Animal Causes. 229 



dozen different lives at once ; he himself but extend- 

 ing in a diluted form the lives of his great grand- 

 fathers and grandmothers. In a restricted sense, 

 therefore, only the sterile and unfruitful perish as 

 human beings, for so long as a man leaves direct 

 descendants on earth, he lives. True, this fact may- 

 afford small satisfaction to a dying man, but we have 

 no other choice in the matter. We have come with- 

 out asking and we shall go without leave. 



Another kindred speculation is suggested here. If, 

 as all observation assures us, the atomic constituents 

 of our bodies are constantly attaching themselves to 

 us and leaving us again with every breath that we 

 draw, no man can even claim his own body, wherein 

 dwells his individuality, as a permanent possession, 

 or, more curiously, that he is even himself for two 

 consecutive days.* Composed as he is of unstable 

 elements solely on loan, which change day by day 

 and hour to hour, his ephemeral constituents are as 

 the wind which passeth over him. That which is 

 himself to-day is compost to-morrow; and that 

 which he shall be to-morrow is roast beef and plum 

 pudding to-day. A man may thus be called a 

 cannibal and a phoenix, because, through eating 

 the manured products of agriculture around him, he 



' Though this conception of existence was taught over two thousand 

 years ago, it was probably as little considered then as now. Thus 

 Heraclitus says : — "We are and are not the same for two consecutive 

 seconds ; the fire in us is perpetually becoming water, and the water 

 earth, but as the opposite process goes on simultaneously we appear to 

 remain the same," 



