CHAPTER IV. 



OF ALIMENTS. 



ALIMENT fills a double office in organised beings : it furnishes 

 substance and energy. The molecular movement is incontest- 

 ably the very essence of life ; every organised and living sub- 

 stance is a vortex incessantly engulfing and expelling new 

 materials ; these materials failing, the organism is destroyed, it 

 devours itself. We must then reject the opinion of some modern 

 physiologists who, dazzled by the grandeur of the principle of 

 the unity of physical forces, have ended by seeing only the 

 dynamic side of phenomena, by enthroning spiritualism anew in 

 biology, and pretending, for instance, that the muscular fibre 

 contracts without decaying. 



There is no organic functionment without decay of the organs, 

 there is no durable life without the repair of this waste by 

 aliments. 



But neither are there clearly defined categories among the 

 alimentary substances. Some furnish more force or movement 

 than substance, others more substance than force ; but all furnish 

 at the same time both substance and force, with the exception of 

 water and certain inoxydable salts. Water serves especially as 

 a vehicle, as water of imbibition, of composition. Certain salts, 

 such as the chlorure of sodium, are employed solely in stimula- 

 ting absorption, in accelerating the nutritive movements. These 

 are mineral aliments. 



H H 



