338 Assimilation 



tion, which correspond to functional repose and to organic 

 regeneration." 



"Everything which goes on in the living being is in 

 relation to one or other of these types ; and life is char- 

 acterized by the union and combination of these two 

 orders of phenomena." 



"Disorganization or dis-assimilation uses up living 

 material while the organs perform their functions. As- 

 similative synthesis regenerates the tissues. It reassem- 

 bles the reserve materials which the functioning organism 

 must use up. These two processes of destruction and 

 renovation, although inverse, are absolutely connected 

 and inseparable, in the sense at least that destruction 

 is the necessary condition of renovation. The phenomena 

 of functional destruction are themselves the precursors 

 and instigators of the renewal of material by the forma- 

 tive process which is accomplished silently in the interior 

 of the tissues." 256 



Dastre remarks finally that "Claude Bernard devel- 

 oped from the analysis of substances excreted as the result 

 of physiological work, his conviction that every mani- 

 festation of functional phenomena is necessarily asso- 

 ciated with some organic destruction. For excretions 

 certainly bear witness of organic demolition." 



"But the underlying reason," continues Dastre, "of 

 this interdependence between chemical destruction and 

 function is made recognizable by energetics. A part of 

 the organic material (reserve material, but also living 

 protoplasm) becomes decomposed, chemically simplified, 

 reduced to a lower degree of complexity, and abandons 



25e Claude Bernard: Lemons sur les phenomenes de la vie com- 

 muns aux animaux et aux vegetaux. P. 125 127; 157; 347 348. 



