OF NUTRITION; OK, WHY WE GROW. 43 



springs, one bent, the other relaxed (and the former 

 somewhat the more powerful), so connected together 

 that the unbending of the one should cause the bend- 

 ing of the other. The bent state, here, would be 

 transferred from the one spring to the other ; the one 

 would cease to be bent as the other became bent. 

 But we have seen that the organic state of matter 

 may be compared to the bent state of a spring ; that 

 it also is an embodying of force. Is it not quite as 

 simple, then, that the "organic state" should be 

 transferred from the decaying body to the growing 

 one? It is, in each case, simply a transference of 

 force from the one to the other ; of the presence 

 of which force the organic state, like the mechanical 

 tension, is the effect and sign. Thus, in the case of 

 plants growing on decaying substances, the decom- 

 posing process in their food becomes an organizing 

 process in them ; the force arising from the decom- 

 position becomes, and is, their " vital force." 



Let us trace the process again; the wood, as 

 an organic substance, contains vital force; as it 

 decays, it passes into inorganic substances (such as 

 carbonic acid, &c.) in which there is no vital force. 



