1 1 WHAT IS LIFE ? 



as we call it, dead. The hair does not come out 

 of the skull as string comes out of the string box. 

 The new hair is generated in the skin of the head. 

 And similarly do we cut away the whole of the 

 finger-nails in a very short time. The average of the 

 whole body regenerates very quickly. There is no 

 rigid system. Hardly two hairs grow alike or at the 

 same speed. Every part of the body differs in its 

 order of regeneration. If regenei^ation, molecular and 

 cellular, were not a fact, living matter could not exist. 



Now let us consider the effect of this observation of 

 the phenomena of our existence. Two men, friends, 

 meet each other ; it was a few months ago since last 

 they saw one another. They are perfectly unconscious 

 of the fact that they are absolutely two different 

 individuals. It is patent that the hair has been cut 

 off by the hairdresser it is also evident that they have 

 themselves cut away the finger-nails, that is, the nails 

 which existed when they last met. Every time they 

 have washed themselves they have left, what we call, 

 dead-matter in the water, for the dead cells from the 

 body are held in suspension. And lastly, they have 

 been swallowing the dead cells from the lining of their 

 mouths, every moment in their existence. And so, 

 when we come to examine the inner operations, we find 

 the same phenomenon a constant life history of waste 

 and repair of the birth, growth, and death of the cells 

 of which every human being is built up. When new 

 cells develop faster than the death of cells, we have 

 growth ; when the death of cells exceeds the growth of 

 cells, we have decline. Thus life and death may be 

 regarded as the outcome of assimilations and waste 

 i.e. a balance in favour of assimilation leads up 



