DISSOLUTION. 535 



held together loosely and indirectly, in such variable ways 

 by such complex forces, the process of dissolution among 

 them conforms to the general law quite as clearly as could 

 be expected. 



179. When from these super-organic aggregates we 

 descend to organic aggregates, the truth that Dissolution is 

 a disintegration of matter, caused by the reception of ad- 

 ditional motion from without, becomes easily demonstrable. 

 We will look first at the transformation and afterwards at 

 its cause. 



Death, or that final equilibration which precedes dissolu- 

 tion, is the bringing to a close of all those conspicuous 

 integrated motions that arose during evolution. The im- 

 pulsions of the body from place to place first cease; pres- 

 ently the limbs cannot be stirred; later still the respira- 

 tory actions stop; finally the heart becomes stationary, and, 

 with it, the circulating fluids. That is, the transformation 

 of molecular motion into the motion of masses, comes to 

 an end; and each of these motions of masses, as it ends, 

 disappears into molecular motions. What next takes place ? 

 We cannot say that there is any further transformation of 

 sensible movements into insensible movements; for sensible 

 movements no longer exist. Nevertheless, the process of 

 decay involves an increase of insensible movements; since 

 these are far greater in the gases generated by decomposi- 

 tion, than they are in the fluid-solid matters out of which the 

 gases arise. Each of the complex chemical units composing 

 an organic body, possesses a rhythmic motion in which its 

 many component units jointly partake. When decomposi- 

 tion breaks up these complex molecules, and their constitu- 

 ents assume gaseous forms, there is, besides that increase of 

 motion implied by the diffusion, a resolution of such mo- 

 tions as the aggregate molecules possessed, into motions 

 of their constituent molecules. So that in organic dissolu- 

 tion we have, first, an end put to that transformation of the 



