132 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [vn. 



living protoplasm not only ultimately dies and is resolved 

 into its mineral and lifeless constituents, but is always 

 dying, and, strange as the paradox may sound, could not 

 live unless it died. 



In the wonderful story of the "Peau de Chagrin/' 

 the hero becomes possessed of a magical wild ass 7 skin, 

 which yields him the means of gratifying all his wishes. 

 But its surface represents the duration of the proprietor's 

 life ; and for every satisfied desire the skin shrinks in 

 proportion to the intensity of fruition, until at length 

 life and the last handbreadth of the peau de chagrin 

 disappear with the gratification of a last wish. 



Balzac's studies had led him over a wide ran^e of 

 thought and speculation, and his shadowing forth of 

 physiological truth in this strange story may have been 

 intentional. At any rate, the matter of life is a veritable 

 peau de chagrin, and for every vital act it is somewhat 

 the smaller. All work implies waste, and the work of 

 life results, directly or indirectly, in the waste of pro- 

 toplasm. 



Every word uttered by a speaker costs him some 

 physical loss ; and, in the strictest sense, he burns that 

 others may have light — so much eloquence, so much of 

 his body resolved into carbonic acid, water, and urea. 

 It is clear that this process of expenditure cannot go on 

 for ever. But, happily, the protoplasmic peau de chagrin 

 differs from Balzac's in its capacity of being repaired, and 

 brought back to its full size, after every exertion. 



For example, this present lecture, whatever its intel- 

 lectual worth to you, has a certain physical value to me, 

 which is, conceivably, expressible by the number of 

 grains of protoplasm and other bodily substance wasted 

 in maintaining my vital processes during its delivery. 

 ^lypeau de chagrin will be distinctly smaller at the end 

 of the discourse than it was at the beginning. By and 



