Description
Everything in the physical world, animate and inanimate, is the result of some organizing factor, a purposeful activity, a formative element that indicates the involvement of an intelligence that functions in accord with law. This is what we encounter in the body. The body, in structure and function, is a mass of dynamic material held together by an intelligent organizing factor, which operates in accord with law.
That the body is a wonderful mechanism there is no doubt, but how many of us have realized just how amazing it is? Powerful muscles are instantly called into violent action by a minute amount of energy coursing along nerve pathways. Whether the outside temperature is very hot, even above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or extremely cold, the body maintains its normal temperature of approximately 98.6 degrees. A foreign particle enters the skin and immediately internal materials needed to isolate foreign matter, fight infection, and heal the break in the skin are rushed to the area. The heat developed within the body by muscular effort would be damaging beyond repair if a built-in cooling system did not start to function. What maintains the dynamic material of the body in a state of stability? What determines the equilibrium that is evidenced?
The body’s ability to maintain its dynamic material at a level of equilibrium was described by physiologist Walter B. Cannon as homeostasis, which he termed the essential functioning of the autonomic nervous system maintaining a balance of activity in the body. There is something that seeks to regulate and control the body’s dynamic material at a normal level in the face of an almost infinite variety of conditions surrounding it and within it.