444 PHYSIOLOGICAL EEGULATIONS 



methods. An equilibration diagram to which variability of con- 

 tent has been added, represents most of that information in one 

 frame (fig. 47). It is probably meaningless to bewail the fact that 

 not everything known about the dog's water relations is repre- 

 sented in the one table or diagram. 



Comparison among several components (table 40) with respect 

 to any or all measures of regulation reveals the wide variety of 

 values found. Ultimately a table many times as large as table 45 

 might be drawn up, based upon observations made simultaneously 

 in respect to n components. 



Stability or stabilization is a term used qualitatively in some of 

 the same connotations as regulation (LeDantec, '10). Arguments 

 as to whether "living matter" is more or less stable than non- 

 living, are avoided by comparing specific measurements of par- 

 ticular components. 



An ordinary definition is that stability is the reciprocal of a 

 variability (l/o), therefore of a load (± 1/AC) or a rate (At/SC). 

 Another quantity related to stability is the steepness of the slope 

 in the net equilibration diagram ; this is rate/load and has already 

 been recognized as net velocity quotient (1/At). Both kinds are 

 shown in fig. 47; they are not commensurate. 



''What characterizes a living being is without doubt first that 

 it is at each instant the seat of a flux of matter and energy, but 

 above all that in spite of this flux and due to it, it remains constant, 

 or rather that it maintains itself similar to itself" (Gasnier and 

 Mayer, '39, p. 146). That statement carries its own designation 

 of measures that will describe regulation. ' 



§ 160. Kinetic equilibrium 



Figure 47 exhibits two sorts of minima into which the organism 

 may be said to fall in respect to a component. One is the recipro- 

 cal of frequency of occurrence, which represents the outcome of all 

 the ' ' difficulties ' ' in the way of having any other load than zero ; 

 the other is equilibration, the net rates of exchange that are 

 aroused when the content departs from Co- Both curves present 

 the picture of a groove into which the organism gravitates and in 

 which it tends to remain. The trough of this groove is at balance 

 of the component. It represents a kinetic equilibrium, since ex- 

 changes are known (for many components) to be still going on; 

 but positive and negative exchanges are equal, so that the net rate 



