268 LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 



broader without also making 1 it longer. But this is 

 contrary to known fact: for no man can make him- 

 self taller hy eating; nor add, in the slightest degree, 

 to the length of his fingers and toes. Yet the bones 

 are nourished by the self-same food as the rest of 

 the body, and by the same processes of assimilation. 



By eating, therefore, you may superinduce fat 

 over the body; but the magnitude of the solid 

 body itself cannot be increased. 



You will be pleased, too, to recollect, that I 

 have already shewn you (I think in the Third 

 Letter, but am not sure) that energetic contrac- 

 tility can only reside in recently-organized matter ; 

 and that, therefore, rapid re-organization is abso- 

 lutely essential to energetic contractility. And I 

 have also, in one of the foregone Letters, proved to 

 you, that all the living actions, external and inter- 

 nal, are performed by virtue of contractility ; and 

 that health and strength depend absolutely depend 

 upon an energetic contractile power. 



Now, then, observe the force and tendency of 

 the following categorical syllogism. 



Health and strength depend upon energetic con- 

 tractility 



Energetic contractility depends upon rapid re- 

 organization 



