224 LIFE AND DEATH. 



assimilating synthesis] are simultaneously produced 

 in every living being, in a connection which cannot 

 be broken. The .disorganization or dissimilation uses 

 up living matter [by this we must understand the 

 reserve-stuff, as will be seen later on in the quotation] 

 in the organs in function: the assimilating synthesis 

 regenerates the tissues; it gathers together the re- 

 serve-stuff which the vital activity must expend. 

 These two operations of destruction and renovation, 

 inverse the one to the other, are absolutely connected 

 and inseparable, in this sense at any rate, that de- 

 struction is the necessary condition of renovation. 

 The phenomena of functional destruction are them- 

 selves the precursors and the instigators of material 

 regeneration, of the formative process which is silently 

 going on in the intimacy of the tissues. The losses 

 are repaired as they take place; and equilibrium being 

 re-established as soon as it tends to be broken, the 

 body is maintained in its composition." 



It is perfectly right and wise to say with Claude 

 Bernard that the two orders of facts are successive, 

 and that one is normally the inciting condition of the 

 other. The possibility of the development of the 

 yeast when fermentation fails, and the weakness of 

 this development on the other harrd under these con- 

 ditions, are an excellent proof of this. The one proves 

 the essential independence of the two orders of facts, 

 the other the inciting and provoking virtue of the first 

 relatively to the second. The experimental truth is 

 thus expressed with a minimum of uncertainty. We 

 know the facts which led Le Dantec to formulate his 

 law of functional assimilation — namely, that the 

 functional activity is useful or indispensable to the 

 growth of the organ ; that the organs which are 



