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sufficient to fix their place, when they are already in motion, we can 

 scarcely conceive it possible that the fluid which could not keep 

 them against this affinity before they were fixed should be capable 

 of unsettling them against the force of the same affinity when their 

 coherence has been established : on these accounts, and in this view 

 of the subject, I reject also this testimony. Is there any other 

 proof of the unremitting absorption of the solids? 



29. It may be replied, the rapid diminution of bulk by fever, 

 by violent and continued labour, by purgatives, &c. proves the 

 facility with which the solids are removed. Granting these circum- 

 stances to be true, they do not prove even that the waste in these 

 instances is occasioned by a function of the absorbents to that end; 

 for the examples are those of disease, of conditions when the princi- 

 ple of life is under preternatural affection, the influence of which, as 

 may be expected, is expressed in the changes of the textures which 

 are governed by it. 



30. In addition to the previous observations upon this subject, 

 it may be remarked, that if an absorbent is capable of removing a 

 solid particle, that is, if it is capable of overcoming the affinity 

 which maintains its place when it is once established in its place, it 

 appears unaccountable how the same antagonist function of the 

 absorbent did not resist effectually the deposition of the particle. 

 I shall pursue the general indications on growth by applying the 

 doctrines to alternatives. 



31. Now if the two processes of deposition and removal of 

 particles are unremitting, it is obvious that the respective powers 

 must, in regard to the same particles, prevail in succession. From 

 whence it would follow that the relation between the agents is of 

 the following kind. While the organic particles are yet combined 

 in the blood, they are related with the affinity of aggregation ; after 

 their separation from the blood they lose their relation with the last- 

 mentioned affinity, and become subject to an agency of decomposi- 

 tion belonging to the absorbents: as all the functions which have 

 ever been demonstrated or fancied to belong to this system (with 

 the exception of a capillary attraction, if any such exists) take place 

 only as the phenomena of the living state, so a relation of the above 

 supposed kind, between the absorbents and the aggregated particles, 

 is directly or indirectly with the organic spirit of the former. 



32. Still treating the perpetual absorption of the solids as a 

 supposed fact, the organic spirit residing in different structures has 

 properties which appear to be antagonist: but as it is contrary to 

 every analogy that each should in turn prevail, during an opposition 

 of their agencies, and the more especially as the weaker (the absor- 

 bent) prevails after the fixture of the particle, when the common 

 cohesion of matter acts as an auxiliary to the force which before 

 prevailed : as this cannot be supposed in consonance with the nearest 

 analogies (facts being almost entirely wanting), so it is necessary te 

 conclude, that when the absorbent function prevails, the relation of 

 the solid particles with the affinity or spirit of aggregation has 



