190 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



organism is said to be in a healthy state, and its ( vital 

 powers' are good. Under these circumstances, it grows 

 in the most regular manner, with a constant tendency 

 to follow in the grooves along which its predecessors 

 may have gone. But when from any cause the central 

 controlling or coordinating apparatus is anywhere weak- 

 ened, morbid or unnatural processes may begin to take 

 place within and amongst the tissue elements of the 

 liberated region. These previously subordinate units 

 cast off their subordination, and inflammatory or de- 

 generative processes may occur. On the other hand, 

 where the health of the whole organism is lowered, 

 where the c vital powers ' are on the wane, and all co- 

 ordinating activities are checked, the special activities 

 of the separate units are similarly diminished, and their 

 elements are more free to enter into such less specialized 

 combinations and modes of activity as living matter 

 is prone to assume when it arises independently in the 

 midst of a fermenting infusion. That is to say, as 

 soon as the multitudinous maelstrom-like activities 

 whirl within whirl which are usually so potent in the 

 tissues of a healthy organism become decidedly dimi- 

 nished in intensity, the newest and least specialized 

 portions of living matter entering into the composition 

 of these tissues, become more and more capable of 

 assuming those modes of growth which new-born living 

 matter tends to assume when uninfluenced by the pro- 

 cesses taking place in the matter of any pre-existing 

 living unit with which it may be in contact. 



