COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



caljy considered, is not an entity, but a disturb- 

 ance of equilibrium among the interacting func- 

 tions of the organism. A cancer, for instance, 

 is a modification of structure resulting from a 

 disturbance in the general process of nutrition. 

 Molecules which should normally be deposited 

 here and there throughout the various tissues 

 begin to aggregate over a single limited area, 

 forming a new abnormal tissue, of low vitality ; 

 and this new tissue grows at the expense of the 

 organism until death ensues from exhaustion, 

 or, if the wall of a large blood-vessel happens to 

 get encroached upon and disintegrated, death 

 ensues from hemorrhage. So an ordinary fever, 

 in which blood-poisoning does not occur, is the 

 result of an ill-understood alteration in the mo- 

 lecular properties of the blood, one of the chief 

 symptoms of which is the adherence of the 

 blood-corpuscles to the walls of the capillaries. 

 Yet so prevalent still is the personifying habit 

 of thought, that cancers and fevers are spoken 

 of and reasoned about as occult entities, as ugly 

 Things which somehow or other "get into" 

 the blood. 



It is hardly necessary to insist upon the pre- 

 valence of the metaphysical habit in sociology, 

 where final causes are still sought after, where 

 the doctrine of the " freedom of the will " (or, 

 as it might better be termed, of the " lawless- 

 ness of volition ") still maintains a precarious 



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