162 RECAPITULATION 



as a complicated energy of (it may be figured) in- 

 terlacing whirls, which animates the mechanism 

 of the body and is not caused by it. 



But, it will be objected, if we lose our eyes we 

 cannot see : if an organ is diseased its activities 

 fail : if the machinery of our bodies is stopped, we 

 die. How can it be denied that our vital functions 

 are the product of the organs by which they are 

 discharged ? By broadening our view, it may 

 be replied, and taking into consideration not 

 only the higher forms of living creatures, but 

 the undifferentiated, unspecialized, unicellular 

 organisms in which living matter is at its simplest. 

 These possess functions without organs : nay 

 more, they do not appear to suffer death. In 

 reproducing their kind they divide themselves 

 up ; but nothing perishes : the whole of the 

 organism passes, so subdivided, into the next 

 generation. If they are cut into pieces, each 

 fragment becomes a new centre of vitality, which 

 rapidly grows into the typical form of its species. 

 May we not, then, surmise that death is the 

 penalty of differentiation the consequence of 

 separating out the functions of Life, and attaching 

 them to different arrangements of living tissue, 

 of breaking up, so to speak, the multitudinous cross- 

 whirls of instinct into a number of separate eddies ? 

 By this division of functions Life gains immensely in 

 efficiency. But it sacrifices itself. Its endurance 

 is weakened by its disintegration, and it is no 

 longer capable of resisting indefinitely the 

 clogging influence of the material elements with 

 which it is associated. We know, however, that an 

 impulse may for a time sustain vitality against 

 the effects of organic degeneration. Many men 

 are kept alive through illness or old age by their 

 interest in their work, and die as soon as they take 

 relief from industry. 



