388 THE JBIOCOSMOS PARTICULARIZED. 



versal disease of individuality itself is incur- 

 able, or has been so far. The supreme fact 

 here is that the living individual is always 

 capable of death; the special form of it, how- 

 ever, varies in time, place and kind of mal- 

 ady. The physician can only put off the mo- 

 ment, delaying the fate of Life but not mas- 

 tering it; he may slow its pace and assuage 

 its pain, his best gift being that of euthanasia 

 conferred upon the poor mortal. But the 

 original ailment of individuality itself he can- 

 not touch with his medicine till he be able to 

 confer upon us the boon of atlianasia, by cur- 

 ing mortality itself and reversing Nature's 

 course of individuation. Some scientists have 

 indeed intimated that the death-bearing mi- 

 crobe of old age is to be isolated and then ex- 

 terminated through the antidote of all anti- 

 dotes, whereby the cycle of Life will return 

 to its youth without having to pass through 

 the underworld of Unlife. The problem is 

 whether the living individual will ever be able 

 to re-bear himself completely, and start over 

 again, without the mortal dip back into the 

 elements belonging to the process of Earth- 

 life which still must individuate Life. 



Such is the round of Earth-life, as it moves 

 from Unlife to Life in all the latter 's varie- 

 ties, and then turns back out of Life to Tin- 

 life. Assimilation we call this process, since 



