THE COMMON FACULTIES 261 



due to these organic movements and the penetration of subtle fluids. 

 Now from these alterations which give rise to various new combina- 

 tions, there result different kinds of substances ; some of which are 

 dissipated or evacuated as the vital movement continues, while 

 others are merely separated from parts, which do not thereby 

 suffer any fundamental change. Among these separated substances 

 some are deposited in particular parts of the body or are reabsorbed 

 through canals and serve certain purposes ; such are lymph, bile, 

 saliva, the generative substance, etc. ; but the rest acquire a special 

 character, and are carried off by the general force which animates 

 all the organs and drives all the functions, and are then fixed in similar 

 or corresponding parts, either solid or supple and containing. They 

 make good the wastage of these and enlarge their size, in proportion 

 to their abundance and the possibilities of the case. 



It is therefore by means of these assimilated substances, which have 

 become adapted to particular regions, that nutrition is carried out. 

 Nutrition, the first of the faculties of life, is thus essentially a mere 

 restoration of the losses undergone ; it is merely a means for reversing 

 the tendency towards decomposition, which all compound substances 

 are liable to. Now this reformation is achieved by means of a force 

 which conveys the newly assimilated substances to their destined 

 positions, and not by any special law, as I have already endeavoured 

 to show. In fact, each kind of part in the animal body appropriates 

 and stows away, by a true affinity, the assimilated molecules capable 

 of being incorporated with it. 



But nutrition is more or less abundant according to the state of 

 organisation of the individual. 



During youth, nutrition is exceedingly abundant in all organised 

 living bodies ; and it then does more than repair losses, for it adds to 

 the size of the parts. 



Indeed in a Uving body all the newly formed containing parts are 

 extremely supple and of weak consistency, as a result of the causes of 

 their formation. Nutrition under these conditions is carried on so 

 easily as to be excessive. Not only does it completely make good the 

 losses ; but by an internal fixation of assimilated particles, it adds 

 successively to the size of the parts and gives rise to growth of the 

 young individual. 



But after a certain period, varying with the organisation in each 

 race, the parts, including even the most supple parts of this individual, 

 lose much of their suppleness and vital orgasm ; and their faculty 

 of nutrition is then proportionally diminished. 



Nutrition in this case is limited to the restoration of losses ; the body 

 maintains a stationarv condition for some time ; it is indeed in the 



