THE PLEASURES OF SCIENCE 



rests with neither. Indeed, it is a perpetual victory 

 and a perpetual defeat, and our well-being is in the 

 drawn battle. If living bodies were not pulled down, 

 there would very soon be no material to build more, 

 or to rebuild. It is like the compositor with his type. 

 If the compositor did not take down and redistrib- 

 ute his type, he could print no more books. Life 

 and death go hand in hand. Death has its living 

 side. What we call decay and corruption is the work 

 of living organisms, not less than are what we call 

 growth and health; but, we may say, of a lower and 

 less specialized order. The germs that pull down 

 the body of your dog are the same as those that pull 

 down your own body, but the germs that build 

 these up are different, at least they work to nobler 

 ends. The pulling-down process is to return to Na- 

 ture the elements that came from her; the build- 

 ing-up process is to produce a result that contrasts 

 strongly with the work of elemental nature. The 

 pulling-down process goes on mechanically all about 

 us, at all times, and it is equally active chemically. 

 You can hardly make two stones, one piled on the 

 other, stay piled long. Pile up your cord of stove- 

 wood in the woods as carefully as you may, and 

 very soon it begins to incline more or less to the 

 ground. Everything has a tilt. "Come down, come 

 down," say the natural forces, "you oppose the 

 equilibrium I love." Wind, rain, frost, are the great 

 levelers. The hills and the mountains are every- 



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