements , —Anatomy , comparative and descriptive , and Physiology . Anatomy was enveloped in inextricable confusion so long as it proceeded only with a view to organs , and groups of organs . Bichat , by his grand p hilosophical artifice of decomposing the organism into its various elementary tissues , rendered Anatomy the greatest of services . For although a profound investigation of the whole animal kingdom , proceeding on the ascensional Method from the lowest upwards to man , will reveal to us the various tissues successively emerging into special distinctness as the diverse functions become more and more pronounced ; nevertheless , this discovery would have necessarily been very slow , had it not been for Bichat ' s philosophic innovation , as indeed may be seen in the fact of Cuvier , coming after Bichat as he did , having never familiarized his mind with the importance of this view , but continuing to occupy himself with the organs and groups of organs , hoping there to read the answer to his questions . The organs themselves are made up of tissues , and therefore the priority of the tissues is beyond dispute . This , then , is the order laid down by Comte in conformity with his Method of proceeding from the general to the special , the simple to the complex . We must commence with _^ the study of the tissues , and thence to the analysis of the laws of their combination into organs , and finally , to the consideration of the grouping of those organs into systems . A slight rectification of this order is necessary , I think , and a disciple of Comte ' s—Dr . Segond—in his Systematisation de la Biologie , has suggested of the tissues bthat of

      it . He says , we should precede the investigation y the elements , ( or , as we in England call them , the proximate principles , ) such as albumen , fibrine , & c . That the starting point of all the tissues is the Protein discovered by Mulder , no organic chemist now doubts ; and we must first trace the transformation of this protein into Albumen , Fibrine , and Caseine , by the additions of certain proportions of sulphur , or phosphorus , or of both , as a preliminary to the investigation of the cellular tissue into the other tissues . Herein we see the intimate relation of Biology with Chemistry . And as I am on this * point I will give the chemical analysis of these elements as I find it in Mulder . Observe that Protein , the parent of all , is composed solely of the four organogens , and in this proportion in a hundred parts : — Nitrogen 16 . 01 Carbon 55 . 2 . 9 Hydrogen 7-00 Oxygen . 21 . 70 For Albumen we want slight additions—very _flight—of sulphur and phosphorus , replacing a slight loss of Nitrogen and Carbon . Nitrogen 15 . 83 Carbon .... .... 54 . 84 Hydrogen . . ' . . . . 7-09 Oxygen 21 . 23 Phosphorus 0 . 33 Sulphur 0 . ( 18 For Fibrine we want the same materials as for Albumen , with slight variations in proportion : —• _Nitrogen 15 . 72 Carbon 54 . 5 ( 1 Hydrogen ( i . ! X ) Oxygen 22 . 13 Phosphorus 0 . 33 Sulphur () .. % To return to Comte . Having settled the order to be—Elements , tissues , organs , and groups of organs or systems—we have to trace the transformation of all the tissues from one , and their classification according to their true general relations . After pointing out the value of l ) e lilninvillc ' s distinction between the organic elements and organic products , Comte opens the question of the vitality of organic fluids . " A glance at the ensemble of the organic world shows us clearly that every living body is continually formed out of a certain combination of solids and fluids , of which the proportions vary according to the different species . The very definition of life presupposes the necessary harmony of these two constituent principles . For this twofold internal movement of composition and decomposition which essentially characterises life cannot be _conceived in a system ultogether solid . On the other hand , independently « f the impossibility of a purely liquid mass existing , without being contained by some solid envelope , it is clear that such a _mxxm could not be

      Comte's Positive Philosophy. By G. H. Le...

