34O Assimilation 



which catch the eye and by which we are inclined to char- 

 acterize life. These are conditional on processes of 

 consumption, of chemical simplification, of organic de- 

 struction through which energy is set free. And it is 

 quite necessary that it should be so, since these functional 

 manifestations expend energy. These phenomena in 

 which the vital activities are most apparent are the least 

 specific. They have only the character of general 

 phenomena." 



"The phenomena which accompany functional repose 

 correspond to the reconstruction of the reserve materials 

 destroyed in the preceding period, to organic synthesis. 

 This remains in the words of Claude Bernard, 'internal, 

 silent, hidden in the expression of its nature, reassembling 

 silently the materials to be expended. We never see these 

 phenomena of organization directly. Only the histolo- 

 gist, the embryologist tracing the development of the 

 element or of the living being notes the changes, the 

 phases which discover to him this homely work, here a 

 deposition of material, there the formation of a mem- 

 brane or a nucleus, yonder a cleavage or a folding, or a 

 renovation.' This category of phenomena is the only 

 one which has no direct analogues. It is peculiar to the 

 living being and limited to it. This developmental 

 synthesis is the true vital phenomenon. Life is a 

 creation." 257 



It is then this reconstructive synthesis of living matter 

 which goes on during the so called functional rest which 

 we must seek to explain through the properties which we 

 have postulated above for nervous energy taken as the 

 basis of the vital phenomenon. 



2B7 Dastre: La Vie et la Mort. Paris, Flammarion, 1902. P. 

 103, 107, 208 209, 210 211. 



