THE CONDITION OF OLD AGE 35 



cate. It has a considerable power of growth. It 

 expands freely, and soon becomes a leaf of full size. 

 Then comes the further change by which the leaf 

 gets a firmer texture ; the production of anatomical 

 quality in the leaf, so to speak, goes on through the 

 summer, and the result of that advance in the an- 

 atomical quality is that the delicate, youthful softness 

 and activity of the leaf is stopped. It cannot grow 

 any more ; it cannot function as a leaf properly any 

 more. The development of its structure has gone 

 too far and the leaf falls and is lost, and must be 

 replaced by a new leaf the next year. When we 

 examine the changes that go on in any flowering 

 plant, we observe always that there is this production 

 of structure, and then the decay, the end or death. 

 At first structure comes as a helpful thing, increasing 

 the usefulness of the part, and then it goes on too far 

 and impairs the usefulness, and at last a stage is pro- 

 duced in which no use is possible any longer the 

 thing is worthless. It is cast away in the case of the 

 plant life ; and this casting away of the useless is a 

 thing not by any means confined to plants ; it occurs 

 equally in ourselves all the time ; at every period of 

 our life we have been getting through with some 

 portion of our body ; that portion acquired a certain 

 organisation, it worked for us awhile, and then being 

 done with it, we threw it away because it was dead. 

 Very early in the history of every individual there 

 was a production of blood, and then followed the 

 destruction of some of the blood corpuscles and their 



