ON THE ORIGIN OF THE PLANETARY SYSTEM. 195 



Just as the flame remains the same in appearance 

 and continues to exist with the same form and struc- 

 ture, although it draws every minute fresh combustible 

 vapour, and fresh oxygen from the air, into the vortex 

 of its ascending current ; and just as the wave goes 

 on in unaltered form, and is yet being reconstructed 

 every moment from fresh particles of water, so also in 

 the living being, it is not the definite mass of substance, 

 which now constitutes the body, to which the con- 

 tinuance of the individual is attached. For the material 

 of the body, like that of the flame, is subject to con- 

 tinuous and comparatively rapid change a change the 

 more rapid, the livelier the activity of the organs in 

 question. Some constituents are renewed from day to 

 day, some from month to month, and others only after 

 years. That which continues to exist as a particular 

 individual is like the flame and the wave only the 

 form of motion which continually attracts fresh matter 

 into its vortex and expels the old. The observer with 

 a deaf ear only recognises the vibration of sound 

 as long as it is visible and can be felt, bound up with 

 heavy matter. Are our senses, in reference to life, like 

 the deaf ear in this respect ? 



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