CHAPTER II.
THE PROCESS OF DEATH.
Constitution of organisms.—Partial lives.—Collective life.—The
rôle of apparatus.—Death by lesion of the major apparatus.—The
vital tripod.—Solidarity of the anatomical
elements.—Humoral solidarity.—Nervous solidarity.—Independence
and subordination of the anatomical elements.
Partial Lives. Collective Life.—With the exception of the physiologist, no one, neither he who is ignorant nor he who is intellectual, nor even the doctor, troubles his head about the life or the death of the element, although this is the basis, the real foundation, of the activity manifested by the social body and by its different organs. The life of the individual, of the animal, depends on these elementary partial lives just as the existence of the State depends upon that of its citizens. To the physiologist, the organism is a federation of cellular elements unified by close association. Goethe compared them to a "multitude"; Kant to a "nation"; and others have likened them to a populous city the anatomical elements of which are the citizens, and which possesses an individuality of its own. So that the activity of the federated organism may be discussed in each of its parts, and then it is elementary life, or in its totality, and then it is general life. Paracelsus and Bordeu had a glimpse of this truth when they considered a life appropriate to each part (vita propria)
