Bichat thought that animals exhibited vital properties which could not be explained through physics or chemistry. In his "Physiological Researches", he considered life to be separable into two parts: the organic life (""; also sometimes called the vegetative system) and the animal life ("", or animal system). The organic life was "the life of the heart, intestines, and the other inner organs." As worded by Stanley Finger, "Bichat theorized that this life was regulated through the "système des ganglions" (the ganglionic nervous system), a collection of small independent 'brains' in the chest cavity." In contrast, animal life "involved symmetrical, harmonious organs, such as the eyes, ears, and limbs. It included habit and memory, and was ruled by the wit and the intellect. This was the function of the brain itself, but it could not exist without the heart, the center of the organic life."