CHANGES IN THE INDIVIDUAL 25 



from us the death agonies of Phaedra by a vision 

 of sea-birds flying along the cliffs of the Adriatic, 

 distract our pity for the fate of Polyxena by a 

 glimpse of sails rising and falling on a white- 

 crested sea ! So it is with music. The idea upon 

 which the sonata is constructed is the procession 

 of a series of changing moods. 



There is little that is enduring in the constitu- 

 tion of our bodies. They are material only in the 

 sense that a waterfall is material preserving their 

 form, but ever changing their substance. We are 

 ceaselessly absorbing substances from outside, 

 ceaselessly building up from them compounds 

 which, like explosives, contain potential energy, 

 ceaselessly converting potential energy into actual 

 energy by breaking up these compounds into 

 material which is discharged as waste. Every 

 movement of our bodies, every thought that flits 

 through our brains, destroys something that has 

 been created by our nutritive organs. In building 

 up these, so to speak, explosive compounds, Life 

 runs counter to the course of lifeless matter, 

 which generally tends towards the degradation 

 of energy, the breaking up of compounds that 

 contain potential energy, and the dissipation of 

 energy into the useless form of diffused heat. 

 Life, on the other hand, constructs ; but it 

 constructs only in order to destroy. It uses 

 matter by changing it ; and the more complete 

 is this change the more unstable is the tissue of 

 which an organ is composed the greater is the 

 vitality it exhibits. Animals which protect them- 

 selves by solid secretions, which have encased 

 themselves within shells or carapaces, have 

 generally forfeited some liberty of action. Plants 

 have lost almost all power of movement : they 



