LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 269 



Rapid re-organization depends upon rapid dis- 

 organization 



Therefore, health and strength depend upon 

 rapid disorganization. 



The first process, therefore, in that chain of pro- 

 cesses by which life is not only supported, but in 

 which life really consists, is what? Eating? 

 No ; it is the wasting, the pulling down, the dis- 

 organization of the body. You must waste it, before 

 you can nourish it. To the unreflective, this will 

 seem paradoxical. Yet a moment's thought, without 

 the parade of logic, should be sufficient to convince 

 us of its truth. For does not appetite, in the natu- 

 ral order of things, precede the act of eating? And 

 what is appetite, but a sensation, warning us that 

 the body has suffered waste, and calling upon us to 

 repair it? 



I say, that re-organization depends upon dis- 

 organization : because, having shewn that the body's 

 fibre cannot be enlarged, it is clear that no new 

 materials can be added until a corresponding por- 

 tion of the old materials has been removed. It 

 must, therefore, be pulled down, before it can be 

 built up impaired, before it can be repaired dis- 

 organized, before it can be re-organized. 



Now, the natural means by which the body is 



