1899] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL 333 



Evolution of Decay. 



ARCH C. HART. 



I believe decay to be a natural force which acts through 

 media upon all material bodies, with the effect of chang- 

 ing their identity. I do not consider it a process of a 

 force, nor as the result of the action of a form of energy, 

 but as a force or form of energy that is only knowu to us 

 by its manifestations through matter — effecting changes 

 from a state of soundness or perfection to one less sound 

 or perfect. I would classify it on the same general basis 

 as gravitation, or any of the other great forces of nature. 

 Gravitation existed and man used its power long before 

 Newton formulated the law of gravitation. Men did not 

 understand how the force acted. 



So with the force decay. For ages men have recog- 

 nized and used this power and depended upon its action 

 for their existence. In these living bodies are we not dy- 

 ing to live, and living to die ? But to prove that this 

 force acts with other forces in making men and worlds 

 grow old would be difficult. The lack of demonstration, 

 however, makes it no less a fact. All things are growing 

 or decaying ; advancing in integration or disintegration. 

 The change from perfection to one less perfect, to my 

 mind, results from the action of a force, and we term it de- 

 cay. Surely life is a force. Why then is not decay a 

 force ? 



Fire, air, light, electricity, acids, alkalies, salts, alco- 

 hols, oils and water I take to be some of the important 

 media through which decay acts in effecting change of 

 identity seen in material bodies. In citing water as one 

 of the most important media I have done so because it is 

 one of the most universal of all compounds as well as the 

 greatest of Nature's solvents and cements. Science has 

 already proven that upon water for many of their combi- 

 nations ^depend the animal, the vegetable and even the 



