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one, is produced from a slip. These instances are the facts upon 

 which our considerations ase now to be raised. 



46. The examples may be arranged briefly under the four fol- 

 lowing classes : 1st, instances of increase of parts not wholly removed ; 

 2nd, instances of the regeneration of parts once existing, but now 

 totally removed; 3rd, instances of disproportionate increase of struc- 

 tures which have sustained no loss; 4th, instances of production of 

 structures which did not before exist. The two last relate exclusively 

 to spontaneous disease : in all four there is an alliance in the laws by 

 which they are governed. The two last, for purposes of distinction, 

 may be called examples of formation ; the two first, examples of 

 regeneration. 



47* We will define our specimen of increase of parts not 

 wholly removed to be a fractured bone, from which a portion has 

 been sawed off. The interspace is filled up by a substance, in a 

 general way, resembling the bone from which it is produced. By 

 what processes, according to our preceding notions, is this result 

 accomplished ? As spiritual phenomena precede the deposition of 

 osseous particles, so these phenomena are first to be inquired after. 



48. As we have no means of judging of spiritual identities 

 except by their material connections, so it is necessary in this case 

 to infer, in agreement with a simple extension of structure, a simple 

 increase of the spirit which produces it. The solution so far is 

 easy. The spiritual elements existing in the blood are capable of 

 supporting the quantum of the spirit attained; if the quantum of 

 the spirit is diminished by removing it, along with a portion of a 

 fabric, which it before inhabited, or by abridging its sphere, the 

 elements in the material being capable of supporting the original 

 quantum, will actually attain to it, by the assimilating process, on 

 that which remains; and the same is to be said of the organic par- 

 ticles. Supposing therefore, as in our present example, that there 

 is 1 1 inch in the os brachii to be filled up, there is in the material 

 brought to the repairing extremities an excess of the elements by so 

 much as the support of the lost portion would have required. 

 These then are made life by that process of assimilation which has 

 been before said to result from the relation between the elementary 

 and the living spirit; as this is a mere act of growth, the spirit re- 

 generated by assimilation has the same dispositions, the same affinity 

 with the solid particles as that belonging to the rest of the bone and 

 which originally formed it. Hence (liable indeed to some modifica- 

 tions) the regenerated portion resembles that which was lost. 



49. But although the law just mentioned may be true to a 

 certain extent, yet as a general one it is not in agreement with facts; 

 for if the remaining agents of a structure are capable of assimilating 

 and of re-producing the same extent of structure as was originally 

 maintained by the material with which it was supplied, then should 

 three fourths of a femur, removed, be re-produced, and grow from the 

 remaining fourth ; for the material was adequate to maintain such 

 an extent of bone. Nay, further, in agreement with such rules, a 



