WHAT IS PHYSICAL LIFE 



elements in his microscopic body than ever 

 he will possess afterwards, for by the time 

 he has grown into an adult whale, and 

 bulks as much as a brigade of men, he has 

 spent much the greater part of his original 

 capital stock of vital capacities. There 

 remains in him no potential reserve of that 

 living power to form an eye or an ear or 

 any new tissue or organ which he had when 

 he counted only one cell to his physical 

 being. All he does when he is full grown 

 is to keep what he has until it begins to 

 decay with age. 



It is true that there are still traces in 

 him of his original capacity for making 

 new tissues in his power of repairing 

 bodily injuries. In animals lower in the 

 scale of life than whales, this power of re- 

 pair is sometimes strikingly illustrated. 

 Thus, if the crystalline lens of the eye of a 

 larval salamander be extracted, this crea- 

 ture soon makes a new lens out of the 

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