Biology / by Dr. Charles Letourneau.

  • Letourneau, Ch. (Charles), 1831-1902.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Biology / by Dr. Charles Letourneau. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    482/539 (page 468)
    numbers, 16,000,000 utilisable kilogrammHres. But this figm-e is evidently far too high, forasmuch as M. Sanson has not taken into account the dynamic value of the ternary substances con- tained in the ration. Among all the alimentary substances which man uses, milk alone, which contains in nearly equal proportions proteic matters, fat and sugar, is a complete aliment; and if the animals exclu- sively carnivorous nevertheless live, it is because they always find in the body of their prey reserves of fatty and saccharine matters. We have now arrived at the end of our long exposition. The reader will pardon us for having made it especially a long enumeration of facts. Science has in our days abjm-ed the errors of its youth, and nourishes itself with scarcely anything but observations and experiments. Philosophy is on the way to imitate science, of which it is destined one day to be the crown. More and more men are persuaded that without observation and experiment there is no real knowledge. To terminate our work it remains for us to say a few words of a vast general theory, now almost everywhere admitted. We mean the general law of balancement between the two organic kingdoms. That there is much truth in this view as a whole cannot be denied. It is certain in a general manner that the vegetal kingdom fabricates the aliments of the animal kingdom. But we must not formulate this proposition too strictly. First of all we must regard as withdrawn from the law of altemancy the mushi’oom family on the one hand, and the fauna of the oceanic depths on the other. Moreover, there is no complete antagonism between the vegetal machine and the animal machine. The combiu’ent function does not devolve solely on the animal. The vegetal tissues oxydise themselves like the animal tissues, like everything that lives. Finally, the animal likewise fabricates starches and sugars.