The organic laws, or, The laws which govern the human organism / by J. Bradford Sax.

  • Sax, J. Bradford.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The organic laws, or, The laws which govern the human organism / by J. Bradford Sax. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    INTRODUCTION. All things in nature are governed by unbending laws. Nothing happens by chance ; neither does God now interfere directly with the moving and action of his universe. This will be admitted by all enlightened theists. The earth sweeps round the sun in her orbit, in strict and unvarying obedience to the law of gravitation. The unsupported body falls to the ground in obedience to the same law. Chemical unions and decompositions take place in obedience to the laws of affinity which have been stamped upon particular substances. All the beauties of summer are made visible to us in obedience to the laws of light. The vegetable world grows in obe- dience to the laws of vegetable vitality, which have been impressed upon the seeds of the different species of vegetables of which it is composed ;—which seeds themselves received said impression as the result of laws which governed the parent plants. By this means every seed is made to produce its like. Wheat will pro- duce wheat, and nothing else; and thus of rye, maize, the acorn, the peach-stone, and all other seeds. So, too, the manner of growth and existence is the same in every individual of the same species. Wheat never grows upon the oak, nor the acorn upon the wheat straw. And the circumstances under which any particular species thrives best, are always the same for that species. Wheat in the dry and cultivated field, grass in the meadow, and the oak in the forest. Nor can these circum- stances be changed without injury to the vegetable—without de- teriorating the result. Wheat cannot be deprived of its proper cultivation, grass of its due amount of moisture, the oak of its proper soil, or tropical plants of the heat of a vertical sun, without injury and perhaps death. All this because of the different laws of vitality impressed upon each particular species, governing all its functions. Tt is the same in the animal kingdom. All species, and every