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CHAP. lll.Grawlk. 



1. AS it is a property which belongs to the spirit in 

 the several minute spheres, to withdraw from the material the 

 organic particles which agree with these spheres; so, cteteris 

 paribus, the quantity of organic matter thus withdrawn must de- 

 pend upon the quantity of the spirit, or of those properties of the 

 spirit by which the organic particles are separated. 



2. But the assimilation of the spirit may proceed while the 

 organic substances are wasting. This disposition therefore to 

 aggregate the textures is no necessary condition of the existence 

 of the spirit, unless we suppose that under these circumstances 

 the quantum of the spirit itself is first diminished; a supposition 

 which cannot, without further evidence, be indulged, because it 

 is contrary to what happens in spiritual assimilation, where the 

 original quantity tends to increase, as is exemplified by recovery 

 in cases of asphyxia, in limbs which are almost dead from privation 

 of blood, as by a ligature around an arterial trunk, and the 

 vitality of which is rapidly restored in all their parts as soon as 

 the circulation is established by the collateral channels. 



3. The aggregation of the organic particles will depend, as 

 before shewn, upon the disposition of the spirit; and will proceed, 

 not in a ratio to the quantum of a living principle, but in a ratio 

 to the quantum of the spirit disposed for such a relation with the 

 material. 



4. This spiritual disposition cannot operate alone, but re- 

 quires also the presence of organic particles in the material; by 

 the relation subsisting between these two growth is regulated. 



5. A deficiency of growth can seldom arise from a deficiency 

 of organic particles in the material, except under disease; if the 

 sum of the ingesta might be taken as a criterion of the sum of 

 organic particles in the blood, for people of the greatest bulk 

 often eat the least. 



6. But this criterion is not unexceptionable, for the aptitude 

 of organic particles for aggregation will depend upon the offices 

 of the preparatory organs. But we are, nevertheless, not without 

 some testimony in favour of this point, and it is found in the fact 

 that the blood will continue to support the fabric for a considera- 



