THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 35 



(or that which passes for health), we find that the 

 above description very fairly represents what is con- 

 stantly going on. Thus the component parts, or 

 ultimate molecules of man's body, pass almost at once 

 into the inorganic. One step, or two or three at the 

 most, from the highest of organisms into the totally 

 inorganic state, from the animal into the mineral 

 kingdom, in perfect and accurate accordance with the 

 Law of Interchange. 



But when death comes, or even the shadow of it, 

 in the shape of diminished vitality in any part, or 

 throughout the whole fabric of the body, then we 

 find a very different state of things. 



Like the barbarian hosts which facilitated the 

 decline and fall of the Roman Empire, so we " decline 

 and fall off" (as Dickens' Mr. Wegg would say), not 

 at once down to the ground (i.e., into the mineral 

 state), but breaking up, en route, into lesser systems. 



Again, just as the philosophical historian sees in 

 these barbarian hordes not the causes but the con- 

 comitants and facilitators of the Empire's downfall ; 

 and traces the causes elsewhere, such as to disorder 

 in the centres of political and social life ; so the philo- 

 sophical biologist sees in these myriad microscopic 

 hordes only the natural footsteps of Decay. For the 

 very characteristic sign of natural movement is a sort 

 of gliding continuity, the taking of very short steps, 

 much as in the ^Eneid, Virgil describes how Venus, as 

 she was moving away, bewrayed the secret of her true 



divinity to her son : 



" pedes vestis defluxit ad imos ; 

 Et vera incessu patuit dea." 



So Nature (our Alma Venus) reveals herself. We 



