MECHANISM OF NATURE 



in the same stone, and even in the human body 

 we do not generally mean a renewal of atoms when 

 we speak of a renewal of the body, but rather an 

 exchange of atoms. 



But because every substance is at all times and 

 in all places participating in the whole life of the 

 Universe, therefore, every substance must share in 

 the living and dying which makes up the world. 



Then taking for granted that the hypothesis 

 Prop. XVII, B. 2, is the truth, it necessarily fol- 

 lows that either the new atom is formed near the 

 centre of a substance, where it can be surrounded 

 by twelve other atoms while the outlying atoms 

 are decomposed, or else all atoms are always in 

 groups of twelve and the thirteenth one dies. 



Atoms of all gases are apart from one another, 

 but there is nothing to prove that the identity 

 which chemists call an atom is not really a group 

 of twelve. 



And even as in the growth of complex identities 

 (Prop. XX, B. 2), this hypothesis requires an 

 ability of the groups of atoms to change the centre 

 of force; for otherwise primary spheres cannot 

 penetrate a group of twelve atoms touching one 

 another, with their centres equidistant from one 

 common centre. 



I;s then the law of life the result of an occult 

 inherent~^p"ower of organized matter? No, for 

 identical form necessitates identical life, and iden- 

 tical life cannot be primary life. (Prop. XIV, 

 B. 2.) 



114 