      organized , and life , properly so called , becomes g a mass . If these two parent ideas of life and organization were not necessarily corelative and , consequently , _inseparable , one might conceive that life essentially belonged to the fluids , and organization to the solids . Indeed , the comparative examination of the principal types seems to confirm this as a general rule , that vital activity augments essentially in proportion as the fluids predominate in the organism , while , on the contrary , the increasing preponderance of the solids determines a greater persistence of the vital , state . These reflections prove that the celebrated controversy on the vitality of fluids reposes on a vicious position of the problem altogether , since the necessary co-relation between fluids and solids excludes , as equally irrational , either the absolute humorism or absolute solidism . " Nevertheless , in considering the various proximate principles of the organic fluids , there is one series of positive researches to be made respecting the veritable vitality of the organic fluids . For example , the blood being formed principally of water , it would be absurd to suppose this inert vehicle as participating in the incontestible vitality of the blood ; but wherein lies this vitality ? The microscopic anatomy of our day ( 1838 ) has answered this question by making the red globules the seat of vitality , they alone being organized . But this solution , precious though it be , can only as yet be considered as a simple sketch of the truth . For it is admitted that these globules , though always of determinate form , become narrower and narrower as the arterial blood passes into the inferior vessels , that is to say , in advancing towards the seat of its incorporation with the tissues , and finally , that at the precise instant of definitive assimilation there is a complete liquefaction of the globules . Now this seems in open contradiction with the hypothesis , since here the blood would cease to be vital at the moment of its accomplishing its greatest act of vitality . " The net result of this examination of the vitality of the fluids , together with some other observations for which I have no space here , is that Comte would begin the static investigation with the solids , as best representing the idea of organization , and from the solids pass to the fluids . Thus we arrive once more at the tissues as the anatomical starting point . And here , as elsewhere , the immense importance of Comparison stands prominent , the earlier phases of human development being too rapid and too removed from observation for Anatomy to get its clue there ; only in the biological hierarchy , embracing all organized beings , can we look for Method find that the

      decisive indications . Following this Comparative we cellular tissue is the primary and essential basis of every organism , since it is the only one universally present . All the various tissues which in man seem so distinct , successively lose their characteristic attributes as we descend the scale of organisms , and always tend to lose their identity in the cellular tissue , which , . as we know , remains the unique basis of the vegetable world , and also of the lowest forms of the animal world . " We may remark here , " says Gomte , " how the nature of such an elementary organization is in philosophic harmony with that which constitutes the necessary basis of life in general , reduced to its most abstract terms . For under whatever form we conceive the cellular tissue , it is eminently fitted , by its structure , to that absorption and exhalation which form the two essential parts of the great vital phenomenon . At the lowest stage of the animal hierarchy , the living organism , placed in an invariable medium , is really limited to absorption and exhalation by its two surfaces , between which circulate the fluids destined to be assimilated and those resulting from disassimilation . For a function so simple the simple cell is sufficient . " Having ascertained that the cellular tissue is the primordial tissue sucsessively modified into other tissues , we have to trace the order of succession , and here Comparative Anatomy again comes to our aid , and guides us by this simple luminous principle—that the secondary tissues are to be regarded us more widely separated from the primary tissue , just in proportion as their first appearance takes place in the more special and more complex organisms . For example , the nervous tissue is totally absent from all vegetable organisms , and is undiscoverable in the lowest forms of animal organisms , by Owen named , in consequence , Acrita . _Again , in the muscular tissue there are two distinct varieties ( corresponding , I am inclined to think , with the grey and white varieties of the nervous tissue ) , the . striped and unstriped fibres , the former peculiar to the voluntary or more complex muscles , the latter to the involuntary muscles . But the latest researches show that as we descend the animal hierarchy we find the distinctive characters of these fibres gradually merging together . The transverse stripes grow irregular instead of parallel ; the fibres possess them only near its centre , where the development is greatest , and the contractile energy most active . The modifications which the cellular tissue undergoes may , in general , be divided into two classes : the most ordinary and least profound are those of simple structure ; the other more profound and more special affect the very composition of the tissue itself . The most direct and general of these transformations generates the dermal tissue , properly so called , which constitutes the basis of the _organic envelope , external and internal . Here the modification is reduced to a simple condensation , _varying according as the surface Imim to be more absorbent or exhalent . This transformation , simple a . s it is , is not _rigorously universal ; we must ascend to a certain sta _^ c of the _biological scale before perceiving it distinctly . Not only in the majority of the lower animals ia there no essential difference between the external and internal surface , which can , as it is well known , mutually supply each other's places ; but

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), July 31, 1852, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31071852/page/19/