348 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



adults whose physical belongings have long ago arrived at years of 

 maturity. A few of us may be verging on the "sere and yellow" 

 stage of vitality. Scientists tell us that in old age the tissues tend 

 to lessen and to decrease in size and extent. After the age of forty 

 years, the brain itself begins to decrease in weight, at the rate of 

 about one ounce in ten years. Even the Professor, with his won- 

 derful memory for facts and data, must, on this showing, have lost at 

 least a couple of ounces of his cerebral matter, and goodness knows 

 how much science as well an idea which may possibly account for 

 the fact that he grows more and more prosy and forgetful, as succes- 

 sive years and a multitude of dinner parties mark the course of his 

 career. Around Smith's table, then, it seems clear our dinner will 

 not contribute to " growth " ; and it is plain that the missing brains 

 of the scientists, and of the plain people who are in their fifties and 

 sixties, cannot receive from Smith's choicest viands any material 

 wherewith to recuperate their lost belongings. " Why we eat our 

 dinner " is an inquiry that must be answered on a broader basis than 

 is afforded by any considerations of mere growth and increase of 

 body. We must, therefore, turn to a wider view of the vital pro- 

 cesses, in order satisfactorily to discuss the question of the why and 

 wherefore of food-getting and food-taking. 



Such a view we may obtain when we reflect that the pursuit of 

 life involves, at all times and under aU circumstances, a serious 

 expenditure of vital energy, and an appreciable loss of bodily and 

 material substance. It is a grave but interesting fact of science, that 

 no act of life, however trifling it may appear, can be performed with- 

 out being attended and accompanied by a corresponding loss of 

 energy and waste of substance. The machine that works, wears. 

 The waste of a machine bears a strict proportion to the work it per- 

 forms ; and the human body, as typical of the bodies of all animals, 

 is found to undergo wear and tear proportionate to the work dis- 

 charged by its organs and parts. There is no cessation from this 

 competition with vital waste and wear. The slightest act of life, 

 equally with the gravest action, is attended by its relative amount of 

 waste and loss of power and matter. The merest thought that 

 disturbs, as by a mental ripple, the surface of the mind's organ, 

 involves a certain amount of brain waste. The winking of an eyelid, 

 effected by means of muscular acts, is in the same way performed 

 only through a certain loss of substance. In each pulsation of the 

 heart, in each rise and fall of the chest in breathing, there can be no 

 escape from the perpetually enforced dictum of nature, that work 

 and waste are in constant and stable fellowship throughout the entire 

 range of living action. 



We might go still further than this not unreasonable stage of life's 

 conditions. Smith's dinner, for example, will no doubt be an enjoy- 



