CHAPTER III 
THE FACTORS OF LIFE—THE LIFE AND PRESERVATION 
OF THE INDIVIDUAL—PROTECTION AND REST 
N the last chapter I pointed out that Respiration 
and Nutrition are the two vital functions, and 
that together with Growth they constitute the three 
factors upon which life depends primarily; but they 
are by no means the whole of life, even for a plant, 
to say nothing of ourselves. 
Let us think for a moment of other things that we 
do or want in order to go on living. We must, for 
example, have a home or at least shelter of some sort 
and clothes to wear; but why is it that we must have 
clothes ? One reason in a civilized country is, of 
course, that we wear them for the sake of decency, 
even when we imagine perhaps that we should like 
to take them off and sit in our bones during the heat 
of a summer day. 
But we must remember our tender skins, and that 
without any covering at all we should suffer from 
sunscorch and burns, as indeed we do on our hands 
and face. So it appears that we wear clothes not only 
for the sake of decency but also as a protection ; 
they protect us from heat and sunscorch, as well as 
from cold and wet, and Protection is the fourth 
Factor of Life. 
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